The Party has sunk so low that I actually find myself longing for LBJ

[DerekG]

Lyndon Baines Johnson—-who ought to rot in Hell for setting Indochina afire, condemning millions of peasants to death, impoverishment and torment, and throwing hundreds of thousands of American boys into the gears of war—-has recently gotten something of a pass from me. Just for being a liberal on the homefront.

That's how dire our situation is, folks. We've come to the point where that suitably tragic, Texas thug seems preferable to the unfathomably sorry lot we have today.

Is anyone else experiencing this unsettling shift in perception? Where “Mr. Vietnam” becomes “Mr. Great Society?”

[grasswire]

1. at least LBJ had the skills to get what he wanted done, done

Civil Rights Act being one of the great accomplishments.

[hedgehog]

13. I suspect that those "skills" consisted in (large?) part of physical

intimidation, bribery and blackmail.

[riverbendviewgal]

2. I hated LBJ

because of Viet Nam BUT through the years I realized he did do some good things, especially for civil rights.

[Warpy]

6. LBJ is the classic mixed bag, someone you can love and hate

at the same time.

One thing I love him for the most is that he failed to veto Civil Rights legislation because some southern asshole added "sex" to the things that couldn't be discriminated against, thinking a good ole boy who liked having an unpaid domestic servant (aka wife) around would see it and veto it immediately.

Instead, he signed it and made life better for half the country almost overnight.

I think caving to the anticommunists and war hawks were what got us that legislation. He knew how to twist arms and he also knew he had to make deals and I've long suspected that's the deal he had to make. He knew what it would turn into. Nothing else makes any sense.

[woolldog]

3. Shows how much you know.

LBJ was the best democratic President ever

[DerekG]

5. Do you know what napalm does to a child?

Our best Democratic president was also an indefatigable monster.

[provis99]

4. hell, even Nixon is getting rehabilitated around here.

That's how far off the deep end the country's ideological bent has gone. He was the liberal's main devil in the early 1970's, yet a few of his domestic policies, like HUD, the EPA, and the negative income tax proposal, make him look more human.

[madrchsod]

16. in today`s political climate nixon would`t get past the primaries.

[Frank Cannon]

29. Nixon was a paranoid nut...

but he wasn't completely off-the-rails batshit crazy like our current Republican frontrunners, and he was a pinko liberal by comparison.

[Walk away]

20. This is DU. Anyone is better than Obama!

Soon we'll be blogging our asses off for Bachmann in 2012!

[kath]

24. - 1000.

[TheKentuckian]

30. Anybody??? How the fuck is Obama an upgrade over LBJ?

His body count, at least on our end, would have been considerable lower with the advancements in medicine and military technology and techniques.

Civil rights, Medicare, and The Great Society are serious advancements and on a wholly different trajectory than the merging of corporation and state, including and especially the military being used as a battering ram and security for the multi-nationals that is the hallmark of current policy aims.

We've mostly had abysmal Presidents so LBJ is easily top ten evil disgustingness accounted for in full.

[Armstead]

7. I was Grade A Chuck Beef Draft Potential and was pissed about the war, BUT...

I also appreciated what he was trying to do with the Great Society.

I think he was a tragic figure caught up in an unwinnable situation, and an Achilles heel in his character.

On balance these days, I do wish there were more Democrats with his commitment to social and economic justice, at least domestically.

[MADem]

8. He was always Mister Great Society.

Those were difficult, brave and necessary steps he took. He changed the world, not just American society.

Vietnam was his Achilles heel--he just didn't want to be the FIRST president to lose a war.

It tore him up so much he didn't run for a second term. It killed him, in the end (that, and a resumption of a pretty substantial tobacco and booze habit, despite his squirrelly heart, after he left the WH and returned to TX).

LBJ is pretty easy to understand in the context of his times, even if one doesn't agree with the defense decisions he made. Even though his 'combat' time in WW2 was limited to a bullshit flyover of enemy territory which culminated in an undeserved military decoration, he was a member of the Greatest Generation and he shared the perspective of that community about American might, right and power projection around the world. His POV was not all that unusual, even though, if he had it to do over again before his death, he likely would have just unilaterally declared victory and hauled ass out of there much sooner.

Nixon was the one (no pun intended) who had to do the real Stand And Deliver routine vis-a-vis Vietnam; after all, he ran on a "Secret Plan To End The War."

[southerncrone]

9. OMG! I had that exact thought today, which

horrified me! I hate LBJ & his tactics. But he got some good things done & didn't take any s#it off anybody.

Difference today: Wars for both, but LBJ realized that it had to be balance w/domestic improvements. Of course, there were many REGULATIONS in place in those days that helped keep our economy in one piece, too.

[MADem]

14. The big difference today is that we have no party discipline.

LBJ could be a badass in the House and the Master of the Senate because politicians kowtowed to party leadership, and if they didn't, unless they were wealthy, the leadership would cut off their supply of reelection funds. He could demand--and get--their vote. And no one was better at counting votes than LBJ.

Nowadays, there's not as much of that party discipline, there's not as much vote swapping (I will hold my nose and vote for this thing, if you hold your nose and vote for that thing that will benefit my state), and there's damn little cooperation. There's also very little "issue oriented" voting, where politicians, regardless of party, will vote for something because it is the right damned thing to do.

It's a shame, really, but it's a byproduct of the expensive reelection process, where politicians are in the pockets of the lobbyists, who are so 'helpful' in arranging for donors to contribute to the cause if the politicians play ball. Those guys and the special interest "bundlers" who scarf up hundreds of thousands of dollars and get special access to make their points known, they are the problems.

I never agreed with the Supreme Court that Money Equals Speech. If that's the case, then the poor are made mute by the Supremes. It kinda sucks.

[southerncrone]

18. Yes, why we need campaign reform.

And it DOES suck.

[Armstead]

21. You have a point -- except that Obama is very effective when it's the wrong time

He doesn't take an active role early on when he could make a difference. Instead he lets conservaDems and the GOP force through really bad bills and policies.

THEN he kicks a very effective machine ainto gear nd gets down to heavy-duty arm twisting to force reluctant Dems to go along. However he only does this to progressives, and he only does it to push through bad bills.

[vim876]

35. You're right.

I think the reality is that the "War on Pork" has literally stopped Washington from functioning. Without Pork, the vote-swapping deals people are willing to hold their noses for, don't happen. And without those, a divided government can't get anything done.

[L0oniX]

10. I'd vote for him but rather vote for FDR.

[hobbit709]

11. He was an honest politician, he stayed bought.

and when he gave his word, it meant something.

[Throd]

12. At this point I'd long for El BJ

[madrchsod]

15. lbj? hell, nixon was`t that bad....osha,epa,era,tariffs.

what bush and cheney did is far worse than what nixon was impeached for.

[KG]

17. I actually find myself longing for RMN

:P

[mikehiggins]

23. I liked Nixon a lot more than Boner et al.

Tricky Dick has a lot to answer for--do you hear me, God?--but he was heads-and-shoulders above the current crop of GOPukes.

I remember how shocked I was when a committee I was on back then came out for a volunteer army, and got a message from Pennsylvania Avenue supporting that idea. We were shocked, I tell ya, Shocked!

Compare him with the current GOPukes and there's no way he wouldn't have been better.

Hell, IMHO, he was to the left of Obama.

[Walk away]

19. Almost 60,000 young Americans died in Viet Nam.

You have a strange set of values. That kind of drama belongs on the stage.

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. True, but it was a different world then -

of that 58k, about 35k were during LBJ's administration, over 5 years, from 64 through 68, averagine 7k/yr. Korea (52k over three years) and WW2 (400k over 4 year) were fresh enough in the public memory that a casualty rate like that did not seem too horrific. Just 20 some years earlier we faced enemies who actually did have the capability of destroying us - it was easy to see the 'communist threat' as being the same, for those who came of age in that mind set.

Vietnam was a tragedy, but for many of us it did not overshadow what LBJ accomplished at home, from civil rights, to voting rights, to keeping the space program going despite the cost, to establishing Medicare and attacking the root causes of poverty in America.

LBJ is terribly underrated.

[tsuki]

22. I detested old steal a billion, but yes, I am.

[Elwood P Dowd]

26. The policies of LBJ and Nixon stole two years out of my life

for nothing. At least I'm not one of the 58,000 Americans or two million SE Asians that no longer have a life.

[KelleyKramer]

27. I wish Obama would quote LBJ on TV ...

"I will not run, nor will I accept, my parties nomination for president of the United States"

And then we can get a REAL Democrat in the White House!!

[MADem]

28. We'd end up with a Republican if that were the case.

We simply can't weather another Bushco Presidency before we've managed to right the messes he made.

[KelleyKramer]

31. You don't think a REAL Democrat can beat a Republican?

Your response assumes that a REAL Democrat would lose to the Republican.

Interesting.

[MADem]

32. A Democrat who is NOT the incumbent will not win. Trust me on this.

Study your history. Remember when Kennedy (Ted, that is) challenged the Incumbent Carter? Who'd we end up with? Why, Reagan.

Go back a bit further....LBJ, the incumbent, declined to run, leaving HHH to try to fend off a battery of what you would refer to as "REAL Democrats"--and we ended up with Nixon.

A House Divided and all that....it's pretty basic. Your ideology and earnest desires can't trump the fact that the bulk of the nation isn't on the same page as you are.

I'm a pragmatist. It's Obama or a Republican, like it ... or not.

[KelleyKramer]

33. Reagan, Carter, Bobby Kennedy

Yes, lets talk history.

First, when LBJ bowed out Bobby Kennedy won the Dem nomination. Unfortunately he was immediately murdered upon winning. Kennedy would have beaten Nixon for president (does that sound familiar?). So moot point from you.

Carter didn't lose because Ted primaried him, if anything he lost because of the oil crises and the Iran hostages.

And you bring up Reagan?

In 1976 sitting present Gerald Ford was running and a member of his party did a primary challenge. That was Ronald Reagan who pimaried his parties sitting president.

Check your history, I think that Ronald Reagan went on after that 1976 primary to do a lot of things to advance his party.

Maybe we need a REAL Democrat to start doing something like that for our side, Now!

[MADem]

36. Excuse me? Where do you get your facts?

Bobby Kennedy had not "won" the nomination at all--not even CLOSE...he was going "On to Chicago" to fight for it. All he had was momentum--he didn't even have the most delegates.

We didn't have fifty state primaries back in the dark ages--we had "Show n Tell" primaries that gave people an inkling of how candidates would do in the general. Only twelve states bothered to have primaries that year--Gene McCarthy won five of them (and Gene won MASSACHUSETTS--so what does that tell you?) and Kennedy won four. It was NOT a "done deal" by a long shot. After RFK said he was going "on to Chicago" someone, supposedly Sirhan Sirhan, shot and killed him. At the time of RFK's death, the guy with the most delegates in his pocket ahead of the convention wasn't RFK or McCarthy, it was HUBERT HUMPHREY--who avoided the primaries altogether and got his votes by schmoozing the delegates in non-primary states. HHH had 168 MORE VOTES than RFK did on the day RFK was shot--and NO ONE had enough votes to prevail.

So I think you are the one who needs to "check your history," because you have the story all wrong.

Ted interfering in the election of an incumbent President gave people--particularly Democrats, and most particularly NORTHERN Democrats (who were not without their own prejudices) --"permission" to dislike that "goddamned southern cracker." Had Ted put his back into getting Carter elected, instead of fracturing the party, and then making a spectacle of himself (and by inference, the entire party) with that Chappaquiddick debacle, who knows what might have happened?

Your attempt to make Ford "equal" to other incumbents is not taken. As every news outlet pointed out, Ford was a "placeholder" President, NOT an 'incumbent.' In order to be an incumbent, you have to be VOTED INTO OFFICE. No American voters cast a single vote for Ford--as President, OR AS VICE PRESIDENT. He was APPOINTED. Not elected, selected. Ergo, he was not an incumbent, and had to earn his way, the same as anyone else, which is why the GOP primary was a bit of a free-for-all. All that said, Nancy Reagan was the one who pulled back on Ronnie's reins and told him that it just wasn't the right time. She was correct.

[KelleyKramer]

38. Oh good grief ...

Well, have to admit I misspoke about Kennedy, what I meant was he was killed right after winning the California primary (large state and huge momentum builder)

As for your semantics argument about an incumbent, I never said Ford was an incumbent, I said he was Reagan's parties 'sitting president' (yes I had a typo in 'president', but it still should have been clear what I meant). So take that straw man and toss it in the fire. And I notice your straw man allowed to you completely ignore my central point that Reagan's '76 primary challenge of his parties SITTING president spring boarded Reagan to go on to do many things for his party.

And Carter, yes Ted may have caused him some headaches but I still believe Carter lost because of the oil/economy problems and the Iran hostage crises, not because of Ted Kennedy.

The most recent example would be Obama and Hillary had a mean, at some times brutal primary fight, and imho by the time the general election was in full swing it had little to no effect on Obamas chances. You can scapegoat Ted Kennedy all you want, but the bad oil prices/economy/inflation and the Iran hostage crises caused Carter more harm than anything else.

.

.

[MADem]

39. I understood your point about Reagan, I simply did not agree with your premise.

I was alive, well and voting in that election. Ford was not given any kind of "pass" for being the sitting President. He was ONLY a place holder, he had no "right" to be the automatic nominee; and he had not "earned" the seat.

Reagan almost beat Ford (those primaries were neck and neck, some of them), but he ran out of money and he was still building his network. Also, despite Nixon's southern strategy, there were still a lot of moderate Republicans back then, and a lot of them weren't onboard with Reagan's brand of reactive conservatism. Still, he came close.

If you remember, there were something like ten Dems running in the primaries during the 76 election--it was a total clusterfuck. Carter was the last guy standing and people initially laughed at him and his Billy Beer brother. His "carry his own suitcase" philosophy and the "turn down the heat and put on a sweater" approach to the energy crisis was ridiculed by many (and the people in the northern states and CA were especially unkind). The guy couldn't get no respect, even before the Iran hostage crisis or Desert ONE. And Ted did NOT help (at ALL)--he caused him more than headaches, he fractured the party, and what came out of that fracturing in the subsequent '80 election were the infamous "Reagan Democrats." Those Greatest Generation Democrats--who were diehard Dems since FDR and worshipped at the altar of JFK-- found Ted to be an elitist philanderer (Chappaquiddick being the icing on the cake--his story just never made sense and smelled like some kind of coverup), Carter to be an ineffectual wuss, and they believed the crap that Reagan shovelled, simply because he said it in a very declarative fashion, and was able to bullshit with bonhomie. People who might have held their noses and voted for Carter said "Fuck it, those guys are disorganized and useless," and voted for change in the form of the GE Spokesman/Mister Death Valley Days.

The difference between Obama/H. Clinton and Carter/Kennedy is as follows--Obama and Clinton have respect for one another, Clinton works as the senior cabinet official in the BO administration, and in reality there is VERY LITTLE daylight between them vis a vis the issues. Carter and Kennedy HATED ONE ANOTHER. HATED. There was no respect, never, ever, and there was resentment and bad blood.

Carter has written about this, but it's no secret. He's also talked about it on TV, this is worth a look, it is thirteen minutes, but he's STILL pissed at Ted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00PUmPvRENc

[upi402]

34. If I could ignore VN

I'd agree he did great things. But at what price?... well... VN and Kennedy.

[Pooka Fey]

37. Right here.

And at the time, though I was too young to have any opinions of my own, I know my democratic parents weren't thrilled by him. They were devastated, utterly distraught that JFK was assassinated. But LBJ was a leader and a progressive, and those are qualities lacking in President Obama.