{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/articles?ID=859a2b78-e152-4b82-a7a8-763cc64096de", "Portman: On 50th Anniversary of His Death, We Must Honor Kennedy's Bold Leadership", "2013-11-22", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "OH", "Rob Portman", "P000449", "www.portman.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 Today, on the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) writes in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that \u201cwhile today many will remember the president's death, it is far more fitting to remember his life, and the rich legacy he left behind.\u201d\r\nExcerpts of the Op-Ed are below, and it can be found in its entirety here.\r\nLeadership, JFK-style, means doing the hard things  Cleveland Plain Dealer  Sen. Rob Portman   November 22, 2013\r\nFor those of us my age and older, we\u2019ll never forget where we were that Friday, fifty years ago, when we heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. One of my very first memories was being sent home from Kilgore Elementary School and watching the terrible events of Nov. 22, 1963, unfold on our black and white television. For millions more who were not yet born, the grainy images of a silent video of that day in Dallas have become part of our shared heritage.\r\nBut while today many will remember the president's death, it is far more fitting to remember his life, and the rich legacy he left behind.\r\nA powerful example of that legacy happened early in his presidency, when Kennedy went before Congress on May 25, 1961, and laid down a marker for the world.\r\nWith the Soviet Union racing ahead of us in technological innovation and fears that space could become a new battleground for the Cold War \u2014 one dominated by the communist empire \u2014 Kennedy made a promise. We would go to the moon, he said, and we would do it before the end of the decade. He made this promise despite the fact that John Glenn\u2019s famous mission to become the first American to orbit the earth was only in the planning stages and wouldn\u2019t take place for nine more months.\r\nKennedy knew the challenges ahead. When he described his plan in a speech a year later, he didn't sugar-coat it. He didn't tell the American people that the goal of going to the moon could be accomplished with anything less than hard work, years of commitment and even the willingness of some to put their very lives on the line.   \u2026\r\nIt was, as Kennedy said, \"an act of faith and vision.\" Faith in an idea that would have seemed madness only a few years before and probably, to many, seemed like madness at the time. Kennedy understood that, too. \"We choose to go to the moon,\" he said then, in 1962, a little more than a year before his death. \"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.\"\r\nWhat is leadership? Leadership is choosing to do the hard things, to accept the challenges of our time, to fight for goals that may seem impossible, and to bring together Americans of every political stripe, of every ideology and background, to see them accomplished.\r\nWe face many challenges today. None of them will be easily overcome. Our debt sits at $17 trillion, matching the entire gross domestic product of the United States. In the weakest economic recovery since the 1940s, many Americans are without jobs and feel as though the dream of this country is slipping away. We have a Social Security and Medicare system on which millions of Americans depend, and yet it is marching towards bankruptcy and driving future deficits to trillions of dollars a year. We have a health care system that is broken, with costs on the rise and coverage harder and harder to come by.\r\nBut these obstacles are not a cause for pessimism. We are not helpless in the face of them. They are not reasons to throw up our hands and give up. Instead they should serve as inspiration \u2014 for hard work, for unity of purpose, for boldness and for more than a little bit of faith.\r\nYes, the challenges are real. But so are the possibilities for great success. It is the leadership that has been lacking, the willingness to take on the hard things, and to take them on directly and honestly. John F. Kennedy's words live on, and they should serve to inspire us all\u2026", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/articles?ID=859a2b78-e152-4b82-a7a8-763cc64096de"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4457004144787788, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}