LBJ Was Horrible. Nixon Was Worse.

[SoDesuKa]

Lyndon Johnson was a horrible man. People who lived through the LBJ years remember him badly. But then - there was Nixon, who not only was just as bad as Johnson, he was actually worse.
[center]


Lyndon Johnson
[/center]
Kids today think they had it rough during the Bush years. But they ain't seen nothing! LBJ started a war that split the country in half. And Nixon was worse.

[hlthe2b]

1. Umm, I think you need to study a bit more Vietnam history... LBJ did NOT start that war...

Did he escalate? Absolutely. But start? Military advisers were first sent in by Eisenhower. Kennedy may have had reluctance, but still dramatically increased troops.

[kentuck]

4. I lived in Appalachia as a kid during the War on Poverty.

He may have saved my life?

Then he sent me to Vietnam.

So it is a mixed bag with LBJ. But overall, he was the last great social Democrat.

[hlthe2b]

5. Agree...Vietnam was his curse. Civil Rights & war on Poverty was his (at least partial) redemption.

[Gormy Cuss]

149. +1

[limpyhobbler]

176. +1 for mixed bag.

Very good for civil rights, voting rights, access to public accommodations for people of color.
One of the greatest Presidents ever. Very close to one of the greatest presidents in history.

But Vietnam. Ouch. That kills it.

[SoDesuKa]

6. Definitions

You are arguing definitions when you say that the Vietnam war existed before Lyndon Johnson. Yeah, there were advisors in Vietnam before LBJ raised the number from a couple of thousand American soldiers to a half a million. Also, Kennedy's Green Berets in country were technically advisors, not combat troops.

Johnson was a horrible man -- the only reason he is not more despised is that Nixon was worse.
[center]


Nixon was worse.
[/center]

[hlthe2b]

7. LBJ did not start the war-- he escalated. That was a horrendous, tragic mistake...

and one that forever defines and devastates his legacy. But to ignore the progressive work he did on civil rights and ground breaking attack on poverty is wrong.

[SoDesuKa]

11. The "War" Started During the Johnson Years

Yes, there was a miilitary involvement in Vietnam before Johnson, but that military involvement was not a war as such.

It was Johnson - not Kennedy or Eisenhower - who turned the presence of American troops from advisors into combat troops - a BIG difference in what they were doing there! He also hugely escalated the number of troops. Johnson changed both the mission and the number of American troops in Vietnam.

[hlthe2b]

16. Historians acknowledge the war started with Eisenhower and Kennedy..

Kennedy, despite his qualms actually escalated the number of military embeds there, U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. (Vietnam War Statistics and Facts 1, 25th Aviation Battalion website: http://25thaviation.org/facts/id430.htm ).

You are just being silly, now. We can play semantics with "combat" versus "embed" versus "advisors" all day, but historians acknowledge US involvement in the war begain with Eisenhower and Kennedy.

LBJ just made it the tragic debacle, it was. That is both truthful and signficant enough

[SoDesuKa]

20. Nameless "Historians"

Your nameless "historians" can only point to the existence of American soldiers in an advisory capacity as evidence that the war existed during the Kennedy administration . . . . which ended in late 1963. However, the Vietnam War didn't get underway until 1965.

Yes, there were American soldiers in Vietnam during the Kennedy years, but they were advisors, not combat troops. The 16,000 troops in 1963 were scattered throughtout the country and didn't even have a central command.

If we were fightiong a war in 1963, people would have known about it. Your nameless "historians" won't find any contemporary references to a war as such until at least 1965.

[hlthe2b]

21. You are just being silly.. But feel free.

I'm not going to do your homework for you.

[SoDesuKa]

22. Did Eisenhower Start the War in Vietnam?

Eisenhower certainly didn't start the war in Vietnam, and neither did Kennedy. They both agreed to send advisors, but limited their role to supporting the ARVN.

To justify your statement that a "war" existed before the Johnson years, you'd have to produce news clippings referring to a war as such. Such clippings don't exist because the earliest conceivable date for the start of the Vietnam "War" was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in August 1964.

We have advisory soldiers in various countries throughout the world, and if war breaks out in any of them, the onset of war is the day the war starts . . . not sooner. As to your suggestion that the difference between service in an advisory capacity and a war is merely "semantic" you are just, well, wrong.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

83. Truman sent military advisors before Eisenhower or Kennedy. See #82. None of them, of course, sent

combat troops like LBJ did.

[HiPointDem]

109. The war in vietnam started in 1945, when ho chi minh's provisional government declared indepen-

dence & the british landed to restore french authority.

that was also the year the first american died in vietnam: Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey, head of American OSS mission, was killed by Vietminh troops while driving a jeep to the airport.

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/timeline.htm

i was alive and aware during lbj's term and i don't remember it as "horrible".

some other important dates:

1956: US starts training South Vietnamese: The US Military Assistance Advisor Group (MAAG) assumes responsibility, from French, for training South Vietnamese forces.

1961: Green Berets (counterinsurgency) formed.

1962: Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield reports back to President Kennedy from Saigon that, in his opinion, Diem has wasted the two billion dollars America has spent there.

1962: USAF starts spraying Agent Orange in vietnam.

1963: Diem & his brother murdered with tacit approval of US (Kennedy)

[hifiguy]

161. Ho Chih Minh begged Truman for US support

to throw out the French occupiers in the 1940s. Literally. Because Ho was seen as a "Communist" rather than the Vietnamese nationalist he was, he was rejected. So he turned to the Soviets. Think that was stupid?

[MiniMe]

31. There was never a "war" with Viet Nam, congress never declared War

Just like there was never a war with Korea.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

139. Bingo.

[coalition_unwilling]

52. There were American combat fatalities in Vietnam before 1965. Advisors' blood

runs red too.

I just finished reading A. J. Langguth's Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975. As Languth's sub-title suggests, it was a war before LBJ sent combat troops there. Now Langguth is not a professional historian. He's a journalist by trade. But this book is pretty darned good, imo. And Langguth would vehemently disagree with you that we were not at war before 1965.

I'll be happy to cite specific passages from the work with page numbers if it's important enough to you.

[immoderate]

151. There never was a declaration of WAR.

The advisers were combat troops who were called "advisers." Our soldiers were there to back up the French. And they never left (on their own.)

--imm

[obamanut2012]

25. LBJ did NOT start the Vietnam War

Ike did, and Kennedy made it into what it became.

[former9thward]

65. LBJ DID start the Vietnam War.

He got Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 based on a phoney incident. This allowed and authorized combat forces in Vietnam. The few dozen advisers that Ike had and the few hundred that Kennedy were not combat forces.

http://www.history.com/topics/gulf-of-tonkin-resolution

[AnotherMcIntosh]

77. And before the Gulf of Tonkin incident, he was engaging in a military build-up for the land war

in Southeast Asia while campaigning on promises to not have a land war in Southeast Asia. He knew exactly what he was doing.

[roguevalley]

129. SEATO and republican paranoia made it inevitable. Domino theories and some such shit

I remember. I was alive then.

[roguevalley]

128. oh my. so a war called a police action isn't a war even though it is one and people die

you really hate johnson. we get it. you are entitled to your opinion but not your facts.

[Honeycombe8]

147. JFK started the Vietnam War. nt

[lapislzi]

32. You're tossing the baby with the bath water

The Great Society was visionary. Let us not forget the civil rights legislation that was passed under LBJ's watch.

No question he f'd up big time in Vietnam, but his social democratic credentials cannot be denied.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

92. LBJ rode on the civil-rights' coat-tails of Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy.

Truman was the first President in 150 years to make an effort to secure civil rights for African-Americans. Prior to being selected by FDR as his running mate, Truman campaigned as a Senator in the Southern state of Missouri and said in 1940:

"I believe in brotherhood….of all men before the law….if any (one) class or race can be permanently set apart from, or pushed down below the rest in politics and civil rights, so may any other class or race……and we say farewell to the principles on which we count our safety…….The majority of our Negro people find but cold comfort in our shanties and tenements. Surely, as free men, they are entitled to something better than this."

After taking the presidency, Truman formed and stacked a civil rights committee with known liberals who had the task of examining violence against African Americans. The October 1947, "To Secure These Rights" was highly critical of a nation that appeared to tolerate the way African Americas were treated at a time that the nation also claimed to be the world’s leading light of democracy.
The report provide a ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms recommended that

the federal government (should) use its authority to end segregation in America lynching to be made a federal offence the poll tax to be abolished voting rights introduced for African Americans which guaranteed their right to vote in elections free from threats of violence the FEPC to be made a permanent feature in America an end to discrimination in interstate travel an end to discrimination in the armed forces the powerful Justice Department in Washington to have a permanent Civil Rights section government financial backing for law suits taken by African Americans or others in favour of civil rights when heard in a federal court the creation of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

He thereafter issued three Executive Orders. The first was issued to began desegregating the armed services, the second made it illegal to discriminate against persons applying for civil service positions based on race, and the third prohibited defense contractors from engaging in discrimination because of race.

Eisenhower, among other things, pushed for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 which was the predecessor for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. When Eisenhower's Administration was making efforts to gain its passage, LBJ ensured that it would be watered down by sending the Bill to the Committed headed by Senator Eastland (D-Miss). LBJ could have otherwise sent it to a different committee which could have resulted in a stronger Bill.

Kennedy, as I'm sure that you already know, had a well-deserved reputation for civil rights before LBJ took over.

IMO, LBJ used civil rights as cover for his military ambitions. He was a Naval intelligence officer in WW II who, at least one time, reported directly to FDR. He was also a school teacher who placed a great deal of emphasis upon war presidents. He wanted to go down in history as a war president. He did that, but not in the way that he wanted. No one should mistakenly think that he was the first president since Lincoln to push for civil rights.

[HiPointDem]

112. LBJ's 'naval intelligence' job was in the naval reserve, first inspecting shipyards in the us &

then inspecting conditions at the pacific front for fdr.

lbj's civil rights legislation tops anything done after reconstruction. he rode no one's coattails.

i lived through that era. it was a watershed; if you grew up afterwards you can't imagine how things changed.

johnson had many faults, but revisionism on his civil rights accomplishments isn't on.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

145. Your "expertise" regarding LBJ's naval service seems to be at odds with what is reported

by the Department of the Navy.

It indicates, contrary to you, that his military service was not limited as you say, "LBJ's 'naval intelligence' job was in the naval reserve."

Appointed Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve on 21 June 1940, Johnson reported for active duty on 9 December 1941, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was ordered to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, Washington, D.C. After completing his training in Washington, Johnson proceeded to Headquarters, Twelfth Naval District, San Francisco, CA for inspection duty in the Pacific. While stationed in New Zealand and Australia, he worked as an observer of bomber missions in the South Pacific, for which he was later awarded the Army Silver Star Medal.
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-6.htm

[Octafish]

167. The Silver Star and LBJ

It is a complex history...

LBJ’s Silver Star: The Mission That Never Was

By Barrett Tillman and Henry Sakaida

EXCERPT...

LBJ biographer Robert Caro’s newest volume, Means of Ascent, takes umbrage at Johnson’s receiving the nation’s third-highest combat medal for what amounted to taking an airplane ride and spending :a few minutes under fire." But it never happened. The fact is LBJ never got within sight of Japanese forces. His mission, like so much of his life, was a lie.

The exact origins of the contrived decoration remain unknown. Major General R. K. Sutherland, MacArthur’s chief of staff, made the award in MacArthur's name on June 18, 1942, just nine days after the alleged episode. The following day Brigadier General W. F. Marquat wrote Johnson, filling LBJ’s request for a signed copy of the citation. In his cover letter, Marquat stated, "Of course, your outstanding bravery in volunteering for a so-called 'suicide mission' in order to get a first-hand view of what our Army fliers go through has been the subject of much favorable comment since your departure. It is indeed a great government we have when members of the congress take THOSE chances in order to better serve their fellow men in the legislative bodies. You surely earned your decoration and I am so happy about your having received the award." (Emphasis added.)2

SNIP...

LBJ was first assigned to a B-26 named Wabash Cannonball, but apparently he left the bomber to relieve himself. When he returned he found his seat taken by Lieutenant Colonel Francis R. Stevens, accompanying Johnson on the tour of the forward area. Stevens playfully told Johnson to find another airplane, so LBJ climbed into 1st lieutenant W. H. Greer's 40-1488, named Heckling Hare.

SNIP...

When the mission did return, it was obvious there had been trouble. One Marauder crash-landed, four more had battle damage, and one never returned at all. The missing plane was Wabash Cannonball. Its entire eight-man crew was dead, shot down in the sea off Lae.

CONTINUED...

http://www.b-26mhs.org/archives/manuscripts/lbj_fake_silverstar.html

Like history, people have a hidden side.

[HiPointDem]

170. "Appointed Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve on 21 June 1940"

"The United States Navy Reserve, until 2005 known as the United States Naval Reserve, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy."

"inspection duty in the Pacific" (at personal request of fdr who wanted an independent report on conditions/needs on the pacific front. that is the context of lbj observing bombing raids.)

"reported for active duty on 9 December 1941...released from active duty under honorable conditions on 16 June 1942"

21 JUN 1940 Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve
9 DEC 1941 Reported for active duty
16 JUL 1942 Released from active duty under honorable conditions
19 OCT 1949 Commander, to rank from 1 June 1948
18 JAN 1964 Resignation from Naval Reserve accepted by Secretary of the Navy

lbj was never any cloak & dagger "naval intelligence officer" & your attempt to paint him as such is bullshit.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

182. I repeat since you didn't seem to understand it the first time, "your 'expertise' regarding LBJ's

naval service seems to be at odds with what is reported by the Department of the Navy."

Initially, you said without qualification at #112, "LBJ's 'naval intelligence' job was in the naval reserve, ..."

That representation of LBJ's naval service is either true or false.

In contrast to your post at #112, the Department of the Navy expressly states at its web site:

Appointed Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve on 21 June 1940, Johnson reported for active duty on 9 December 1941, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was ordered to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, Washington, D.C. After completing his training in Washington, Johnson proceeded to Headquarters, Twelfth Naval District, San Francisco, CA for inspection duty in the Pacific. While stationed in New Zealand and Australia, he worked as an observer of bomber missions in the South Pacific, for which he was later awarded the Army Silver Star Medal. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-6.htm

Quite frankly, I don't care whether you know or don't know whether he was in Naval Intelligence during WW II. But obviously, if you claimed at post #112 to have special expertise with respect to LBJ but did not know that he was in active duty two day after the Pearl Harbor attack and believed that he was only in the Naval Reserve, I don't view you as having any special expertise with respect to whether he was or was not in Naval Intelligence. At best, you can claim that you don't know. And my answer is, So what?

[HiPointDem]

183. his job *was* in the naval reserve. you don't seem to get what the naval (navy) reserve is.

The mission of the Navy Reserve is to provide strategic depth and deliver operational capabilities to the Navy and Marine Corps team, and Joint forces, in the full range of military operations from peace to war. Reservists are called to active duty, or mobilized, as needed and are required to sign paperwork acknowledging this possibility upon enrollment in the reserve program.

Typically, the Reservist is required to drill one weekend every month and spend a consecutive two-week period every year at a regular Navy base or on board a ship. While training either for just a weekend or during the two weeks, the Reservist is on active duty and the full spectrum of rules and regulations, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, apply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Reserve

there's no contradiction between being in the reserve & being on active duty such as you imagine.


if you "don't care" whether he was naval intelligence, why did you claim he was?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

186. You don't seem to understand what the Department of the Navy has posted on their web site:

Appointed Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Reserve on 21 June 1940, Johnson reported for active duty on 9 December 1941, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was ordered to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, Washington, D.C. After completing his training in Washington, Johnson proceeded to Headquarters, Twelfth Naval District, San Francisco, CA for inspection duty in the Pacific. While stationed in New Zealand and Australia, he worked as an observer of bomber missions in the South Pacific, for which he was later awarded the Army Silver Star Medal. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-6.htm

[HiPointDem]

188. i understand it quite well. you don't. plus you made the false claim that johnson was a naval

intelligence officer.

goodbye.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

190. No. You falsely claimed by implication that all Naval intelligence officers are "cloak and dagger"

Naval intelligence officers. See # 170 & 189.

And you falsely claimed that I alleged that LBJ was a "cloak and dagger" Naval intelligence officer. I did not. My words speak for themselves. They mean exactly what I said.

Your false claim that I alleged that LBJ was a "cloak and dagger" Naval intelligence officer is as false as your claim that "every president since johnson has had their war" (#114). President Carter did not have a war during his term.

Your claim "every president since johnson has had their war" (#114) is either true or false. Your dancing around the issue with your effort to use semantics (#172 & 185) does not change that.

No one who claims by implication that all Naval intelligence officers are "cloak and dagger" Naval intelligence officers (# 170 & 189) are informed with facts.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

189. Anyone who believes that all Naval intelligence officers are "cloak & dagger"

Naval intelligence officers is uninformed.

Anyone who claims to be an expert with respect to LBJ's role in WW II but does not know that he reported to FDR on at least one occasion, and that he was sent to the Pacific while on active duty to be fully informed by MacArthur regarding the Pacific operations, is uninformed.

Anyone who claims (#114) that "every president since johnson has had their war" without being aware that President Carter did not have a war during his term, is uninformed.

There is no factual basis for anyone to believe that all Naval intelligence officers (or even any of them) have been "cloak and dagger" Naval intelligence officers. None at all.

The solution is to inform yourself.

[roguevalley]

132. he didn't have to sign the legislation. He did it anyway conceding the south to the pigs

forever. It is unbelievable how many LBJ's are here on this page. I even recognize a couple of them. I will go with what I actually lived through. I will concede the nuances and revisionism to others. But then I'm old.

[kiva]

98. That's an incredibly simplistic view of LBJ.

His escalation in Vietnam - a horrible mistake that devastated a generation.

His work for Civil Rights - extremely impressive, particularly considering the attitudes of much of the country and the cost to the party.

Seeing things in black and white really does not work if you are going to discuss history.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

82. No, military advisors were first sent in by Truman.

In September 1950, US President Harry Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Vietnam to assist the French in the First Indochina War. The President claimed they were not sent as combat troops, but to supervise the use of $10 million worth of US military equipment to support the French in their effort to fight the Viet Minh forces. By 1953, aid increased dramatically to $350 million to replace old military equipment owned by the French.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Assistance_Advisory_Group

Neither Truman, Eisenhower, nor Kennedy started the Viet Nam war in the same sense that LBJ did. They sent military advisors who were, at most, incidentally involved or involved contrary to orders to not be more actively involved. LBJ sent combat troops.

[Taverner]

102. Three Words: Tonkin Gulf Resolution

Until that point, we just had advisors

[Waiting For Everyman]

120. Yup, and two more : Warren Commission.

[roguevalley]

127. agreed. The Great Society was a miracle and so was the civil rights and medicare

legislation. Someone is young I think.

[Honeycombe8]

146. This is true. OP doesn't know history. LBJ also pushed & signed Civil Rights Act.

LBJ was good for the country in some ways, bad in some ways.

He escalated the war, and refused to leave...neither resolving to win it brutally or leave entirely and save lives and treasure. But he didn't start it.

[Octafish]

163. True. Yet, how can the good outweigh the deaths of 59,000 American troops and millions of civilians?

LBJ didn't start the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but he did service for his friends in the South Vietnamese government from way back.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon during his tour of Asian countries. Calling Diem the "Churchill of Asia," he encouraged the South Vietnamese president to view himself as indispensable to the United States and promised additional military aid to assist his government in fighting the communists. On his return home, Johnson echoed domino theorists, saying that the loss of Vietnam would compel the United States to fight "on the beaches of Waikiki" and eventually on "our own shores." With the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Johnson became president and inherited a deteriorating situation in South Vietnam. Over time, he escalated the war, ultimately committing more than 500,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam.

SOURCE: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lyndon-b-johnson-visits-south-vietnam

Gee, that sounds familiar.

[struggle4progress]

2. Johnson was a crude and often myopic man who had brilliant political skills, simply because

he breathed and ate and slept and lived politics 24/7

His political genius became his tragedy: he knew he could defang rightwing redbaiting directed against him, by using Vietnam to exhibit his anticommunism. That was a masterful calculation, as far as it went, though he missed some important details that quickly became important -- such as the gross immorality of waging war merely for political advantage

But he was an ethical giant compared to Nixon

[SoDesuKa]

8. Ethical Giant

During the Nixon years, people looked back with someting like nostalgia to the Johnson years, although it wasn't possible to miss a guy like Johnson. Howeveer, Nixon was an actual crook who seemed to take delight in skulduggery.
[center]


Oh Yes He Was a Crook[/center]

[tsuki]

17. Father was sent

TDY or maybe ATDY to Vietnam during Eisenhower from Japan. He was sent to replace a TDY serviceman from his squadron. Eisenhower used TDY personnel because it does not show on your military records. He sent them from overseas locations to keep the secret. I never knew until the 1970's.

[SoDesuKa]

23. TDY = Temporary Duty

If you get TDY pay it certainly does appear in your military records, espeicially if you're performing hazardous duty. There seems to be a reluctance to believe that LBJ started the Vietnam War pretty much by himself, along with crooks like Robert McNamara in his administration.

Eisenhower warned against a land war in asia, a fact that makes it unlikely that he had anything to do with sending combat troops as such to Vietnam. Kennedy may have OK'd some limited combat operations on the part of advisors he sent to Vietham, but he certainly didn't green light a war. That didn't happen until LBJ, who carefully prepared the American public for an all-out war which he was sure we would win.

I don't believe either Eisenhower or Kennedy approved a covert war as such. That would be too difficult to contain if anything went wrong, as Kennedy learned with the Bay of Pigs invasion.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

86. Eisenhower was familiar with LBJ and his M-I-C financial supporters. He was warning us about the

military-industrial-complex and may have intended to specificially warn us about LBJ and his financial supporters.

[HiPointDem]

115. Eisenhower was happy to consort with the military-industrial complex during his term. He was

career military, for godsakes.

[Selatius]

117. This is true, but he may have turned a leaf towards the end.

They likely wanted to go further than what Eisenhower could stomach, thus his prescient warning to the American public. He may have been career military, but he did have some conscience. He was one of the highest ranked people in the Truman Administration who did not show enthusiasm when Sec. of War Stimson told him that they were intending to nuke cities in Japan after the Trinity bomb test. He thought it was wholly unnecessary and overkill.

[HiPointDem]

121. we will never know why he said those words leaving office. but i will say it's easier to say them

when you're headed for retirement.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

150. We do know why Eisenhower said those words. He was opposed to optional wars and war profiteering.

[hifiguy]

159. Ike had a profound distrust of Pentagon brass.

He repeatedly downsized Pentagon budget requests while POTUS. His career was spent as a fighting soldier, not as a desk jockey. He had a soldier's perspective, not a contractor's.

[tsuki]

103. I have all of Dad's records, and there is no TDY

from Japan. As far as his records are concerned, he was in Japan the entire time. He was methodical, every piece of paper he was ever issued was placed in a folder.

He was not combat. Considering his AFSC, he would have been an advisor. Eisenhower sent advisors.

I also grew up in a military that was very secretive. It was right after the Rosenbergs and McCarthy.

[MADem]

131. No--it does not appear on your summary of billets held.

There's paperwork for everything save taking a crap, but that's not what the poster meant. If you are not assigned to a billet, it isn't reflected in historical assignment documentation. TAD/TDY assignments are NOT reflected in manpower authorizations, and that's what Congress puts eyes on.

I'm sorry, this entire thread is just ill-advised. It's a rewrite of history that most people here--including the geezers like me who lived through all this stuff-- are not buying.

[lapislzi]

33. ALWAYS worth a re-read...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/8699/

Nixon is the man who shit his own nest.

[lapislzi]

49. Concise, insightful, and accurate

Great summary of the LBJ presidency. He was a wholly political animal--and such animals are vicious.

Regrettably, he set the bar low for future immoral wars.

[kemah]

56. How he implemented the Civil Rights Act

Just like today with the ACA, a lot of governors and mayors were defiant in implementing the Civil Rights Act. He would call them in the middle of the night and threaten them with the transfer off all soldiers in the nearby military base to some training exercise in some other part of the country. By law he could not close the base but he could order the troop to go for training.
The next morning the mayor would have a meeting and implement Civil Rights. Without those soldiers spending money in the local economy, a lot of small businesses would go bankrupt.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Well, gee... these guys also gave us Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA...

Voting Rights Act and a whole bunch of other good stuff.

Without Viet Nam, Johnson would have been one of our greatest Presidents. Nixon, well, that's another story, but at least he did leave us with some good stuff.

Reagan and the Bushes, though, gave us absolutely nothing. They didn't fuck up as badly, but that's largely because they just didn't do much at all. OK, there's those two wars, but they didn't divide the country like Viet Nam (mainly because we have no draft) Their legacy is just low taxes-- leading us from the greatest nation on earth to the cheapest. Not much to be proud of there.

[libinnyandia]

88. That's what I was going to say. It will be a long time before we know the full effect of the Reagan/

Bush legacies. Citizens United will do a lot of damage and who knows what else the SCOTUS approves.

[loyalsister]

93. Actually...

Bush 1 gave us he ADA
Bush 2 signed the ADA Amendments act

[TreasonousBastard]

100. OK, ya got me-- forgot about the ADA.

[loyalsister]

108. We could probhably find some little nugget from Hoover

But there's that thing about clocks...

[struggle4progress]

118. Right on the mark

[eridani]

143. He got the ball rolling on EPA. It actually started under Nixon, though

Whatever bad feelings I had about Johnson and Nixon have been totally eclipsed by my absolute loathing of the Shrub and Rmoney, though.

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. LBJ is one of my 50/50 people.

50% was admirable.
He pushed Civil Rights legislation. He fought for the poor with The War on Poverty.
When he graduated from college, his first job was teaching mostly poor Hispanic kids. He didn't mail it in. He pushed those kids and refused to let them slack off.
He grew up very poor and never forgot it.

50% was execrable.
Vietnam is his legacy in that area. He was also a crude man and he was involved in many election shenanigans.

He is a very complex figure.

[yurbud]

168. I get the impression he made a deal with the devil (Wall Street):

I'll give you your war if you give me the Great Society.

He gambled that the latter would outweigh the former and lost.

[lame54]

10. Bush started 2 wars and made huge tax cuts...

wars and tax cuts don't go together - but he thought he would try it
he split the country in half

[NeverEnuff]

14. It worked!

[SoDesuKa]

15. Riots in the Streets

There weren't riots in the streets during the Bush years, as there were during the Johnson years and later in the Nixon years. [center]


Johnson Tore The Country Apart
[/center]

[Chorophyll]

46. There weren't riot in the streets in the Bush years because there was NO DRAFT.

Had the more privileged portion of American society been expected to make any kind of sacrifice in the "War on Terror," there would have been riots. Of that you can be sure.

Stop with the pointless Johnson-bashing already. Unless you have a time machine to go back and undo Vietnam, what is the point?

[HiPointDem]

119. what is your point? there were no "riots" under W, so W was great? He was the worst president

in modern history. He tore the country apart to a degree that was unimaginable in 1965.

"riots" (protest) doesn't "tear the country apart".

[CanisCrocinus]

12. Bad. But not worse.

I lived through the Johnson (and Nixon) years, and yes, I do remember them both badly. And yes, the country was split as you say. (Interesting that to note that the split was bi-partisan and not really along party lines at all; the identifiers then were "hawk" or "dove" and there were Republicans and Democrats on both sides.) Johnson was hated by us anti-war types not for starting the war, as someone pointed out above, but for greatly expanding it. Even so, we recognized his good work in other areas -- civil rights for one. Nixon richly deserved hatred, for all the well-known reasons. But I have to disagree with "they ain't seen nothing." The split in the country was different; and the Republican Party was different, to put it mildly -- they were not the lunatic know-nothings they are today. I would take ten Nixons in a row rather than one more George Bush, or Romney, or anyone from what the Republican Party has become.

[RKP5637]

27. Yep, that's how I remember it too. n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Vietnam was lbj's undoing and it undid the last great progressive president.

Google great society.

[Iggy]

18. I'm Reading Vol. I of Robert Caro's

incredible biography of LBJ.

I'm not convinced (yet) he was a "horrible" man.. but am almost there.

One thing he did as congressman of TX was get the power co. to run power lines to hundreds of people,
mostly poor farmers in the TX hill country where he grew up-- initially the power co refused, stating the
usual baloney excuse "we can't make money".

LBJ was known to be able to grease the wheels and get things done-- things that ultimately benefitted him and
his political/financial career-- but he also occasionally worked on behalf of the people (which of course also
furtherd his political/financial career). I'm not clear anyone can say that about 90 percent of the buffoons in congress today.

[joeybee12]

19. As someone said, LBJ was a mixed bag...

Lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, escalted the war, passed a lot of civil rights legislation going AGAINST his own party...most politicians are mixed bags...except the 2 Bushes...evil incarnate.

[obamanut2012]

24. Civil Rights? War on Poverty?

JFK is always getting credit for what LBJ did and what RFK wanted to do.

Vietnam was LBJ's curse, but he sure as hell did a lot for minorities and poor folks.

[RKP5637]

26. I don't remember it as all bad, not at all. n/t

[southernyankeebelle]

28. LBJ was a ball buster. He made sure dem's held the line. It's to bad Obama hasn't learned

from LBJ. LBJ did many many good things for the people. VN wasn't his war that he started and he should have pulled out but didn't. Overall he was a great president. Nixon was out there but even he did some good for the country but in the end the bad outweighed the good.

[SoDesuKa]

29. Historical Revisionism

The usual reading of history is that Lyndon Johnson inherited the Vietnam war, but he actually started it. There were 16,000 advisors in Vietnam in 1963, scattered around the country giving technical support to the South Vietnamese. LBJ changed the mission of those advisors, making them combat soldiers, and he also increassed their number to half a million.

There was no "Vietnam War" prior to 1965. Johnson did this on his own, with the help of crooks in his administration like Robert McNamara. McNamara later reprented; but LBJ did not.

Nixon was worse.

[RKP5637]

38. To me, the Vietnam war was a fatal flaw for LBJ. He certainly did nothing to

deescalate it ... Frankly, the nightly news of live action and Walter Cronkite did more to deescalate the Vietnam war when it finally it hit home with the masses what was going on ... and forced LBJ to reconsider WTF he was doing.

[southernyankeebelle]

50. The commitment was before LBJ. It was Ike.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

87. No. Truman. See #82. Neither Truman, Eisenhower, nor Kennedy started the war in the sense that

LBJ did. Neither Truman, Eisenhower, nor Kennedy requested funds from Congress to puchase military equipment to fight a land war in Viet Nam before the Gulf of Tonkin incident. LBJ planned for his war.

[Tom Ripley]

97. But...but...but...that means the sainted JFK was also responsible! How can that be???!!!

[southernyankeebelle]

101. JFK only wanted to send trainers to train and that was it. LBJ took it further.

[HiPointDem]

124. The US had been training the south vietnamese since truman. The US began spraying Agent

Orange under Kennedy, and support for vietnam increased throughout kennedy's presidency.

[lapislzi]

34. He busted balls for years in the Senate

There is something to be said for electing a legislator to the office of President. He knew the system, he gamed the system, hell, he invented the damn system. He knew politics inside and out. There was no more political animal (and a crude animal it was) than LBJ.

He was what he was.

[RKP5637]

39. Yep, very well said. I could see LBJ with these republicans today, he would

mop up congress with them and work to kick their asses out the door.

[xmas74]

72. I would love to watch that happen.

Vietnam aside, we need more of him in politics today.

[roguevalley]

133. He learned his chops for the likes of Sam Rayburn. How's that for a memory. Some of us

were alive when he was and remember. That was when Dems had balls. I would hate to think that the first fragging president I could remember was a bush or reagan.

Thank you Mom and Dad.

[hifiguy]

158. LBJ worked the Senate the way The Rock works wrestling:

Boots 2 Asses.

[roguevalley]

181. damned right. :D

[RKP5637]

37. Yep, that's how I remember it too. I always considered LBJ a good guy except

for the war he inherited and pursued which was totally wrong. He eventually realized that, but too late.

LBJ knew how to play rough, wheel and deal, and get legislation through. He could be a mean critter if he wanted and didn't take and SH**. Yes, the Obama administration could learn a lot from LBJ.

LBJ also brought us Medicare. I don't think the democrats could do that today.

I look at the democrats of those times and today, totally different.

[southernyankeebelle]

47. Remember he got the voting rights passed and remember what he said when it passed and it

came true. We dems lost the south. But LBJ did the right thing. Everyone deserves to vote. We start early voting today. I'm going monday morning.

[treestar]

59. Obama's not an older white guy in the 1960s

I can't picture Obama threatening people on unrelated subjects.

[southernyankeebelle]

66. No I am not talking about the war part. I am talking about how he got things done by

getting people in line and busting balls even if they didn't want to do it.

[treestar]

68. It is not good to make people do things they do not want to do

Obama is not a ball buster type of person. I don't see what's so great about "getting people in line" and making them do what they don't want to do, at least in 2012. Authoritarianism of that kind may have worked in the 1960s, but it would not work today.

[southernyankeebelle]

69. Boy you need to google LBJ and see what he accomplished being a ball buster. Starting with

voter rights for minorities. Medicare and many more things. We wouldn't of had these things if LBJ didn't put pressure on his party members. You see what is happening now with dems jumping ship. Politics isn't bean bag friend.

[treestar]

70. It would not work now however

The culture has changed. People think they matter and don't march in line behind anyone. The self esteem movement or whatever.

And those things would still have happened. They might have been better had not LBJ treated people who are elected leaders like crap. No one likes being forced to do things and it breeds resentment.

[HiPointDem]

130. no. the party structure was different, that's all. and the reasons were economic. people were

not "forced" to do things anymore than they are today. you think no arm-twisting goes on in congress today? you think it's just a body of independent solons calmly deciding policy based on their own independent judgement?

get real. just different arm-twisters. there's much less room in congress for independent thinkers than there was back in the day, and that's because the money power is bigger and more concentrated; less regional power and less party power.

[roguevalley]

134. LBJ did landmark stuff kicking ass. Obama couldn't get jack passed even compromising.

Give me a dem with a hammer rather than a nuancer who is not interested in getting his hands dirty kicking ass. LBJ accidently passed more critical shit than Obama and it didn't have to be so. Obama was given a fragging nobel prize what? Three months in. He could have marshalled us like an army if he wanted to. Too bad. I do love him but he doesn't kick ass like a dem.

My family knew Hubert Humphrey and all of those folks. Real dems who kicked ass. They changed the world doing it.

[hifiguy]

160. No one in their right mind

would ever have played poker with my great state's Hubert Humphrey. Hubert played the Senate like a violin. Where did he learn how to do that? From LBJ, that's where.

[roguevalley]

179. my uncle worked for Hubert Humphrey way back when. Our family LOVED that man.

[hifiguy]

180. I met Hubert Humphrey when I was 13

at a tiny county fair in SW Minnesota. I was there with a friend's family. HHH shook my hand and talked to me as if I were an adult for several minutes. One of the kindest, nicest human beings I have ever met. He would have been a marvelous President.

[Odin2005]

30. Yes, the Great Society was so horrible.

Oh, and Ike started the Vietnam War when he sent "advisors" to help the South Vietnamese government.

[southernyankeebelle]

48. My dad went to VN before anyone here knew where it was and my father-in-law was a trainer in the

beginning. My father retired in 63 and he said he could see it coming and he was getting to old to go off to war again. My father-in-law was a trainer and he said that it was a hopeless war from the beginning because the people didn't have the fight in him.

[tularetom]

35. Obama should try to be more like LBJ

Whatever you can say about the man, he knew how to get stuff through congress. He knew when to be persuasive, he knew when to be brutal. He wasn't above greasing the legislative wheels with a little executive branch pork and he wasn't above threats when the pork failed. He knew the right buttons to push because he'd spent most of his adult life in either the House or the Senate. Good or bad, he was a master at getting legislation passed.

Obama was in the senate for such a brief time he never really mastered how the place works. He didn't have time to develop the alliances that would work to his advantage when he became president. He didn't have time to learn the weaknesses and dirty little secrets that he could later use against his opponents or to cultivate a network of spies he could use to get them to soften their opposition.

If LBJ was president now, he'd have dossiers on Boner and McConnell and they would know he had them. And he would remind them of it every time he needed them to not oppose a bill he wanted to pass.

LBJ could have been a great president had he not made the biggest foreign policy fuckup in American history (up until that time of course).

[RKP5637]

41. Very well said, I often think similar. LBJ was a street fighter, and he

also knew the dirty tricks of all. As you said, Obama never had the chance/time to develop those skills, knowledge and tactics. LBJ would kick the asses of today's republicans all over the place, none of them would be a match for LBJ, he would have them for desert.

[treestar]

60. Obama is simply not a brutal person

You can't assign other people's personalities to them. And the times are different. No, Obama should be himself and he is.

I do not like to see bullying admired, and that seems to be a lot of people's reasons for admiring LBJ.

At any rate, there is no point in Obama being like that as he just is not that way.

[Tom Ripley]

36. That's a fine way to talk about the last great progressive Democratic President (good luck...

seeing his likes again)

[RKP5637]

43. It's a very depressing thought, but I think accurate, as you said. About the

closest democrat IMO that has real balls is Alan Grayson. I also like Bernie Sanders. Then most democrats of today leave me neutral when I think back about democrats like LBJ. We need them desperately today to save this country.

[HiPointDem]

122. there are efforts to assign the kennedy assassination to lbj and otherwise deprecate his

achievements.

i think it's part & parcel with destroying the new deal/great society heritage and reputation.

[cpwm17]

40. LBJ can never be forgiven for what he did to Vietnam

He murdered millions. People can play with definitions of war all they want, but it was LBJ that started the mass murder - entirely unprovoked.

[RKP5637]

42. And frankly IMO the US has continued on with that tradition. For a country

that loves peace we sure spend a lot of time in wars, and now big business has a wonderful profit machine with the MIC.

[Jackpine Radical]

51. Yes, and let's not forget that he lied to Congress in order to get authorization

for the buildyp.

Check out the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution & the bogus report of an attack on a US Naval craft.

[99Forever]

44. Nothing like a little revisionist history..

,,, when you're trying to make a Teabagger talking point, eh buddy?

[Chorophyll]

45. Yet I would accept either one of them ---

-- yeah, even Nixon -- over any Republican we've had since. Neither Johnson nor Nixon snatched the food from the mouths of hungry Americans. Quite the opposite, in fact. On the domestic front, Johnson was a fantastic president, and Nixon was practically a liberal compared with any current Republican.

Yes, Vietnam was a plague and one might argue that we're still feeling the repercussions. But to claim, as you appear to be doing, that LBJ was a worse president than Bush (either Bush) is ludicrous.

[hifiguy]

53. LBJ was a tragic figure, not a monster.

He did more for poor people and racial minorities than all of the other presidents of this country combined with the possible exception of FDR. And he far exceeded FDR on issues of racial justice.

Johnson has famously been quoted as telling the Pentagon brass "OK, you can have your goddamn war" only weeks after he became president. Anyone familiar with the circumstances of how LBJ came to occupy the WH has long suspected that he was allowed by TPTB to pursue the Great Society only if he let the MIC have its war.

Was Vietnam an avoidable disaster? Of course it was and JFK planned to disengage the US entirely from Vietnam following the 1964 election. Which is one of the principal reasons he did not live to see that election.

Johnson was riven with self-doubt and guilt over what he did in Vietnam. It killed him to hear those chants of "Hey Hey LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?" and that guilt and grief undoubtedly contributed to his early death. Did he have a choice? Probably not.

Nixon was a shrieking paranoid with an inferiority complex the size of Mount Everest. He was a moral monster who never felt guilt over anything.

You need to read some more history.

ETA: Calling Octafish, Octafish come in! He is the resident expert on all things JFK/LBJ and his insights cannot be topped.

[Douglas Carpenter]

54. It is naive to the point of absurdity to imagine that anyone else who would have been president at

that time would have followed a policy that would have been denounced by both parties as "surrendering Vietnam to the Communist." No Kennedy would not have done that either. Whatever he may have personally wanted to do - or anyone else who have been president at that time would personally have wanted to do - the pressure to escalate the Vietnam war would have been irresistible because of established foreign policy assumptions that held the entire foreign policy establishment of both parties hostage.

Certainly on domestic matters for the vast majority of ordinary Americans and certainly the poor and disinfranchised - Lyndon Baines Johnson was by far the best President America ever had, even if no one knew it at the time. Imagine the psychology of someone who was poor and disinfranchised in those days. They could go to sleep at night knowing that the President of the United States was on their side and was pulling out all stops to help them.

[still_one]

55. You cannot paint Johnson with a single brush. He gave us Medicare and the Civil Rights Act /nt

[cpwm17]

58. LBJ committed unprovoked mass murder against millions of men, women, and children

Last edited Fri Jul 13, 2012, 03:00 PM - Edit history (2)

Our prisons are full of people that have committed crimes that are many magnitudes less severe than that. In fact there is no one in a US prison that has done anything remotely that bad. Medicare and the Civil Rights Act are of no consequence to the Vietnamese.

We are brainwashed into thinking murder by war is somehow not as bad as murder by other means - except some war victims that are murdered by an official bad guy.

[Douglas Carpenter]

64. cold war ideology was sacrosanct at that time. no one else who could possibly have been President at

that time would have done fundamentally anything different. The Vietnam war was extremely popular and well supported in both parties, throughout the media and among the vast majority of ordinary Americans until Tet in the Spring of 1968. There were exceptions of course, But they were exceptions.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

90. True, if you disregard the fact that Goldwater was the war candidate, LBJ was the peace candidate,

and the public overwhelmingly voted against Goldwater in favor of LBJ. They did.

It is also true if the draft was unnecessary because young men rushed down to the recruiters to sign up for an optional in Viet Nam. They didn't.

Because the public knew that LBJ had lied and was lying about the Viet Nam war, a phrase was invented for his lies: the crebility gap. As noted by Wikipedia, the phrase "'Credibility gap' was first used in association with the Vietnam War in the New York Herald Tribune in March 1965, to describe then-president Lyndon Johnson's handling of the escalation of American involvement in the war." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credibility_gap

Notwithstanding the subsequent lies, the Viet Nam war started out as an unpopular war. No one had to wait for three years to know that young men were being drafted because there were not suffcient volunteers to support Johnson's war. No one had to wait for three years to know that LBJ was lying. The signifigance of the Tet offensive which started on January 30, 1968 is that it unconditionally showed that the body-count statistics of the LBJ Administration were lies and LBJ had no intention nor a plan to end the war.

You speculate that "no one else who could possibly have been President at that time would have done fundamentally anything different." You're welcome to your belief.

[Tom Ripley]

96. Actually, Goldwater was the "nuclear annihilation candidate" while LBJ was the "cold war...

business as usual candidate"
The public had overwhelmingly been conditioned into "the cold war business as usual" mindset. Thanks to politicians on both sides of the aisle (including the sainted JFK)

[treestar]

61. So did Congress of that time

[WI_DEM]

57. If you were black, old, poor or sick those people didn't necessarily 'hate' LBJ

Hell, even in 1968 most polls showed he would have beat Nixon.

Your post is very simplistic.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

153. What about the Black draftees? What about the Black, old, poor, or sick parents of draftees?

You have even a single poll showing that "he would have beat Nixon"?

1. Where is it?
2. On what basis do you believe that polls are accurate or more accurate than reality?

[The Second Stone]

62. LBJ was a bad president for Vietnam escalation

He got through some great social changes with his large Democratic majority and enormous legislative skills.

But overall, Vietnam overshadows. He did it so he wouldn't look weak on communism. But he should have known better. Had he not done it, it is likely we would have faced our Vietnam or elsewhere.

[Blue_In_AK]

63. LBJ was a complicated man,

who did a lot of good things (War on Poverty, civil rights), but got bogged down in a war not entirely of his making. I give him credit for stepping down in '68.

[ParkieDem]

67. You're right.

To think of what the country "might have been" had JFK survived ... it's almost too heartbreaking to dream about.

LBJ and Nixon's terms almost completely eroded the public's trust in government. Nixon was worse, no doubt, but both men were maniacally obsessed with power, paranoid, insecure, and virtually devoid of any type of guiding principle. True, LBJ gave us the Civil Rights Acts, and Nixon gave us OSHA and the EPA, but those moves - like just about all of their others -- were based on shrewd political calculations, and would never have happened if the presidents didn't think they could earn big-time political ROI from them.

If Kennedy had not been assassinated, we would have never suffered through the LBJ presidency - but we would have gotten antipoverty legislation and Civil Rights progress. We also probably would never have gotten Nixon. Reagan would have come along anyway, but that's another story.

[jtuck004]

71. He drove the poverty rate down, we are watching it increase today. Now that's horrible. n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

73. LBJ was actually a great president, apart from hjis huge errors in Viet Nam

He gave us what we had hoped Kennedy would give us - The Great Society, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, so, so much more. It is arguable that his one term, measured by the social advancements achieved, was the greatest one term presidency in history.

I can only speak for me, but I **greatly** admire LBJ. He was a flawed man, to be sure, but who isn't?

No, this is not to sweep aside Viet Nam. That era was mine and I served in the Navy. I was never so glad, so relieved, as the day I got out, even as I am equally proud of the day I volunteered to join.

Lemme guess. You're a young person?

[Xolodno]

74. *sigh*

Kennedy, Johnson & Nixon.....one massive Greek tragedy.

Kennedy - Assassinated before he could do everything he wanted.

Johnson - Did the right things, made one tragic mistake that cost many lives.

Nixon - EPA, OSHA, ended the Vietnam "conflict", enforced desegregation & proved you could negotiate with you enemies...despite still being tied to corporate overlords...an unforgivable sin...that would later threaten impeachment. Its too bad that he didn't also drop an f-bomb against them when it came to universal health care...but caved in on that one.

To quote my mom who was talking to Thelma "Pat" Nixon (Ryan) on the beach (before they were, told to move on by the secret service when they caught up to Pat who left without their knowing) near their beach home "She told me that he (Nixon) was essentially a prisoner to his "advisor's" despite being President and he resented it"...Apparently he resented it too much.

[FreeJoe]

75. Only the US matters?

The Vietnam war was started by the VietlMinh around 1950. We didn't get involved until later. Just because we weren't fighting doesn't mean that it wasn't a war.

As for LBJ, he was directly responsible for some of the greatest accomplishments since the New Deal. He definitely f'd up with respect to Vietnam. I wouldn't say he was horrible. His legacy is very mixed.

You could make a similar argument about Obama. He's done some good on the domestic front, but his handling of Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, drones, terrorism response, et al has been, well, extremely disappointing.

[Faygo Kid]

76. I was there for them all. W did the most incalculable damage.

Worse than Nixon. Worse than Reagan. Worse than any president in history, and I am one who puts Andrew Johnson second.

We could recover from Nixon and Reagan, if not easily. We will never recover from W.

[patrice]

80. Nixon's a close 2nd for what he did to US Military in Vietnam, splitting American labor in half, &

successfully planting the Southern Strategy.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

148. Respectfully, we cannot recover from what Nixon did.

In addition to expanding the optional war in the Far East, he is the one who is reponsible for (1) offshoring of wealth for the super-rich so that they do not pay regular taxes like other Americans and (2) offshoring/out-sourcing of American jobs to foreign countries.

He is responsible for both the DISCs rules begun in late 1971 and the trade policies with China and other Far East countries begun in 1972.

Our entire way of life is changing from such policies to benefit the super-rich. The more recent events under Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II are a continuation of such policies. We will never recover from it.

[patrice]

78. Nixon was 100s Xs worse. Intentionally fucked with LBJ's peace efforts in order to USE

the Viet Nam war as a political gambling chip and quite successfully at that and resulting in about 38,000 more American deaths there, by the end of that war in 1975.

[marybourg]

79. I lived through the Johnsen years

and I don't remember him "badly", whatever that might mean, or think he was "horrible. I think you should educate yourself on a subject fairly thoroughly before you embarrass yourself by pontificating to people who already have. There's an excellent series of BOOKS! by Robert Caro, which examines the man and his presidency in all their complexities. A google search would have uncovered them and saved you from making something of a fool of your anonymous persona.

[charlyvi]

81. He passed Medicare.

He pushed, prodded, cajoled and threatened and got it done. Anyone who has ever had Medicare or who will ever have Medicare owes him. Any child who was ever part of Head Start owes him. Defining him by Vietnam alone does his legacy and the nation a great disservice.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

99. LBJ rode on the coat-tails of Kennedy with respect to Medicare.

President Kennedy came within two votes in the Senate of gaining Medicare passage in 1963. When President Kennedy was killed, the new President took Medicare on as his first priority. He made the issue a tribute to the dead President. He said often and publicly that Medicare was President Kennedy's legacy, and it had to be passed.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/08/11/764936/-LBJ-and-Medicare-160-How-the-Job-Got-Done

[Douglas Carpenter]

116. it is not even plausible that JFK could have even come close to achieving LBJ's accomplishments

on a whole range of issues, Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, expansion of educational and job vocational opportunities and whole host of other progressive legislation. He simply did not have the legislative connections or skill

[lunatica]

84. You don't know your history

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

85. "Hey, Hey, LBJ....."

And, yes, Nixon was even worse. And, I was damned glad when both went in disgrace.

[SoDesuKa]

104. Racist War

The Vietnam War was intensely racist, a reality overlooked by people who point to LBJ's domenstic accomplishments. John Kerry was appalled by the Free Fire Zones - a policy whereby Americans shot at anything that moved in certain areas. Even My Lai was not as anomalous as some would have you believe.

[cpwm17]

105. I'm old enough to remember the claim that the Vietnamese didn't value their lives as much as us

-spoken by someone close to me. As a kid I knew that was impossible, that's why I've always remembered that disturbing claim.

Hearts and Minds is a 1974 American documentary film about the Vietnam War. The director, Peter Davis, interviewed General William Westmoreland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_and_Minds_(film)

A scene described as one of the film's "most shocking and controversial sequences" shows the funeral of an ARVN (South Vietnamese) soldier and his grieving family, as a sobbing woman is restrained from climbing into the grave after the coffin.[4] The funeral scene is juxtaposed with an interview with General William Westmoreland — commander of American military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak from 1964 to 1968 and United States Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972 — telling a stunned Davis that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient."

No, it was us that didn't value their lives.

[HiPointDem]

114. and what has changed, eh? every president since johnson has had their war -- or two or three or

four.

during johnson's war, however, he had to get on tv every few days & defend it in the face of actual reporting.

unlike the wars and presidents since, who got basically a free pass.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

155. If what you say is true, what war was conducted during President Carter's term? Or Ford's?

[HiPointDem]

172. you're correct in that there was a lull in military operations post-vietnam & post-watergate,

mainly because the military & government had been discredited.

howver, there were covert operations & aid:

East Timor:

In the case of Indonesia's illegal invasion and occupation of East Timor, Carter followed a similar path. In late 1977, when Indonesia was actually running out of military equipment, his administration authorized a dramatic increase in arms sales to Jakarta. And over the next several months, the Carter White House approved sales of fighter jets and ground-attack bombers to Indonesia's Suharto regime, whose military employed them in East Timor to bomb and napalm the population into submission. An Australian parliamentary commission would later characterize the period as one of "indiscriminate killing on a scale unprecedented in post-World War II history."

http://www.statecraft.org/chapter13.html

Operation Cyclone: On July 3, 1979, Carter signed a presidential finding authorizing funding for anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan.

Carter announced what became known as the Carter Doctrine: that the U.S. would not allow any other outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf. He terminated the Russian Wheat Deal, which was intended to establish trade with USSR and lessen Cold War tensions. He also prohibited Americans from participating in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, and reinstated registration for the draft for young males.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone


Lebanon: Seeking to block the establishment of such a government that would likely enact policies less sympathetic with the West, the United States—along with the French and Israelis—clandestinely supported the Maronites and their Phalangist militia, the largest armed group among the Maronites and their allies.... By the spring of 1976, the Phalangists and other rightist forces were on the defensive. At that point, some pro-Western elements of the Lebanese government—with the endorsement of the Arab League and the quiet support of the United States—invited Syrian forces into the country to block the LNM's incipient victory, eventually pushing back PLO and LNM forces out of the central, northern, and eastern parts of Lebanon..

http://www.fpif.org/articles/the_united_states_and_lebanon_a_meddlesome_history

Carter lauded and supported the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran until the bitter end, for example. In Nicaragua, his administration provided significant support to the hated Somoza dictatorship. And in El Salvador, he extended large amounts of military and economic aid to a country whose army was engaging in widespread massacres, even after the slaying of its Catholic archbishop, and four Americans--three Maryknoll nuns and one lay churchworker.

http://www.statecraft.org/chapter13.html


FORD, KISSINGER AND THE INDONESIAN INVASION, 1975-76

Two newly declassified documents from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, released to the National Security Archive, shed light on the Ford administration’s relationship with President Suharto of Indonesia during 1975. Of special importance is the record of Ford’s and Kissinger’s meeting with Suharto in early December 1975. The document shows that Suharto began the invasion knowing that he had the full approval of the White House.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/

[AnotherMcIntosh]

184. It's wrong to say that "every president since johnson has had their war." It's good to see that you

now recognize that.

[HiPointDem]

185. i call supplying arms, training & logistics in support of a war war-making. ymmv.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

187. Then you are wrong again.

[ailsagirl]

89. LBJ was vile. Just look into his history.

[HiPointDem]

110. no more vile than any other us president. better than many.

[ailsagirl]

125. Ever hear of Billy Sol Estes? There's a CD set called 'The Men Who Killed Kennedy' (amazon.com)

Billie Sol Estes (b. 1924, Abilene, Texas) is a scandal-ridden Texas-based financier best known for his association with US President Lyndon B. Johnson and for accusing Johnson with a variety of crimes, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Estes was born in Abilene and began amassing his fortune through the federal surplus grain program. After marrying in 1946 he moved to the small town of Pecos where he sold irrigation pumps powered by natural gas, using the profits to start another successful business selling anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.
In the late 1950s the US Department of Agriculture began controlling the price of cotton, specifying quotas to farmers. This limited overall production and Estes' businesses suffered. He responded by expanding into cotton production himself. Over the next few years he developed a massive fraud, claiming to grow and store cotton that never existed, then using the cotton as collateral for bank loans. During this same period he became involved in Texas state politics and made political contributions to US senator and later Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
On June 3, 1961, Estes' local contact at the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, Henry Marshall, was found dead in his car (reportedly with five gunshot wounds) on a remote part of his own ranch. Attributing Marshall's death to carbon monoxide poisoning brought about from a hose attached to the exhaust pipe of his car, local Justice of the Peace Lee Farmer ruled Marshall had killed himself and the body was buried without an autopsy. The suicide verdict was later overturned.
On April 4, 1962 Estes' accountant, George Krutilek, was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. Krutilek had been questioned by the FBI about Estes the day before.
As a result of these deaths and an investigation into his business practices, on April 5, 1962 Estes and several business associates were indicted by a federal grand jury on 57 counts of fraud. Estes was accused of swindling many investors, banks and the federal government out of at least twenty-four million dollars through false agricultural subsidy claims on cotton production and the use of non-existent supplies of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer as collateral for loans. Two of Estes' associates, Harold Orr and Coleman Wade, were also indicted but died of carbon monoxide poisoning (apparent suicides) before they went to trial. Estes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to eight years in prison. He was eventually found guilty of additional federal charges and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
The high-profile case had extensive national press coverage and was the first topic of President John F. Kennedy's press conference on May 17, 1962. As a result of the financial and political scandal, Kennedy apparently began considering dropping Johnson as his running mate in the 1964 election. The political fall out extended to the election of Ed Foreman as a Republican to the US Congress from west Texas in 1962. At the time he was one of only two Texas Republican congressmen out of 24. The Democrat incumbent's ties to Estes were the main cause of his defeat. Rep. Foreman was defeated two years later in 1964.

Although Estes went to prison his conviction was later overturned by the United States Supreme Court.

[HiPointDem]

126. I was an adult during the johnson era. So yes, i heard of billy sol estes, because the scandal got

major play at the time.

Much more bad press than anything the murderer george bush got.

Which is a major difference between that era and this one.

[ailsagirl]

135. Henry Marshall of the USDA was suicided

http://hidhist.wordpress.com/assassination/jfk/was-it-johnson/

Also

=snip=

In 1961, State Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation official Henry
Marshall was investigating a broad series of fraudulent government
subsidies -- amounting to figures in the seven or eight digit range --
allotted to Billie Sol Estes, a close personal friend of Senate Majority
Leader then Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson. Marshall had uncovered a
paper trail that was leading him closer and closer to Johnson himself.

On June 3, 1961, Mac Wallace knocked Henry Marshall unconscious with a
blunt object, fed the unconscious man carbon monoxide from a hose
attached to Wallace's pick-up truck, then shot him five times with a
bolt-action .22 caliber rifle and dumped him in a remote corner of
Marshall's farm near Franklin, Texas. Justice of the Peace Lee Farmer
pronounced the death a suicide and ordered Marshall buried without an
autopsy -- over the protests of Marshall's widow. The verdict remained
unchanged until 1984, when Billie Sol Estes, under a grant of immunity,
told a grand jury that Wallace had been Marshall's killer, and that the
order came from Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson through White House aide
Cliff Carter. Based on Estes' testimony and supporting evidence, the
grand jury changed the earlier ruling of suicide to murder. Mac Wallace
could not be indicted; he died in an automobile accident in Pittsburgh,
Texas, on January 7, 1971.

=snip=

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JA/DR/.dr14.html

[HiPointDem]

137. lyndon ordered the murder -- cause billy sol said so. under a grant of immunity. okey dokey.

[Nikia]

91. My hometown had reached its economic, social, and population peak during their presidencies

Now it is a shadow of its former self, with serious crime rates for a small town, high unemployment, the disappearance of the local wealthy, average wages that are less than in the mid 70's in actual dollars (not adjusted), constantly voting down school levies and other taxes for the social good, shuttered store fronts, the decline of community/social clubs, the decline of population, and low property values. Although it has been minor declining since the later 70's, serious declines happened during Reagan and the Bushes. The 60's to the mid 70's were the good old days where everyone was employed and had enough, including those who had it rougher in the previous decades.

[HiPointDem]

123. sounds like my hometown. reagan killed it, and i thought it couldn't get deader, but it's worse

today -- and it's going to get worse as the financial crisis continues to unwind.

[Dawson Leery]

94. Bush Jr. & Company nearly destroyed this nation and the world economy.

LBJ and even Nixon have nothing on that piece of s**t!

LBJ knew how to get congress to do things.

[backscatter712]

95. Except for the Vietnam thing, Johnson was actually a decent President.

Maybe a little hard to get along with. He's been known to give you The Treatment...

And the Vietnam war turned into a bloody clusterfuck - it was his greatest mistake to escalate and fight that war.

But under LBJ, we got Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Acts, the Great Society, the War on Poverty, serious federal funding for schools, etc. etc. etc.

[GoneOffShore]

106. LBJ was the ultimate old school Texas politician.

No "Third Way" for him.

He would have never have let Newtie, Boner, McConnell or any of that ilk get away shit . His intel on them would have been too good and there would be arms twisted and reputations destroyed.

Smart, but ultimately tragic, figure was LBJ.

[demosincebirth]

107. You are sooo wrong. Johnson did more for this country than any president since FDR.

I think you skipped some of your U.S. History classes.

[cpwm17]

156. Would you make the same claim if Johnson's war victims were European, British, or American?

Would a change in geography or race of his millions of victims make you change your mind?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

164. Johnson's Viet Nam war was an optional war. His victims included Americans who were unwillingly sent

including those who were killed, wounded, sprayed with Agent Orange, or unnecessarily subjected to conditions causing PTSD.

His victims also included Americans who sought to exercise the Constitutional rights during the 1968 Democratic convention and were brutalized by the Chicago police.

His war policy of promoting an unnecessary war also gave us Nixon who, in addition to continuing the optional war, adopted DISCs rules beginning in 1971 to allow the super-rich to avoid taxation by offshoring their income and adopted a trade policy in 1972 to allow the super-rich to start the process of transferring manufacturing jobs to foreign countries.

[demosincebirth]

174. I can see that discussing anything with you would be a useless venture. nt

[arely staircase]

111. w was worse than nixon

because he combined Nixon's power lust with Harding's corrupt nepotism.

[HiPointDem]

113. W = the worst president of mine & my parents' lifetimes. he was a disaster.

[arely staircase]

152. i think he was the worst ever, seriously

there have been other bad ones. harding was as corrupt. grant was arguably as incompetent (and at least turned a blind eye to corruption). nixon was the closest to being a similar abuser of power. but w is in a class by himself.

[hifiguy]

162. Worst president in US history.

Some say Buchanan, but Chimpoleon beats him, IMHO. There really aren't words for how awful the Chimp and Dickkk were. Corruption, lying, duplicity, torture; the Chimp shit the bed in every way possible.

[Raine]

136. Raygun was worse than either LBJ or Nixon the problems we have today

with the corruption that has taken over our government all goes back to Raygun, IMO.

[demosincebirth]

175. Johnson gave us the Civil Rights Act. Ask any black person how that turned out? Medicare bill? Not

too bad for a "terrible" president.

[steve2470]

138. You can make the argument that ANY President is horrible

Of course, the Republican ones are

LBJ is not the horrible guy you paint him to be. Yes, Vietnam was
a gigantic mistake and he was not a paragon of moral virtue, but which President is ?

Sorry but I find it quite odd that on a DEMOCRATIC discussion board, we're debating how
horrible one of OUR Presidents was. I know, no censorship but still.....

Try on Andrew Johnson for size, for horrible. He didn't deserve to be impeached, but
he was all about being easy on the South, too easy (and I'm a Southerner).

[Warren DeMontague]

140. It's arguable that LBJ was the consummate politician of the 20th century, 2nd only to FDR perhaps

I think Vietnam destroyed him, and his presidency, and he knew it. I think he knew it was a train wreck yet was unable or unwilling to do what it took to stop it.

Nevertheless I think he genuinely intended to do some good things, and succeeded with some of them... but, ended up doing bad things too.

[William Seger]

141. "I thought we couldn't do no worse"

It was a used car dealers' election
And the choice was rather small
The boys agreed, "it's the war we need,
So there's no president at all."
Here's to Nixon and Agnew
They are the stars of the stage and screen
Not since Laurel and Hardy
Have I laughed so hard I screamed

I thought that Johnson was the devil
I thought we couldn't do no worse
Now the White House stands in Disneyland
This country must be under a curse
Here's to Nixon and Agnew
They are the stars of the stage and screen
Not since Laurel and Hardy
Have I laughed so hard I screamed

I dreamed that Nixon died of a suntan
There was only Spiro left
At his swearing in, he fell on his chin
He assasinated himself.
Here's to Nixon and Agnew
They are the stars of the stage and screen
Not since Laurel and Hardy
Have I laughed so hard I screamed


-- Phil Ochs, "Ten Cents a Coup"

[SoDesuKa]

142. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

It was back in nineteen forty-two,
I was a member of a good platoon.
We were on maneuvers in-a Loozianna,
One night by the light of the moon.
The captain told us to ford a river,
That's how it all begun.
We were -- knee deep in the Big Muddy,
But the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, are you sure,
This is the best way back to the base?"
"Sergeant, go on! I forded this river
'Bout a mile above this place.
It'll be a little soggy but just keep slogging.
We'll soon be on dry ground."
We were -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

The Sergeant said, "Sir, with all this equipment
No man will be able to swim."
"Sergeant, don't be a Nervous Nellie,"
The Captain said to him.
"All we need is a little determination;
Men, follow me, I'll lead on."
We were -- neck deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool said to push on.

All at once, the moon clouded over,
We heard a gurgling cry.
A few seconds later, the captain's helmet
Was all that floated by.
The Sergeant said, "Turn around men!
I'm in charge from now on."
And we just made it out of the Big Muddy
With the captain dead and gone.

We stripped and dived and found his body
Stuck in the old quicksand.
I guess he didn't know that the water was deeper
Than the place he'd once before been.
Another stream had joined the Big Muddy
'Bout a half mile from where we'd gone.
We were lucky to escape from the Big Muddy
When the big fool said to push on.

Well, I'm not going to point any moral;
I'll leave that for yourself
Maybe you're still walking, you're still talking
You'd like to keep your health.
But every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We're -- waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on.
Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a
Tall man'll be over his head, we're
Waist deep in the Big Muddy!
And the big fool says to push on!

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/p/peteseegerlyrics/waistdeepinthebigmuddylyrics.html

[madrchsod]

144. i lived during those times...

it was the worse of times and it was the best of times.

you should look at the accomplishments that both men did during their presidency and weigh that against what they did wrong.

[WilliamPitt]

154. Eisenhower started the Vietnam war.

[Octafish]

157. LBJ and Nixon were the first to adhere to the 'Money Trumps Peace' line.

Last edited Sat Jul 14, 2012, 02:41 PM - Edit history (2)

War today is "Buy Partisan." Here's a bit of why that's so:

Kennedy had stated he would never send draftees into another nation's civil war. Nine months after the assassination, LBJ used the Gulf of Tonkin lie as his casus belli. Details here.

Nixon, the Crook, used the war as his way to become president. Apart from a couple of years under Jimmy Carter, all the presidents since have followed the Money Trumps Peace strategy, to my nation's shame and to the benefit of the Ownership Class.

[yurbud]

165. I hope this was meant satirically. Both LBJ and Nixon were pretty good on domestic issues

and the crimes that Nixon was run out of office for wouldn't even make a footnote on Bush's rap sheet.

[yurbud]

166. PIC: IMPEACHMENT POLLS: Bush vs. Clinton vs. Nixon for historical context

If you are going to do historical revisionism, you should at least add some evidence to make it look credible.

Unsupported statements only work in right wing viral emails, right wing talk radio, & Fox News.



http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/10/poll-numbers-on-impeaching-bush-like.html

[HiPointDem]

169. nixon & clinton scandals got non-stop press. bush got off easy in terms of press, for much worse.

[yurbud]

171. and yet looking at impeachment polls, the public figured it out nonetheless

[HiPointDem]

173. unfortunately the press didn't give the same attention to clinton's real crimes.

[yurbud]

178. anything you do for the rich is not a crime--ANYTHING

no matter how much it screws the rest of us or whether it technically "breaks the law," since laws were written for us little people.

[grasswire]

177. LBJ brought Bill Moyers to prominence -- for that I am grateful

Of course Moyers was a hard-ass then -- some call him LBJ's hatchet man, despite the mitigating influence of his education in a theological seminary.

Here is a link to Moyers' own timeline of LBJ's entrance into the Vietnam war.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/profile.html