Leftist Palin Critic Bungles History, Literature

BECKY fact-checks a Palin hater and finds the lady concerned - Bridgit Gread - ignorant. "If JFK's days were spent reading Sweet Valley High instead of The Guns of August then we'd all be cinders." This problem historians refer to as anachronism: Kennedy couldn't have read Sweet Valley High because it wasn't published until 20 years after his death. In light of Venezuela formalising a nuclear energy arrangement with Russia, welcoming Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers and conducting maneuvers with Russian ships, the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis are apposite. Beck points out for moose-in-the-headlights Miss Gread that President Kennedy himself was the man who provoked the Cuban standoff with his "missile gap" baloney prior to and during the 1960 election campaign. By October 1962 and the Thirteen Days, Kennedy the well-travelled sophisticate had already presided over the Bay of Pigs disaster and he was about to secretly capitulate to the Soviets by withdrawing Jupiter missiles from Turkey. As a role model, there is little John McCain or Sarah Palin could learn from this reckless man - in relation to Venezuela or to any other potential flashpoints - except how not to proceed. One thing Kennedy is known to have read - and cherished - was Alan Seeger's "I Have a Rendezvous with Death."