He *was* eloquent, no doubt. But his speeches were written by speech writers, the same as it was back to Truman or so. The Harvard tie-in means nothing since the Kennedy family "owned" Massachusetts and could have gotten a pet rock through Harvard. Lotsa rumrunner money you know.

I think Kennedy's legacy is largely due to his assassination. His popularity at the time he was killed was marginal at best - look at the Gallup archives. And he talked a good game about civil rights but never actually did anything about them - that was left to Johnson.

He was a good President. His actions during the October Crisis are legendary. But you're buying into the mythos that he was some sort of transformative genius and that's hard to see.

Smartest ever? Not even close. Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Lincoln, Eisenhower, and many more would have eaten his lunch in terms of intellect.

>He has been gone for close to half a century now and it's easy to forget how eloquent he was. Charles can say until the cows come home that the words were Ted Salinger's. I do not believe that to be true. The man did go to Harvard.
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>Every couple of years I fire up one of his speeches and become inspired again. IMO he was the smartest president we have ever had. Things would have been different in our history if not for that day in Dallas.
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>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw
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>Where is that inspiration today? He thought huge thoughts. "I want to put a man on the moon in 10 yeehs." I have been accused of being an Obamaite but even Obama does not come close.

ouRbkBAOGEw