Skip Navigation
Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias - Matthew Yglesias is a fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
More

Matthew Yglesias is a fellow at the Center for American Progress. His first book, with the working title Heads in the Sand: Iraq and the Strange Death of Liberal Internationalism, scheduled to be published next spring by John Wiley and co., deals with the Democratic Party's struggle to find a post-9/11 foreign policy, focusing primarily on the rise and (hopefully) fall of the liberal hawk movement.

Previously, he was a staff writer at The American Prospect and an Associate Editor at TPM Media, where he contributed to the group blogs Tapped and TPMCafe. His main blog, now at The Atlantic, has existed in various forms since the dark ages of the blogosphere in January 2002.

His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, The New Republic, and The Washington Monthly, and he is a regular on BloggingHeads.tv and makes the occasional radio or television appearance.

Desperately out of touch with the American mainstream, Yglesias was born and raised in Manhattan and studied philosophy at Harvard where he was editor in chief of The Harvard Independent, a campus alternative weekly.

His latest writings can be found on the Matthew Yglesias blog.

« Previous Politics | Next Politics » Email Email Print Print

The Myth of JFK

By Matthew Yglesias

Jan 5 2008, 10:08 PM ET Comment

Bill Richardson mentioned in response to a question about whether or not "relative youth" is a detriment in Presidential politics that JFK was his idol. Among Democrats of a certain age, this seems to be an incredibly common sentiment. Barack Obama's campaign often likes to invoke JFK. And in The Washington Monthly, Ted Widmer complains that Obama is no JFK.

But from where I sit JFK, um, wasn't a very good president. His signature accomplishment was . . . the Peace Corps? Basically, boomers seem to have taken the Kennedy/Johnson years, attributed all of the Vietnam stuff to Johnson even though Kennedy initiated the policy, then attributed all of the popular domestic stuff to JFK even though almost none of it passed while he was president, and then you get a lot of hand-waving. At some point, can't we act like grownups and let this drop. The Republican hagiography of Ronald Reagan is embarrassing but the JFK business is even more detached from reality.

Presented by

More at The Atlantic

Why Israel Might Believe Attacking Iran Is Worthwhile Why Israeli Leaders Might Believe Attacking Iran Is Worth the Effort
Whitney Houston Has Died Whitney Houston's Greatest Hits
The Myth of Energy Independence: Why We Can't Drill Our Way to Oil Autonomy Why We Can't Drill Our Way to Oil Autonomy
CPAC's Opening Day Is Haunted by the Ghosts of Candidates Past CPAC Is Haunted by the Ghosts of Candidates Past
Death by Flavored Vodka Death by Flavored Vodka

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Special Report
Submit Your Photos of America at Work AP Submit Your Photos of America at Work
Send us your images of friends, family, and neighbors on the job. We'll publish the best. Read more ›

Correspondents

View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

The Civil War, Part 3: The Stereographs

Feb 10, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)