Matt Bai in a piece in this Sunday’s NYT Magazine called “Escalations” suggests “Afghanistan might be Vietnam” and “Obama the real Kennedy.” What does THAT mean? It gets a scary because he notes early on that JFK was killed eight days after saying that he really didn’t want to big a lot of troops in Vietnam. But he is not suggesting that Obama’s life is in danger. Instead, and in sharp contrast to David Brooks’ column today, he shows respect for Obama’s decision to assess and go slow “even when allies and critics are pounding on the door.” But in the end, he predicts, Obama will stick to “the center lane of American politics.” Much like JFK, who despite the hype, might well have ventured deeper into Vietnam In other words, boomers who, Bai writes, have “pined” for the idealism of JFK, which didn’t much exist, really may get the true JFK — the moderate realist.
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