For style and for creating a mood of optimism and hope - Kennedy on that count is as effective as any president the country has had in its history.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Compared with other recent presidents whose stumbles and failures have assaulted the national self-esteem, memories of Kennedy continue to give the country faith that its better days are ahead. That's been reason enough to discount his limitations and remain enamored of his presidential performance.
Kennedy saw the presidency as the vital center of government, and a president's primary goal as galvanizing commitments to constructive change. He aimed to move the country and the world toward a more peaceful future, not just through legislation but through inspiration.
You would have to say his number one accomplishment has been to inspire a sense of confidence in the country. That confidence, that optimism, not only gives President Obama a political cushion, but it could have a real world economic impact.
Bobby Kennedy's conduct toward Lyndon Johnson was childish and despicable. As the years went on, he displayed nasty, self-pitying, and messianic qualities that would have made him a dangerously authoritarian president.
To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importance of words in rallying the nation to meet its foreign and domestic challenges. Winston Churchill's powerful exhortations during World War II set a standard he had long admired. Kennedy was hardly unmindful of how important a great inaugural address could be.
Robert Kennedy was such an inspiring figure. His interest in politics seemed to come not from a desire for power, but from a need to help our society live up to its ideals.
The Kennedy lifestyle is something that is looked upon favorably by the elites throughout our culture, both political and social.
The energy of the Kennedy years was completely compelling... I had a sense of a generous society eager to change the world. Idealism was very contagious. So that's why I went to America. I didn't intend to stay.
Kennedy was like a rock star. Carter was the earnest outsider at the height of Washington cynicism. Clinton was a bad boy who proposed his 'third way' of Democratic politics, and Obama brought hope and change to a country that so desperately needed it.
Kennedy is remembered as a success mainly because of what came after: Johnson and Vietnam. Nixon and Watergate.