Thomas2 (Offline)  

All part of the JFK mythos, I'm afraid. He caused the crisis in the first place by allowing the Pentagon (against the strongest opposition of his closest advisors, his brother and Bob McNamara) to site missiles in Turkey. The Soviets felt they had to respond, hence the location of theirs in Cuba. The version most people have of it today is US propaganda, eg, that it was the Soviet's first move, brink of world war, rash action by Kruschev, etc. More accurate interpretations of history put the blame firmly with Dulles who seems to have had extreme paranoia about the Soviets by that time and concocted stories about the need for nukes in Turkey based on a supposed Soviet plot to take the country, which JFK was foolish enough to buy into. Plenty of scope for the conspiracists as he later became aware it was all nonsense and stopped taking both Dulles and the CIA seriously - he famously said he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.".

Gahhhh. I hate the whole idea of most of the Kennedys - so much aristocratic sleaze and deceit wrapped up in shiny packaging. Although JFK was effective at times, he also nearly took the world to nuclear war, with his bizarre policy to up the tension with the Soviets by putting missiles in Turkey. I'm amazed he had time for any policies though, with all those mistresses to attend to and a back so bad that he was in constant pain. All very strange.

I would think it incredibly likely, wouldn't you? Who else would the Democrats put forward?

Really though, there is so little actual choice between them - one bunch of venal, conservative, neoliberal imperialists versus another, one slightly 'cooler' and more right on, in a strictly retro way of course and not getting anything about modern internet liberalism.

OMG, is that right about Amanda? I hadn't heard that! Lol. I expect she will be just great and it will make a nice change from yet another Bush. However, I won't hold my breath - sounds more like a sign of desperation on their part, they are really struggling at the moment to think of someone viable to run against the dreaded Hillary and they can no longer paint her as a wierd combination of leftie harridan and wronged timid shrew, as in the old days.

Hi, how's things? The whole coverage of that story was pretty funny, the picture of him in his Bull costume, what a make-work opportunity for the leftist press! I find the resistible rise of all things Johnsonian to be depressing, they are oddly cast in some earlier mould, like figures from Wodehouse or Brideshead or something, as are Cammie and Ossie. People went for them on the basis of a comforting return to the security blanket of what they assume to be Old Guard Competence, "only the Eton class can save us now". Alas, it ain't true.

That's probably enough dodgy Nazi movie quotes for tonight, haha.

Ve had no choice, it voz us or zem, ze Bolsheviks or us! Try to understand my boy! Ze fuhrer voz our only hope!

Look at you, you turned out well didn't you? You're blonde, blue-eyed! A perfect Aryan, a fine symbol of Germany! What ve did, it vorked so vell, getting rid of all ze racial impurities! You're ze result, it makes me so proud!

LOL, yeah, it's a great song!! Glad you're a fan too.
Vot did you see at Riga ven you looked up?

Lol.