Machiavellian model for Obama
By Dana Milbank,
WashPost
Published: November 4
Chris Matthews, the voluble host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” has written a compelling blueprint for President Obama’s reelection. But it doesn’t mention the current president.
Matthews’s new book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,” adds another volume to the already groaning shelf of Kennedy biographies, but this one, happily, isn’t just about Camelot or conspiracies. It’s also about the Machiavellian Kennedy, the political street fighter who with his brother encouraged opponents to believe they were “dangerous enemies” who preferred to be feared rather than loved. “Bobby was the one who’d gained the reputation for ruthlessness,” Matthews writes, “but Jack could be pitiless.”
This is the JFK who dispatched his brother to deliver mob-style threats to governors who didn’t back him in the 1960 primaries, and the JFK who threatened to expose corporate executives’ extramarital pursuits. As one Kennedy aide recounted, “Jack preferred killing a politician to wounding one. ‘A wounded tiger,’ he always said, ‘was more dangerous than either a living or dead one.’”
Reading these pages brought to mind the current president, who too often handles his tigers with stroking or submission. President Obama doesn’t need to sic the FBI on his opponents, but neither would it hurt him to put some fear in friends and foes alike as he pushes for jobs bills on the Hill and begins a difficult reelection campaign.
(More here.)
WashPost
Published: November 4
Chris Matthews, the voluble host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” has written a compelling blueprint for President Obama’s reelection. But it doesn’t mention the current president.
Matthews’s new book, “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,” adds another volume to the already groaning shelf of Kennedy biographies, but this one, happily, isn’t just about Camelot or conspiracies. It’s also about the Machiavellian Kennedy, the political street fighter who with his brother encouraged opponents to believe they were “dangerous enemies” who preferred to be feared rather than loved. “Bobby was the one who’d gained the reputation for ruthlessness,” Matthews writes, “but Jack could be pitiless.”
This is the JFK who dispatched his brother to deliver mob-style threats to governors who didn’t back him in the 1960 primaries, and the JFK who threatened to expose corporate executives’ extramarital pursuits. As one Kennedy aide recounted, “Jack preferred killing a politician to wounding one. ‘A wounded tiger,’ he always said, ‘was more dangerous than either a living or dead one.’”
Reading these pages brought to mind the current president, who too often handles his tigers with stroking or submission. President Obama doesn’t need to sic the FBI on his opponents, but neither would it hurt him to put some fear in friends and foes alike as he pushes for jobs bills on the Hill and begins a difficult reelection campaign.
(More here.)
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