LBJ was more progressive than JFK

[Ardent15]

It was LBJ who launched the War on Poverty. It was LBJ who introduced Medicare and Medicaid. It was LBJ who signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. It was LBJ who provided more aid to education.

Yet because of Vietnam, a war which he escalated (but did not start), his legacy is tarnished, and Democrats seem to look at his predecessor with more respect.

[H2O Man]

1. Wilt Chamberlain

was taller than LBJ.

[Uncle Joe]

43. Not if you compare

an 8 year old Wilt Chamberlain to a fully grown LBJ.

[H2O Man]

59. What if

8 year old Wilt was standing on a hill, and LBJ was sleeping in a valley?

[Uncle Joe]

60. That would be cheating,

sort of like comparing apples to oranges.

[H2O Man]

62. I agree.

It isn't good to compare apples to oranges. And even though Wilt scored 100 points in a game, his team lost. JFK and LBJ, on the other hand, were on the same team; more, LBJ's presidency is best viewed in the context of being a result of JFK's death.

[Uncle Joe]

64. I suppose

we could take two lessons from the history of Wilt.

1. A team is greater than the sum of it's parts and more likely to win when they play like a team rather than individuals.

2. Don't play Wilt Chamberlain one on one.


Peace to you, H2O Man.:hi:

[H2O Man]

68. I'd add 2.5:

It was a good decision on Wilt's part to back down on his challenge to box Muhammad Ali.

As Ali predicted, "TIMBER!!!"

[rurallib]

2. Funny, I was talking about that with a friend last night.

Had it not been for his incredible stubborn streak on Viet Nam, LBJ would be in the pantheon of greatest presidents.
As for JFK he was pretty middle of the road. Had to be pushed hard to support civil rights by Eleanor Roosevelt.

[WI_DEM]

3. Agreed. Without Vietnam (a big blot, regardless that he didn't start the war)

LBJ would be one of the great presidents. As it is, his standing has increased since he left office.

[Ardent15]

6. Yep. Say what you want about LBJ...

Yes, he was an extremely sleazy politician. Yes, he did all kinds of corrupt deals. Yes, he was a stubborn hawk on Vietnam.

The bottom line was that he enacted more progressive legislation than just about any 20th century save FDR.

[EFerrari]

4. So, you're saying that LBJ was more progressive than a dead president?

:shrug:

[Ardent15]

7. I'm saying LBJ's record in office was more progressive than JFK's record in office

True, LBJ had more time in office than JFK, but JFK was more conservative.

[MadBadger]

8. Explain how JFK was more conservative?

[Ardent15]

12. JFK was more hesistant to help the poor and enact civil rights legislation...

..than Johnson.

[MadBadger]

15. You seriously need to expand on things.

Lay it all out without being so vague.

[Ardent15]

19. I laid out what LBJ did in my OP

Tell me, what did JFK do? Create the Peace Corps?

[EFerrari]

11. You're comparing apples and oranges. Those were two completely

different moments. I give Johnson all the credit in the world for what he got done. But he was building on what was already well underway and at a different moment.

[Ardent15]

16. He could have easily sided with his Southern colleagues and stonewalled...

..but he didn't.

[EFerrari]

21. No, he couldn't have done that. Johnson was a politician and a shrewd one.

Kennedy did the spade work on poverty and civil rights and it was to Johnson's advantage to follow through. It's true that Johnson had a record of dealing with poverty. He transformed the Texas hill country. But it's not true that he was more progressive than Kennedy. Kennedy took on poverty here and around the world and he had to manage the early days of the Civil Rights Movement before anyone knew how to do that.

Johnson could not have backed down from that position and he did a good job of following through. He deserves credit for that but it certainly wasn't some kind of altruism that determined his course.

[Ardent15]

24. You have a good point...

But Johnson didn't need to back down to stonewall legislation. He could have just maintained the status quo left over from Kennedy.

And I believe that Johnson was a progressive at heart. He maintained a more conservative record in Texas because Texas is conservative. Once he got onto the national stage, that no longer mattered.

[EFerrari]

26. If you read the Kennedy docs, what you find is JFK placing controversial

stuff into his second term. Remember, he didn't win by a big margin. He wasn't more conservative, he just had to be careful not to overshoot his mandate.

That being said, although Johnson was wrong, wrong and more wrong about Viet Nam, I have a lot of respect for what he did in office. I miss Democrats like JFK and LBJ. Those were some guys. :)

[Ardent15]

28. I miss them too. I also wish RFK would have lived...

He was more progressive than both of them put together. :)

[EFerrari]

30. Yep. The day he was killed, my mom and I were resting after

walking two precincts in San Jose, btw. I still remember how hot it was that afternoon.

[Ardent15]

31. San Jose?

That's near where I live (Sunnyvale).

RFK would have had an uphill battle against Humphrey, but if he won the nomination, he could have nominated a moderate Southerner like Governor Carl Sanders of Georgia, taking some of Wallace's support, and would probably have beaten Tricky Dick (who might have then shot himself after losing to two Kennedys).

[EFerrari]

33. We lived off of Fremont between Hwy 9 and Wolf Rd at the time

but for some reason, walked in San Jose. We were so happy, too. I was about 11. What a horrible night.

[Ardent15]

36. I wasn't alive at the time....

..but God, I can't imagine what it was like in 1968. MLK and RFK being killed, the Tet Offensive, the riots in the wake of MLK's death, the riots at the Democratic Convention, Wallace getting the segregationist vote, Nixon winning...

[EFerrari]

39. I was just a little girl but my mom was very active. What I do remember

is that things were moving very quickly during the second part of the 60s. In 1968, there were riots and protests all over the world -- France, Mexico, here, Poland. It was a very difficult time.

And that's why I think it's not really possible to compare Jack's moment to Lyndon's moment because LBJ stepped in when everything was already accelerated beyond belief. It was, in many ways, a different world. :shrug:

[Ardent15]

40. In that, you and I agree

[MadBadger]

5. My assassination Conspiracies keep me from seeing your point.

[Ardent15]

9. If you're serious...

...LBJ was way too shrewd a politician to try to assassinate JFK.

He could have beaten JFK in the 1964 primary.

[Politicalboi]

47. Do you really think

LBJ could have beat JFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis? I highly doubt it.

[Ardent15]

48. That was in 1962

A lot can change in two years.

[MadBadger]

49. Kennedy's Last approval rating before Dying was 63%.

No way LBJ would have run, and if he did, he would have gotten destroyed.

[Ardent15]

51. So that's evidence that he killed JFK?

[MadBadger]

56. No, it shows that there he couldnt have beaten Kennedy in a 1964 Primary.

[Politicalboi]

61. No it was in October of 63

[Ardent15]

63. October of 62

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis>

Don't lie.

[Politicalboi]

46. Me too

Too many hands in the pie and LBJ was right there in his own state.

[Ardent15]

57. Tell me how LBJ was connected to Lee Harvey Oswald

Don't give me a site or YouTube video, tell me in your own words.

I'm sure LBJ had connections to Oswald. He had connections to pretty much everyone in Texas.
Doesn't mean anything.

[Politicalboi]

65. I am not saying LBJ

Had any connection to Oswald. Why would he have anything to do with someone who did't kill JKF. There's proof that Poppy Bush was in Dallas that day along with Nixon, and Jack Ruby campainged for Nixon in 48. I watch video's from you tube and I don't believe everything I see on them but some really make you think. No one can deny that the Secret Service stood down that day. But the question is why did they? Why were the SS all over LBJ's car and not Kennedy's? I'm just putting things together like LBJ hated JFK and LBJ wanted Viet Nam to continue. The only one blocking him was JFK. And LBJ hated Bobby too. To each his own I guess. I just hate to see LBJ glorified for what he "did". I'm sure Kennedy would have done the same and more had he lived.

[Ardent15]

66. Circumstantial evidence is all you have

I'm not gonna attempt to persuade you to my point of view.

[PM Martin]

10. Vietnam aside, he was more progressive than JFK.

[damntexdem]

13. Not true. But he was more effective.

He got the laws passed (don't forget the Older Americans Act). Many of them went through in the single year, 1965, after he won a gigantic mandate in the general election. Actually, he was a dirty politician and a back-room schemer, as well as a mean SOB; and that got the job done.

But he betrayed the Democratic Party, and any progressive cause, by escalating Vietnam into a major conflict. It has taken four decades to overcome that wounding and division.

[Ardent15]

14. Yeah, Vietnam tarnished him, I'm not arguing with that

But his record is more progressive than JFK's on the domestic front.

And of course he was a dirty politician. He was a Texas Democratic politician.

[MrMickeysMom]

17. I'm not sure you have the complete story on LBJ-

who DID make Medicare history in his administration. He DID launch the war on poverty, and who DID sign the Civil Rights and Voting Act.

But, he was not the genesis of this domestic legislation. His reversal of troop withdrawal in SE Asia enabled a full scale war in Viet Nam, something JFK had months before worked progressively to avoid, while at the same time working to avoid the cold war.

LBJ penned domestic policies in my opinion in large part for his sins against JFK.

[Ardent15]

18. What sins against JFK?

Be more specific.

[MrMickeysMom]

25. How about the reversal the National Security Action Memoranddum #263?

Had JFK lived, all that happened in Vietnam after 1964, would not have taken place.

NSA #263, of Oct 11, 1963... do you recall? This contained a summary of the plan from the issuance of NSAM #55 in July 1961, which had vowed to bring 1,000 Americans home from Vietnam by Christmas, 1963.

We were to have all U.S. personnel out of Vietnam by the end of 1965.

Kennedy's death brought about a total reversal of that carefully structured White House policy. The person responsible for reversing that - Lyndon Baynes Johnson.

Is that specific enough?

[Ardent15]

27. Ah, makes sense. Don't get me wrong, Johnson's record is mixed precisely because of Vietnam....

[MrMickeysMom]

50. I think it hastened his own death...

I'm sure he had many regrets.

We visited the LBJ ranch before we left as residents of TX. I had this sense of the person he wanted to be when there. I think this came in large part from being an educator and being a farm boy.

[Ardent15]

52. He was from a poor family, and he sympathized with the underdog...

That's part of what drove him, I believe.

His aides who were there during the Vietnam protests at the White House said that the people chanting "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" and similar slogans crushed his heart.

[MrMickeysMom]

69. Quite possibly...

In politics, there is NO sympathy... :-(

[tblue]

22. Whatever his reasons, he took a huge personal and political risk to do the right thing.

That's no small thing.

[Ardent15]

29. Yep. He delivered the South to the GOP

[kiva]

32. What exactly do you mean by that?

Any politician who supported the Civil Rights movement would have lost the South--the Dixiecrats huffed out of the Dem convention in 1948 because Humphrey wanted to add a couple of moderate planks into the platform. LBJ was remarkably successful when it came to domestic issues, including Civil Rights reform--no one could who opposed Jim Crow could have kept the South.

[Ardent15]

34. How many people would have the guts to sign the Civil Rights Act?

What LBJ did was incredibly risky. It was a great thing, but it put a lot of votes into the opposing party.

[kiva]

41. Agreed. It took a lot of courage to make that decision,

and I admire LBJ for it. FDR was always candid about the fact that he wouldn't support anti-lynching legislation because he would lose Southern support for his New Deal programs, which he felt were more important. Truman's decision to integrate the armed forces cost him some support also.

[Ardent15]

42. Yeah, Truman's decision created the Dixiecrats which nearly cost Truman..

..the 1948 election.

[tblue]

20. I have tremendous respect for LBJ for this reason. JFK did not take the risks Johnson did.

RFK did, but not JFK.

[Ardent15]

23. Agreed. Bobby and Ted were/ are the real progressives in the Kennedy clan

A lot of JFK's supporters later voted for Reagan. JFK was more of a politician than a progressive.

[omega minimo]

35. what's with your anti-JFK vendetta?

[ConcernedCanuk]

37. JFK was sorta busy with the Cuban Missile Crisis, then sideswiped by the Bay of Pigs thing

.
.
.

Then someone whacked him . . .

Who knows what he may have accomplished if he'd lived longer

He was about to castrate the Industrial Military Complex methinks

But a bullet(or two) ended that dream

[Ardent15]

38. Castrate the MIC? He was expanding it with the space program...

[Politicalboi]

44. LBJ helped kill JFK

He deserves nothing. JFK would have done all that and more. JFK would have stopped Viet Nam. Part of the reason he was killed. LBJ was going to be impeached if it weren't for the assassination. LBJ another loser from Texas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meCnZOZqNk0

[Ardent15]

45. You have no evidence that LBJ in any way helped kill JFK.

That's an accusation that demands a lot of evidence. Some YouTube clip won't help.

[Politicalboi]

54. I could give you sites to go to

But I am one of conspiracy nuts you hear about. So you tube that has archives of footage is somehow wrong? How about this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY02Qkuc_f8

It's a known fact then LBJ didn't like JFK and JFK was going to stop Viet Nam. A lot of people were going to lose all kinds of money if the war stopped. Trying to disprove the governments story as you know is a hard thing to do 46 years and standing. I wish I had the smoking gun but I don't. I will never think otherwise about JFK or 9/11.

[kiva]

53. LBJ would have been impeached as VP?

Is this a new part of the conspiracy cohort?

[Politicalboi]

67. I wish I could find something on it

But all I have was the you tube video. So for the sake of saying you tube is all lies then just forget it. It never happened. I'm sure others have heard that but you tube is all I got. After all the cover up, the truth is hard to come by.

[Spike89]

55. A false comparison

Had JFK followed a popular president gunned down mid-term, who knows what he could have accomplished? LBJ won one of the biggest blowouts ever in 1964, would Kennedy have done even better in that climate? Who knows, but you can't compare because Kennedy's assassination changed everything. No disrespect to the victims of 9/11, but Kennedy being shot made a bigger impact on the politics of the time than 9/11 did in its time (partly because Bush was so awful and brazen about politicizing 9/11).

[ReliantJ]

58. JFK>LBJ. Woot!