Abraham, Martin, John and Richard?

Though it appears they've buried the hatchet, Hillary Clinton's recent tiff with Barack Obama regarding Martin Luther King, JFK and LBJ was fueled by this statement from the campaign trail in New Hampshire:

You know, today Senator Obama used President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to criticize me. He basically compared himself to our greatest heroes because they gave great speeches.

"President Kennedy was in Congress for 14 years. He was a war hero. He was a man of great accomplishments and readiness to be president. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement. He was gassed. He was beaten. He was jailed. And he gave a speech that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever written in America, the 'I have a dream' speech.

This reminded me of a surprising piece of political trivia I found in "Presidential Courage," by Michael Beschloss. It turns out that when Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon for president in 1960, his civil rights record wasn't exactly pristine and Martin Luther King was giving Nixon serious consideration.

According to Beschloss, while running for VP in 1956, JFK had courted the Southern vote by refusing to endorse the Supreme Court decision in "Brown vs. The Board of Education" (pg 238).

Additionally, in 1960, when asked by JFK to appear with him before the American Legion in Miami, Martin Luther King stated that Nixon was more reliable on civil rights. Also, Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in baseball, was a very public Nixon supporter (pg 241).

My, how times have changed.