DISASTERS – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  If you listened to CNN, you may have gotten the impression that the defeat of the GOP's health-care plan was the worst catastrophe in the history of the world, and certainly the worst setback any new president has ever suffered.  It was, borrowing the words of the great philosopher Jimmy Durante, a catastroscope!  Even David Gergen, the once-rational CNN panelist, announced that Trump was experiencing the worst first hundred days of any president. 

Just a sec, pundits.  The Bay of Pigs disaster occurred in the first hundred days of John F. Kennedy's administration.  His blunder was mammoth.  An invasion force of Cuban dissidents was sent to invade Cuba, with the goal of overthrowing the Castro government.  Kennedy panicked and refused to provide promised air cover.  The invasion quickly failed, leaving the young president thoroughly humiliated.  To his credit, he took full responsibility, but that didn't change the outcome.

Only two months later Kennedy met Soviet leader Nikita ("We will bury you") Khrushchev at a summit conference in Vienna.  Afterward, Kennedy conceded openly to his aides that Khrushchev had rolled him.  The president of the United States came away looking like an amateur.  He told James Reston of The New York Times that the conference had been the "worst thing in my life. He savaged me."

Khrushchev sized up Kennedy as weak and unprepared.  It was then that the Soviet leader built the Berlin Wall, which came to symbolize the Cold War.

Talk about a failing opening season for a president.  The year 1961 was choice.

And yet, Kennedy,very much a learning man, bounced back and defeated Khrushchev at the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.    Presidents learn. 

Just a little reminder from history.  Some of the judgments you're hearing from the chattering classes are childish and shallow.  Don't pay too much attention.

March 27, 2017