Noble words and hopes. Sadly the US of today hasn't any politicians of Kennedy's ilk.
All but McCain are poll driven populist fools ranting about how bad America is and what she shouldn't be doing.

Unfortunately, there is no comparison between the Cuban missile crisis and the Iraq war. Even at the depths of the cold war, the Communist world and the West had one basic thing in common - neither of them wanted to die. This is why the atom bomb, which so far has been the greatest instrument for peace that the world has ever seen, provided an ideal basis for a forty year nuclear stalemate. Unfortunately, in the middle east today we have an enemy that is very happy to die, and there is no longer any common ground. When the president of Iran says that Iran could be well advised to seek martyrdom, trouble lies ahead. That old campaigner, Henry Kissinger, recently gave his view of the middle east today and said:

1. No action will be taken by the western powers that will prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

2. When this happens seven or eight other countries in the region will feel impelled to do the same for their own protection.

3. When this happens the situation will become uncontrollable.

Coupled with global warming, peak oil and massive food shortages, it should be an interesting century. Those obsessed by the idea of lessening the gap in living standard between the first and third worlds should realise that the only way is to reduce the living standard in the west.

Plersdus, maybe Henry Kissinger learnt his lesson from bringing Cambodia into the Vietnam War, as some say Churchill did from his experience with Gallipoli.

It is interesting also according to White House archives, that Kissinger was against Nixon's silence about Israel going militarily nuclear, saying that it would not only upset the balance of local power in the Middle East, but also greatly expand religous hatred between Islam and the West - no doubt helping to bring on 9/11.

Yes, certainly Robert Kennedy was one who would agree with the academic political term, sharing the blame, our admittance of much too much intrusion and injustice from the West, especially in the Arabic-dominated Middle East, being a well spent part of it.

Behind Robert and John Kennedy’s idealistic speeches lay the ideology of a mature imperialist power involved in oppression and atrocities around the world. While singing hymns to the human spirit, the Kennedy administration had both feet firmly planted in mud and blood.The idealism and the appeal to social justice and reform had a very definite foundation. The Kennedy era fundamentally represented the high tide of American liberalism. But this was an administration remembered for founding both the Peace Corps and the Green Berets. While both were instruments for advancing US interests abroad, one appealed to young Americans for self-sacrifice to aid the world’s poor, while the other recruited them to murder these same poor, should they challenge Washington’s policies and US corporate interests. Any class evaluation would soon show that both Kennedy's were representative of the American financial elite, and promoted extensively by billionaires and media moguls. They were both opponents of the working class and a conscious enemy of socialism. A similar duality was at work in his political life. He was able to deliver speeches that inspired a sense of idealism—no doubt rooted in the political immaturity and illusions of the time—that marked the beginning, for not a few young Americans, of involvement in social struggles that went far beyond anything that the speechmaker ever imagined or desired.
At the same time, both were engaged in horrifying conspiracies involving brutal counterinsurgency campaigns and assassinations around the globe. His administration worked covertly with extreme anti-communists, assassins and criminal elements to pursue US foreign policy aims, forces that bitterly opposed much of his government’s policies. Robert Kennedy was an extreme right wing demagogue that attacked the trade unions from the right. As a means of depriving workers of any representation. Yes the unions were mired in corruption but workers can not subcontract that out to the financial elite and their spokesmen. Robert Kennedy because he defended the ruling elite kept his mouth shut about the death of his brother taking part in one of the major conspiracies of silence.

Johncee, you are right, but maybe the Kennedys were just a natural part of the growth of liberalism right back to Socrates et al.

So we see both good and evil, John Locke a typical example of one who in secret pretty well organised the Glorious Revolution cutting down the power of religous autocracy in Britain, but a liberty which gave the freedom for cut-throat business competition, naval piracy adding to the rampant growth of British colonialism, America now carrying it on typically with a permanent ultra-modern golf-course being constructed near the Green Zone in illegally occupied Iraq.

Needing the mind's eyes to see, was Adam Smith, father of modern business and Laizess-faire, yet still giving admittance how competition and colonialism were simply based on natural human greed, thus needing what we now call the raggedy arsed greenies to look after the facets of true democracy.

So just look at the mental basics of the Kennedys, Johncee, and compare them with leaders like we have in the White House right now.

Until politicians stop robbing their citizens through the income tax and the printing of money to fund their expenditures none of them can claim the moral high ground.