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Comment by textminer | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure on the first part? My read of the historical narrative is that folks attribute the success of Apollo to JFK, not Nixon, and not Johnson. However wrong or right.

(It should be pointed out that I was born in the mid-80s, and am frequently distracted by cat memes. But I have briefly worked for NASA.)

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I'm not saying you're right or wrong, but I am saying if you're wrong, it's because history tends to treat assassinated persons overly well (provided they were in good standing in the first place).

He's absolutely right and while the assassination certainly "helped" cement his legacy, the reason we give Kennedy most of the political credit is because he got the ball rolling on the national political stage and he was a great speaker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFvJog2dMw

Watching this video makes me extremely sad because that's 1962. Here we are 51 (fifty fucking one!) years later and I can't begin to imagine a modern US president making a speech like this.

"Not because they are easy, but because they are hard!"

I don't know, man. I'm 24. For all I know, Harry Truman was a great speaker and we in modern times just aren't as familiar with his material. Nixon v Kennedy was the first GE with televised debates, was it not? And are not modern, TV-viewing American unwilling to listen to someone's speech if they can't watch it too? FDR had those "fireside chats" on radio, what was it, weekly? I've never once heard more than a ten second clip from one.

Furthermore, Kennedy was president during the narrow "American togetherness" window after WWII and before Vietnam, giving him the room to say, "Hey, let's we do this thing." Nowadays "we" can't do anything except "step up on education" and "not negotiate with terrorists." Anything more asks too much from a public that relishes picking sides for the sake of picking sides.

Only because JFK died and it was a memorial project. If he hadn't died, Johnson (or whoever succeeded JFK in 1968 (or '64, who knows?)) would have gotten the credit, if we'd made it by '69 in the first place - doubtful.

Besides, if the president who proposes Mars will get the credit, that'll be Bush. The president who actually pays for it will lose.

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