When I wrote back in early December about the similarities between Donald Trump and President Kennedy, I didn't quite realize how much more there would be. Since then, we've had:
• The Yemen raid: Trump's Bay of Pigs.
• A New York Times report that Trump aide Stephen Bannon was reading "The Best and the Brightest," a book that is in significant ways about the Kennedy administration.
• A Trump plan for a significant increase in military spending, following in Kennedy's footsteps.
• Trump's speech last night to a joint session of Congress echoed Kennedy in three ways.
First, it echoed the "torch" imagery and language of Kennedy's inaugural.
Kennedy: "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans...The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."
Trump: "Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present. That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world."
Second, it echoed — albeit with a nationalist twist — the language of another famous Kennedy speech, the American University address.
Kennedy: "We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."
Trump: "We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same great American flag. And we all are made by the same God."
Third, Trump echoed Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon. President Trump said, "American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream." That seemed a clear reference to resuming manned spaceflight.
On top of all this, May 29, 2017 will mark what would have been the 100th anniversary of John Kennedy's birth. President Trump could do worse than to mark that date with a visit to Kennedy's childhood home in Brookline, Mass., (a National Park Service historic site) or to the Kennedy presidential library in Boston, or, if that is too far out of the way, to Kennedy's home at Palm Beach, now a private residence. I bet the author of JFK, Conservative would be available to guide President Trump around any of these sites.