Remember when JFK took blame for Bay of Pigs?

HE TOOK RESPONSIBILITY. He didn't blame Eisenhower or the CIA, though he could have. He took responsibility as the President, and ordered an investigation.

Meanwhile, Bush shows how much of an ignorant brat he is by blaming the CIA, getting his underlings to blame the CIA, and he pretends it is "over".

Pretty striking difference, isn't it.

"The president and the White House staff are ultimately responsible for what the president says."-John Edwards.

"The buck stops here."--Harry Truman

Didn't see him step down.

I am so glad Ari is moving on, the smug bastard.

The Buck Passes Through Here

WTC attack that happened in the first month of his administration.

Also Kennedy said he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces and fired Dulles. IMO Dulles is responsible for Kennedy's assasination.

Kennedy resigning would have been an overreaction. He took a measured response to a situation that was obviously not of his own making and fired the zealots responsible. The reverse is true for Bush: he is the zealot for a war with Iraq and it was Tenet who is the voice of reason here. Iraq will turn out to be similar to the Bay of Pigs and Bush is going down for it.

in the desert on a mission to rescue the hostages in Iran. And the press and Repukes were absolutely merciless, piling onto him personally about it.

Isn't a memory a wonderful thing. This is a good topic.

I have heard that the helicopter crash may have involved foul play, but don't have any facts on that.

Here is something I had on this:

Carter's Operation Desert Claw sabotaged:
http://old.valleyadvocate.com/25th/archives/bushs_watergate.html

........The mission proved disastrous. At least two American helicopters crashed into each other in the desert long before they made it anywhere near Teheran. Eight Marines were killed. Carter looked ineffectual and frustration with the hostage crisis escalated.

Unfortunately, the operatives in charge of Desert Claw may not have been loyal to Carter -- or to the U.S. Carter held deeply alienated a broad range of CIA operatives by trying to clean up the Agency when he first came to power. Admiral Stansfield Turner, the tough but honest Navy man Carter put in charge at the CIA fired some 600 "spooks" soon after taking command. Many were deeply loyal to former Director George Bush and to the "Old Boy" network that serves as the Agency's true infrastructure.

That loyalty may have carried over to sabotage of Operation Eagle Claw. For the man who served as chief mission planner was none other than Richard Secord, who later surfaced as a major kingpin in the shady arms dealings between the Reagan White House and the contras of Nicaragua. A top staffer at a key base in Eagle Claw's catastrophic helicopter support operation was none other than the legendary Colonel Oliver North. Working closely with him as a logistical planner was Albert Hakkim, who later sat by Secord's side at the Congressional Iran-contra hearings and wept of his love for Oliver North.
As historian Donald Fried has put it "Precisely the people in the intelligence community commissioned to develop some kind of rescue for the hostages were those elements of covert action close to William Casey and hostile to Carter."
Casey, of course, later became Reagan's CIA chief. But higher up in the chain at the time of the failed rescue mission was Donald Gregg, a member of Carter's National Security Council who later surfaced as s high-level Bush operative. Gregg's close personal ties to Bush became a serious issue in light of his extensive dealings with key contra figures tied both to the Iran-contra scandal and illegal drug shipments coming from Central America. Gregg is now Bush's ambassador to South Korea...........

If Carter hadn't lost the 1980 election, or, more accurately, had it stolen from him Roselyn would be a widow today. That Atlanta Georgia, home of the Carter Center, is in the top five cities for learned, well read, people is a testament to Carter's dedication to democracy.

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/baypigs/pigs6.htm

As a result of the U.S. failure at Bay of Pigs and the diplomatic embarrassment that ensued, President Kennedy fired long-time CIA Director Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director Charles P. Cabell, and the one principally responsible for the operation, Deputy Director Richard Bissell. Kennedy assumed full responsibility for the failure, although he secretly blamed the CIA and ordered a full investigation of the operation. The report on this investigation, written by CIA inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick, upset the new CIA director John McCone (who replaced Allen W. Dulles) so much that all but one of the 20 copies produced was destroyed, and the report stayed classified until February of 1998.

The controversial inspector general’s report concluded that ignorance, incompetence, and arrogance on the part of the CIA was responsible for the fiasco. It criticized nearly every aspect of the CIA’s handling of the invasion: misinforming Kennedy administration officials, planning poorly, using faulty intelligence and conducting an overt military operation beyond “agency responsibility as well as agency capability.” The report added, “The agency reduced the exile leaders to the status of puppets.”

Isn't the GOP suppposed to be the party of personal responsibility, or whatever they screech about themselves?

I always think of JFK when I think of class and responsiblity. JFK had enough class not to blame his predecessor for Bay of Bigs even though it wasnt JFK's fault Nixon claims Ike was furious but I doubt that. JFK handled the Cuban Misslie Crisis like a person. If theres one person I admire just as much as I do RFK its JFK.