Lyndon Johnson told the nation, "Have no fear of escalation!"

[Bluebear]

I got a letter from L. B. J.
It said this is your lucky day.
It's time to put your khaki trousers on.
Though it may seem very queer
We've got no jobs to give you here
So we are sending you to Viet Nam

Lyndon Johnson told the nation,
"Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war,
We're sending fifty thousand more,
To help save Viet nam from Viet Namese."

I jumped off the old troop ship,
And sank in mud up to my hips.
I cussed until the captain called me down.
Never mind how hard it's raining,
Think of all the ground we're gaining,
Just don't take one step outside of town.

Every night the local gentry,
Sneak out past the sleeping sentry.
They go to join the old VC.
In their nightly little dramas,
They put on their black pajamas,
And come lobbing mortar shells at me.

We go round in helicopters,
Like a bunch of big grasshoppers,
Searching for the Viet Cong in vain.
They left a note that they had gone.
They had to get down to Saigon,
Their government positions to maintain.

Well here I sit in this rice paddy,
Wondering about Big Daddy,
And I know that Lyndon loves me so.
Yet how sadly I remember,
Way back yonder in November,
When he said I'd never have to go.

HEAR THE SONG:
http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietimages/Audio/lbj-paxton.html

[happyslug]

1. I wish we had LBJ instead of Bush

Remember while LBJ expanded the war in Vietnam, he did so when the majority of Americans supported any fight to defeat communist. When the people switch in 1968 so did LBJ. Vietnameseization as it became known under Nixon started Under LBJ in 1968. LBJ ALWAYS kept up talks with the North Vietnamese and tried to end the war on a negotiated settlement (The terms were agreed to in 1968 were the same Nixon agreed to in 1972, after another 20,000 American dead AND after Nixon had sabotaged LBJ's efforts at a negotiated settlement by telling the President of South Vietnam NOT to agree for Nixon will get him better terms.

Compared this to Bush, three years in Bush is EXPANDING the number of Troops not withdrawing them. Bush is refusing to negotiated with who we are fighting. AND NO DEMOCRAT IS UNDERMINING BUSH EFFORTS TO END THE WAR. Give me LBJ every day of the week, as soon as he saw it was politically possible to start to withdraw he started to withdraw, and this is face of the fact that the GOP was going to attack him for such a withdraw (And Fear of GOP calling the Democrats weak on foreign policy was the driving force behind LBJ's expansion in Vietnam in the first place).

If LBJ had been President when 9/11 occurred we would have sent as many troops into Afghanistan as was possible, and then he would have built up the Country afterward to defeat the Taliban and al Queda, unlike Bush who did the minimum he could get away with in Afghanistan before he took on a War he did not need to fight (i.e. Iraq).

LBJ was a flawed man, but he was a statesman he was given a bad hand in regards to Vietnam, he did the best he could given the political situation at that time. He knew he had to stay in power to get his programs through, but to stay in power he had to "Fight Communism" in Vietnam. Think about what would have happened had he left South Vietnam fall to the South? LBJ's Great Society programs would have died, desegregation would have died, and Nixon would have done what Reagan did in the 1980s (Instead Nixon had to deal with a Democratic Congress to keep up LBJ's program). LBJ did what he thought was needed to continue the progressive programs of FDR and the Democrats since 1932, it was a tough job and we can second guess his actions, but he was a much better president during a War than Bush will ever be.