My math is not so strong late at night:

All 34s should be 44.

How interesting you should choose JFK as the liberal ideal. Perhaps you have forgotten JFK's administration:

- engineered the secret CIA orchestrated invasion of Cuba   

- blockaded a sovereign nation and threatened to invade to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons nearly setting off a war with the USSR

- conducted an illegal domestic wiretapping campaign on US citizens, including civil rights and labor leaders

- sent the first US troops to Vietnam in support of a dictator without Congressional approval or public debate beforehand.

If JFK were in politics today, you would rail against him as a neocon facist. It's indicative of how far to the left latter-day liberals have drifted that you proffer up a liberal idol whose polices you would find repugnant should you bother to examine them. 

az reicht wing nut,

Yes, I would.

And you would rail about him having SEX with a woman instead of a man prostitute.....

Indie got it all right except 4—those first "advisors" were sent in by Eisenhower.  At the time of his assassination JFK had the paperwork ready to withdraw 1000 US forces but LBJ did not sign off and instead increased the US presence—something about only needing a "surge."

1) JFK could have stopped the secret invasion of Cuba at any time. In fact, he undercut it by changing his mind about air support. The Bay of Pigs was his responsibility. Bush carried through on regime change in Iraq after over a year of public debate and Congressional approval. You object to the Bush administration's public policy process yet make excuses for JFK's secret invasion of a soveriegn nation without UN resolution or obtaining concurrence from our allies.  

2) JFK sought a diplomatic solution to the Cuban missile crisis only after taking unilateral military action; blockade. The parallel in the Bush administration is to Iran and North Korea where a public diplomatic initiative with the implication of military action has been used. Once again you accuse Bush of being a war-monger when he places diplomacy at the forefront yet praise JFK's use of diplomacy as an afterthought to military action.

3) FISA or no FISA is irrelevant to the legality of wiretapping US citizens. In JFK's case there is no foreign intelligence involved. In the Kennedy administration illegal wiretaps were used to spy on labor leaders and suspected mafia members, US citizens all. In case you have forgotten, Congress authorized the Bush administration's program for contacts with foreign terrorist organizations. But, according to you, JFK is a champion of freedom while Bush shreds the Constitution.

4) Woulda, coulda, shoulda withdrawn troops from Vietnam. The fact is he did not. Nor is there reliable evidence that he was contemplating doing so. Despite Oliver Stone's fantasy there is no evidence that withdrawal was anything more than an unlikely contingency option. JFK would have jaw-boned Congress into submission had they tried to dictate troop withdrawal as the current Congress has attempted to do with Iraq.

Please don't interpret my remarks as condemming JFK. The overarching point is the stark contrast between classical liberalism and today's muddle-headed "progressive" lunacy. Classic liberals like JFK have much more in common with those you deride as evil neocons than with contemporary progryssves.     

On October 2, 1963, these plans were discussed at the White House. We have the tape. McNamara states to Kennedy: "And the advantage of taking them out is that we can say to the Congress and the people thatwe do have a plan for reducing the exposure of US combat personnel to the guerilla actions in South Vietnam."

On October 5, 1963, at a meeting at 9:30 AM, Kennedy made the formal decision to implement the withdrawal plan. Again, we have the tape. On October 11, the White House issued National Security Action Memorandum 263, which speaks of "the implementation of plans to withdraw" troops from Vietnam.

link:[www.nybooks.com]

God, I hope that Kennedy was wiretapping Mafia members!  Labor and the Mafia were in bed together. 

Again, what Kennedy did with the Cuban missile crisis was excellent.  If Bush had a similar situation, I believe very few of us would oppose him if he handled it the same way.  Many of us think that Bush has not done enough to work with North Korea and Iran on the diplomatic front. 
Yeah, I think Bush is a war-mongerer.  There was NO reason to take us to war in Iraq. 

JFK admitted that the Bay of Pigs was a mistake.  However, the CIA was also to blame.  Read a book, or google the entire story.  But he shouldn't have approved it as planned and he admitted it. 

Now to the big one. 

Bush carried through on regime change in Iraq after over a year of public debate and Congressional approval.

Here is the problem with that statement.   Bush lied to the American people about the threat of Saddam.  There were no WMD's.  The UN inspectors on the ground immediately before the invasion told the Bush administration and the world just that.   France, Germany, Russia and others knew that the invasion was illegitmate and would not support it.  Ergo, the US and Britan did not return to the UN for a second resolution to authorize the military action.  They had planned too, but as evidence mounted against them, knew they couldn't get the votes.

Everything that they told us was a lie or they were just plain wrong.

a) Saddam sought yellow-cake uranium from Niger.  The CIA (and one assumes senior administration officials) knew that the documents were forged.  Probably in Italy.
b) They used a source named "Curveball" for many of the claims that Powell made in the UN presentation.   German intelligence told the US that the guy was a nutjob and was absolutely unreliable. 
c) Cheney went on Meet the Press and said that Saddam had reconsituted his Nuke program. False and no evidence.  Not to mention the "smoking guy/mushroom cloud" speeches of Bush and Rice.
d) The Presidents own State Department told Bush that the aftermath would be messy.  Bush/Rumsfeld ignored that advice and a terrible insurgency resulted.
e) The were wrong on the costs, length and everything else.  In fact, I would LOVE for one of you Bush supporters to name 3 things that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld got right.  Just 3.

To compare JFK to Bush is an insult to JFK and our intelligence. 

• When JFK went on national TV and showed us the missile sites in Cuba, they really were missile sites.

• When Powell showed us drawing of mobile weapons labs, there were a figment of Curveballs imagination.  Then when Bush told us that they found the mobile labs, it turns out that they were weather ballon stations.  AND the Bush administration had been told prior to Bush making that statement that they were only for weather balloons.  No matter.  Lies, lies, lies.
  
• When JFK told us that Nuclear missiles in Cuba were a threat to our security, there were actual nuclear weapons on actual missiles that could have reached large parts of the USA.
  
• When Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld told us that Saddam had nukes (don't forget the Mushroom cloud) he didn't have as much as working centrifuge, much less a missile or other means to launch them.
  
• When JFK said that the Cubans/Soviets could get a missile here they showed actual pictures of the missiles.
  
• Bush told us that Saddam had "unmanned aerial drones" and showed us a drawing of one of these terrible aerial weapons.  Problem---there were none.  And it just goes to show how stupid the American people are.  How in the hell was Saddam going to get a little windup balsa wood 'plane' over here to drop weapons, even bio weapons?

Right on, APL, Indie!

Wringer: “JFK has more in common with NeoCons than today’s Progressives“?  “FISA or no FISA is irrelevant to the legality of wiretapping US citizens”?

LOL, Wringer! Are you rehearsing for a stand up parody of revisionist NeoCon political cretionism?  Keep suckin’ on that helium and you’ll end up in the Macy’s Day Parade!

But, let's cut to the chase:

1. How do YOU justify the US invasion of Iraq?

2. Describe how Bush has "placed diplomacy to the forefront" with any foreign country but, particularly, Iran.

3. Just how does FISA fit in with eavesdropping on my/your landline and cell phonecalls, with reading my email, with scouring my telephone records?

4. Briefly describe why you advocate Signing Statements and the Unitary Executive Theory.

Indie,

The author of the article you link admits that a "tiny minority" of historians hold the view that Kennedy was committed to withdrawal from Vietnam. The article and a previous one by the same author presents a murky stew of secret discussions, labels troop rotation as withdrawal and public press conferences of deliberations JFK supposedly sought to keep secret as a "proof". I'll side with the vast majority's conclusion rather than the apologist Kool Aid.

Clearly JFK's actions with Cuba and Vietnam show he was not hesitant to use covert or overt military action when he felt the US was threatened. Unlike Bush he undertook these actions unilaterally without Congressional approval. 

 "God, I hope that Kennedy was wiretapping Mafia members!  Labor and the Mafia were in bed together.  "

How convenient that you overlooked the fact the wiretaps were illegal. Just as the ones on the civil rights leaders were illegal. Applying your selective filter then don't you thank God the Bush administration wiretapped terrorists? I suspect not even though it is legal because Bush did it.  

"Again, what Kennedy did with the Cuban missile crisis was excellent.  If Bush had a similar situation, I believe very few of us would oppose him if he handled it the same way."

Kennedy risked global nuclear war to preemptively take out non-operational missile sites. Castro claimed the missiles were for defensive purposes only citing the Bay of Pigs invasion among the justifications. Castro didn't have a history of using WMD or invading neighboring countries. Kennedy didn't have a public doctrine of preemption. Yet according to you, JFK did the right thing while Bush "lied" us into war.

Mind you, I think Castro is scum and JFK did the right thing with the blockade. The point I am making is that when Kennedy preemptively commits an act of war you lionize him, when Bush follows the same philosophical course, he is a war criminal. How about equal consideration?

June,

It always makes me chuckle when you resort to listing irrelevant Leftist barking points. Run out of cogent points? I know it's uncharted territory but try thinking for yourself. Your may wish to find out what FISA means before you attempt to mock me and instead produce farce. 

Well wringer continues with NeoCon strategy—if you can't defend your guy's actions, attack the actions of others and distract from examining the war crimes being committed in our names.  That is because the Shrub's actions bear a larger resemblance to Nazi Germany than any other.  Pre-emptive war by its very nature is immoral but when based on fabrication it becomes criminal.