(Posted by John.)
I'm just going to second Nicholas' endorsement of this bit from the Atlantic about the JFK-Johnson foreign policy disaster, especially in light of this bit from Matthew Yglesias:
Meanwhile, the reality of the Kennedy Administration -- as opposed tothe Myth of Camelot -- is precisely what makes people leery of Clinton.A 50%+1 win followed by a domestic agenda that goes nowhere in congressand a drift toward foreign policy disaster driven in part by aunshakeable fear of looking soft on defense.
Indeed, the fact that the Democrats had spend the previous decade playing defense on the primary foreign policy threat of the last decade (Commun-/Terror-ism) made Kennedy and his administration far less rational about dealing with these issues. Meanwhile, the Republican gutting of the professional civil service who were supposed to offer expert advice meant that nobody could pull Kennedy/Johnson back from Vietnam. The same people who would have actually understood how bad Vietnam was going to get had either been hounded out of their profession by McCarthy, or made irrelevant by the aftermath.
How many true Middle East experts are left in the State Department? How many have been hounded out for being "arabists"?
On the other hand, maybe Clinton will land some dudes -- perhaps even a woman! -- on the moon.
