What makes a great politician?

[David Lockmiller]

(12-18-2017 10:19 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I just don't understand why Kennedy occurs on "greatest" lists. The Cuba crisis is all, no? I believe he wouldn't have come up to the hype and the hopes the people had had in him, and if he hadn't been assassinated he would have struggled like Obama did. I think several of the best unexpectedly turned out so and v.v.

The Cuba crisis is all, no?

"No" is the right answer, definitely.

John F. Kennedy Moon Speech - Rice Stadium (September 12, 1962)

"If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency."


The internet, the cell phone, individual computers of all types would not have been possible but for the words and this decision of commitment by President Kennedy. It was the miniaturization of electronic components necessary for space exploration that brought us all of these marvels.

Have you ever noticed how Captain Kirk's communicator so resembles the cellphone that everyone now holds in their hands?