Maybe, the hawkishness of the Democrats was lost when the nation couldn't get its own demo-hawks to serve in Vietnam. Had, Lieberman not requested draft deferments or at a minimum enlisted in the reserves (say, like CT AG, Richard Blumenthal/Marine Corps Reserve)  the party would have the muscle to continue the muscular foreign policy that so captivates him.

Instead, we have poltroons' platoons led by Lieberman and so, so, many of his Republican friends. They are conveniently super-hawkish after the threat of being drafted is diminished.

Ah, but Kennedy did meet with Kruschev, Kirchick will likely soon write, and shortly thereafter Kruschev and Castro conspired to bring the world to the brink of a global nuclear holocaust. Therefore, meeting with Kruschev was a mistake. Therefore meeting with whoever will be president of Iran next year (Ahmadinejad's term is up and he almost certainly will not win reelection) would be the moral equivalent of Munich and/or Auschwitz.

Except I wouldn't expect Kirchick to get the detail right about Iran having a new president by the time of any Obama summit. That would require such advanced journalistic skills as "looking stuff up."

Nice riposte, Isaac. Joe Lieberman is trafficking in cardboads stereotypes that are exploded by citing examples such as you do here. Lieberman is now a de facto Republican senator from Conneticut.

Kennedy inherited an operation already far along -- planned for a couple of months after he took office -- that he didn't know how to handle.  If he cancelled it, he'd be called a coward and an appeaser of communism; if he went full steam ahead and committed air cover as promised it would have been a disaster that maybe would have started a major conflict with the USSR over Cuba, the implications of which could not be foreseen (in this case w/o the Soviet aggression involved later in the missile crisis).  So he fudged it.

That's a great problem, that we have occasionally had human beings as presidents.  But hey, if you vote Republican, you get only superheroes.

If JFK had added, "and jump off any cliff," Holy Joe might have  point.

Indeed.  And that "pay any price, bear any burden" thing sure worked out well for us in Vietnam didn't it?

One can sincerely hope (with some justification) that the Dems will increase their Senate majority in November to such a number as to render Lieberman superfluous and irrelevant.

Yeah, and Nixon never went to China, selling out the Taiwanese in the process. But hey, toasting one of the greatest mass murdering psychopaths in Chairman Mao, nothing wrong with that.

Don't get me wrong, it was deft statecraft by Nixon, I can't stand the notion from Republicans or wannabes like Holy Joe that only Republicans can go to China, or negotiate with enemies and that Democrats must always bend over backwards against dialog. And let us not forget that Bush's few success FP wise are North Korea and Libya, and he had that success only after he "appeased" ie negotiated with them.

Also, please someone send Holy Joe a memo that the cold war is over and that we won. Iran or Venezuela is not the Soviet Union.

Oh, and if Joe were so tough then why doesn't he propose we do sanctions against Venezuela and close all the Citgo stations in America?

I missed the reference -- did Reagan ever give someone a cake?

blackie, good points.  Iran is not the USSR - precisely why direct talks are a bad idea.  But - Sen. Obama is much more inexperienced than even Kennedy was at foreign policy, never mind Nixon, who was a f-p President.

If Joe Biden said we should negotiate directly with Iran, that would be one thing.  But he didn't and hasn't.  And I note today that Gov. Richardson allowed as he didn't think much of the idea.

And ignoring Hugo has been a success for W as well.

Yes, Andrew, the Reagan administration, I am saddened to admit, sent Nat'l Security Advisor R. McFarland to Tehran with a cake to meet with the Iranians.  It's a long story, and a very misguided policy move.

AD, Reagan gave America a cake, and ate it too.

But the specific reference is to the Iran-Contra affair, in which Reagan illegally sent American weapons, Bibles, and even a chocolate cake in the shape of a key to Iran to try to appease Tehran into pressuring its surrogates in Lebanon to release American hostages.

If a sergeant in the National Guard stole weapons from his guard depot, sold them to Iran, and then gave the money to nun-raping terrorists, he would be tried for treason and executed. When the president of the United States did that, we called him "Gipper" and debated whether to put his face on the $10 bill.

Exactly right Isaac.

Imagine this if you will.

Obama bribes Hamas with missiles and money if they only hold off releasing American hostages until after the election, to ensure an Obama win.

That's treason, isn't it?

Why the f*ck isn't this shoved in their f*cking faces everytime they wax lyrical about this? There I've used up all of my f*cks this week, but it was worth it.

Where is the MSM on this?

Butchie - if it was a Yellow Dog Democrat you wouldn't be calling it a misguided policy move. You'd be calling it treason.

butchie, I can think of 150,000 reasons why we should talk to the Iranians, and they are our troops in Iraq. If any kind of detente with Iran saves some of their lives, then I am for it. It is at least worth a shot, or are the American soldiers lives not worth the costs, however imaginary they seem to be?

Nice post, Isaac, as usual.

Maybe we should sell arms to Hamas and Hezbollah (again) and use the proceeds to fund a secret war against Venezuela.  Heck, we're probably already doing that.

I forgot to add: Dick Cheney is just Oliver North 2.0 but with five military deferments.

If Joe wants to shimmy into JFK's coat of many colors for an op-ed-op, why, have at it, bro. Makes perfect sense to me--even though about the only thing that existed when JFK was soap-boxing and still exists now is John McCain. Or is that the point? Forget the fact that our allies, enemies, global economy, strategic resources, energy needs, weaponry, global nuclear development, public health, demographics, DOD budgets, intelligence gathering, computing power, information access, entitlement commitments, technologies, levels of scientific achievement, international law, transportation infrastructure, climate, water supplies, food supplies, disease threats, national boundaries, degree of colonialism, global religious identification, and umpteen other variables were DIFFERENT when JFK spoke compared to when Obama speaks today. That, in fact, the entire context of the argument may be different but, no matter! As long as my buddy Johnny here was breathing when some guy said something when most current Americans weren't (breathing) yet.

As a matter of fact, why stop at JFK? Why not hearken back to the halcyon days of FDR. That way you can drag in the Nazis, everyone's favorite bogeymen. Obama is appeasing Hitler!

Or why stop there? Lincoln comes to mind. Just don't look too closely at Sherman's march through Georgia if you're trying to justify waterboarding on the one hand and win the Peach State in November on the other.

Or why not go all the way back to George Washington, who knew a little about winning battles. And also about the scrupulous art of losing, which he did more than win. But who's counting?

What Joe really needs to do is take us back to the Norse sagas. Now, those guys know how to die. The whole purpose of life was to die. If you didn't die in battle, you were simply a Class A Tard. Guys back then chopped off their own heads, just on the odd chance the head would land right side up and they could watch themselves bleed to death. Life was a large rock smashing your brains all over your rock patio while your kids slept on rock beds after eating rocks for dinner.

Men were men!

Rock on, Joe!

The Washington Post busts McCain on his claims about past presidential meetings with foreign enemies

Hawks like to cite JFK.  Whenever they do, they should be reminded of JFK's best speech, the one he delivered at American University just a few months before he was killed.  Read it or listen to it here:  

www.americanrhetoric.com/.../jfkamericanuniversityaddress.html

Seriously, it highlights the profound lack of wisdom today among both conservatives and liberals.  It is as relevant today -- especially today -- as it was back then.

Calm down, boys.  It was NOT illegal for the Reagan administration to sell arms to Iran.  Stupid and counterproductive, yes.

What WAS illegal was Ollie North then taking the $$, which belonged to the American treasury, and funneling it to the Contras.  For that LTCol North should have gone to jail.  He did not, becuase your boys in the Congress gave him immunity from prosecution for his testimony.  As you recall, they were going to "get" Reagan.  How'd that work out for them?

BTW, you can't have it both ways - either Reagan was a doddering idiot, or he was a strategic thinker who would do anything to aid the Contras.   Which is it?

butchie, I don't condemn Reagans decision in the sense that it was evil, it was wrong but motivated to get hostages released so the intention at least was noble.

I notice you never did mention about our troops in Iran hmmm...? Is meeting with Iran worth the potential savings of American soldiers lives yes or no?

No.  I see absolutely nothing we can give Iran that will make them change their behavior one iota.  Not in Iraq, not in their support of Hamas and Hezbollah, not in the cessation of teh uranium enrichment program.

Given that Iran is NOT a peer competitor as was the USSR, and to a lesser degree, China, we should not sit down for one on one talks with Iran.

BTW, if it's such a great idea, how come Clinton didn't do it?

butchie, um...we didn't have 150,000 troops there. Again, if it saves any American soldiers it is worth the risk. That is all. If it fails, then at least history can judge the effort and buttresses our case if we ever do need to take out their nuke facilities. There are quite a few Iranians, even among the leadership position, that know their only long term survival is based on opening up their markets beyond oil. That is why they are so chummy with Commie China. This is an oligarchy, not a sociopathic dictatorship. Don't forget that Sistani is Iranian and came from that self same group.

Er . . . what about the Reagan campaign's secret contacts with Iran to make sure the hostages WEREN'T released until after the election, to make sure Carter didn't get a boost, in return for the arms sales?  That just ok, just normal politics, or what?  Unofficial foreign policy adventures and playing poker with American lives just to make sure the Republicans get the key to the White House.

No that never happened.

Fair enough, Blackie.  We'll agree to disagrre.

Irony - got evidence?

According to today's New York Times, Kruschev's comment on JFK after their disastrous (for Kennedy) premature meeting in June 1961:  "Very intelligent, and weak."

Sounds like a good description of Obama.  And I like Jack Kennedy a helluva lot more.

blackton, we don't have to negotiate with Iran to save American lives.  If they are taking American lives, B-2 and UAVs will negotiate that problem much more effectively than envoys begging Iran to leave us be.