Obama faces risk of a wartime presidency

[laststeamtrain]

Obama faces risk of a wartime presidency
By Julian E. Zelizer, Special to CNN
November 30, 2009
(Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.)


President Obama is taking a huge step in his presidency. After weeks of careful deliberation, the president has sided with military officials who have been pushing for an escalation of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Explaining his objectives and exit strategy, Obama is expected to announce that he will be sending 30,000 troops, and possibly more, into the region.

With this decision, Obama inches closer to becoming a wartime president. Even though the White House insists that they will continue to work hard on their domestic agenda, historically, presidents who become involved in protracted ground wars find that their presidencies are defined by their military conflicts. The politics that surround a military operation play an enormous role in the political success or failure of an administration.

<snip>


President Lyndon Johnson was on the verge of becoming a transformative president in the winter of 1965. Since taking office, Johnson had presided over the passage of a sweeping body of domestic measures unequaled by almost any president in American history other than Franklin Roosevelt. His accomplishments included Medicare and Medicaid, federal education assistance, civil rights and voting rights, environmental regulations, immigration reform and much more.

Yet all those accomplishments seemed to disappear in the political psyche after the "Americanization" of the war in the spring of 1965, when Johnson authorized a vast increase of ground troops to Vietnam. By 1968, public opinion had turned against the war, with anti-war protesters organizing against "Johnson's War."

In the history books, Vietnam has swamped our memory of Johnson's presidency and eclipsed much of what he accomplished in those early years. "That bitch of a war," Johnson lamented toward the end of his life, "killed the lady I really loved -- the Great Society."

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http://edition.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/30/zelizer.obama.wartime.president/

[ixion]

1. and you will NOT be hearing the phrase "popular wartime president" used as you did with *

it'll be all flack.

[RKP5637]

2. Studying LBJ is indeed a good lesson of soured public opinion on war. n/t