> You, sir, sound like a damned New England Federalist! I'll bet you'd return us to the days of British rule, too. Okay, so maybe making Jefferson my idol colors my opinion of Hamilton.


Hey, I love Jefferson, too! And I'm trying not to let that color my opinion of Hamilton. It's just that he was pretty important in the Early Days. He may've been a Federalist and therefore: evil, but he did manage to keep the country's treasury afloat, not to mention being a primary mover in getting a Coast Guard and a Navy (with which Jefferson could then go chase pirates with) to "protect" our trade, as feeble as that protection may've been.


> I'll grant the cultural significance, but I sincerely question his Cold War achievments. We have:
>
> 1) The Bay of Pigs, which he botched. And which he ended up authorizing largely only because he needed some Cold War cred.
> 2) The Cuban Missle Crisis, which he gets an A+ on, but in large part because he got SUPER LUCKY. I mean, come on. He made a risky move with a lot of impartial and incorrect information and got lucky. I give him credit for having those balls of stell, but I think he gets a little too much credit.
> 3) Got us into Vietnam. Oops.
>
> That's 1 for 3 in my book.
>
> Stephen

Kennedy also proposed drastically increasing defense funding, giving us the first leg of the arms race. Not to mention the whole space race thing, out of which more than just a few militarily important technologies came. I know it's popular nowadays for some people (not necessarily you) to totally dump on Kennedy, as a reaction to all the adoration and praise he has received over the decades. Underneath all of that from both sides, he did accomplish quite a bit in regards to the Cold War. Nor was he perfect, either (although US military involvement in Vietnam began with Eisenhower, not Kennedy, and the war became a distinctly American war under Johnson, not Kennedy...the Bay of Pigs was a ridiculous disaster, though, however you look at it). Not to mention that, like I rather said before, putting him on money was not just a tribute to his policies, but also to his popularity and the impact he had on American culture. And, of course, his assassination.

TOM