Anyone looking for irony in the Kennedy-Obama love-in, which has included direct comparisons of Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy, need not look very far.
Recall that when Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed Sen. Obama, he went out of his way to refute all that former President Bill Clinton had said or intimated about Obama. Including Obama’s relative inexperience.
Kennedy even underscored that Obama would be ready on “day one.”
Ironically, JFK wasn’t.
Anyone remember the Bay of Pigs? President Kennedy didn’t have the experience and gravitas to see through a fatally flawed Eisenhower plan and halt it. What he did was halt air cover – and any chance, even remote, that the ill-fated invasion of Cuba could have succeeded.
Kennedy would later prove his mettle by backing down the Joint Chiefs over the Cuban Missile Crisis. But, no, he wasn’t ready on “day one.”