“we choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

Obama has clearly read his Kennedy – I’d even say he’s channeling Kennedy in his best speeches! This time, the challenges are financial crisis and global warming.

Another interesting point of view might be to compare current situation to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal era. Great Depression = Great Recession, Nazis & totalitarism = global warming…?

However, one should also keep in mind that it was Kennedy’s “Camelot” of “best and the brightest” technocrats who were responsible for e.g. Bay of the Pigs and Vietnam escalation, among other things!