Wow! I was googling to find a pix of LBJ with long hair & found an old DU thread from 2004

[graham4anything]

and it goes without saying, I love LBJ (and think he indeed is #3 on the all time list).
Wish we had LBJ now in the senate as majority leader ramming everything through.
Lincoln=FDR=LBJ=OBAMA=CARTER
the five singular greats are one.(IMHO)

I don't include JFK because sad to say we were not given the time needed to judge what # he would be.

This is a great thread from June 2004
Because it is an archieved one, there are no photos in the links in this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1265778

[img][/img]

[life long demo]

1. Sorry, but you don't have JFK on there

We probably differ on where he belongs, but in my book it's Lincoln, FDR, JFK

[waddirum]

2. I can't see a photo on this thread or the other thread

Any way you can post a link to the picture.

[LaydeeBug]

3. What waddirum said. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

4. LBJ did a lot of great things, but shit on his own legacy with his intransigence on Vietnam.

I remember the night I heard on a little transistor radio that he wouldn't run in '68.

I was in a foxhole on a small 1st Cav LZ just south of the DMZ, and we weren't supposed to have personal radios.

But that night you could tell which of the perimeter holes had radios in them by the eruptions of spontaneous cheering. Soon word spread to the holes without civilian radios, as grunts in those locations used their military radios to call others in order to find out what the hell was going on. In less than a minute, the whole perimeter was in an uproar.

I often wondered what the enemy troops out there in the darkness beyond the perimeter thought.

[Brother Buzz]

5. I don't see any photos of LBJ so I'll offer this cool one

[graham4anything]

6. Photo of LBJ with Long hair

[img][/img]

[Warpy]

7. I've always thought ramping up the Vietnam War

was the price he (and we) paid for getting civil rights legislation through. I think it was the best bargain he could make, slaughtering 55,000 American kids and who knows how many Vietnamese people in order to help free women and people of color here in the US from heavy oppression.

He said going in that it was going to be a horrible mess. He knew that from the beginning and my impression has always been that it was forced on him.

I don't know if losing so many of my friends over there so that I could work all the non traditional jobs I did work is worth it. It was a terrible thing to contemplate being a quid pro quo.

Johnson wasn't a stupid man, nor was he vicious. He was just ruthless in achieving some of the things he knew the country needed and didn't mind whose toes he stepped on in the process. However, all the civil rights legislation was so sweeping and made so many deep changes that I've always found a dreadful bargain with war hawks in order to get it passed a distinct possibility.

He looks kinda cute as a geriatric hippie, anyway.

[RobertEarl]

8. Yeah

If he had been a peace-nik he'd have never made it to office, ever.

The whole "Stop Communism" was the legacy of the WW2 warriors who owned the country then. LBJ was just caught up in the mess and he had to go along to get along or he was nothing and a nobody.

As it is, he was a great somebody who did a hell of a lot for a great number of people.

[graham4anything]

9. Yup! That is why I base my views on social issues and from the poor up.

in no other area but the military is the old canard 100% true all the time
and no one can stray from it, and this was started originally by Ike, and we have no idea
how any other president would have done any different anyhow.

(the old canard is the one about changing that which we can, knowing that which we can't and accepting the difference)

I do know had those who sold LBJ down the river in 1968 not done so, he would have beaten Nixon in a down and dirty race, but he would have won.
And the world would have been better off following that, and most likely Bobby would then have been President in 1972 and 1976 and we never would have gotten Ford, Reagan Bush41, Bush43 and would not have to deal with the threat of Jeb in 16.

and as a couple of those posts in that 2004 thread point out
without LBJ we might have never gotten civil rights/voting rights and all the 50 other acts signed (and that goes without saying President Obama couldn't have voted let alone become President 50 years later).

[LeftInTX]

10. I just had a bunch of dental work done and might not be thinking straight

So, my apologies if I misread.

Johnson's undoing in Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

It is believed by some to be a "look tough" strategy against Barry Goldwater in 1964.

I don't blame Eisenhower or Kennedy on this one.

Johnson bowed out on his own because he knew he had blown it. RFK was still alive when Johnson bowed out. RFK was on his way to becoming the Dem nominee.

It was the tragic loss of RFK that handed the election to Nixon.

[graham4anything]

12. If LBJ preservered, Bobby never would have entered the race(fact)and been alive in 1972(hope)

McCarthy would not have long term prevailed. It wouldn't have happened, but Bobby only ran once LBJ dropped out

(and LBJ should have come back after Bobby died. I loved HHH but he was not as strong as LBJ and by then the fracture left HHH with all the baggage anyhow and it showed/hurt him.

I would have loved to see LBJ/Nixon run against each other

We never actually have gotten two titans at the same time running against each other

Never did Reagan go vs. Teddy
(wish Teddy had run any other year but 1980, and/or wish somehow Teddy became Carter's VP and the two ran togehter. Teddy then could have won in 1984 and 1988.

But based on what we know now (or is it now know) LBJ could have beated Nixon head to head. LBJ knew how to win.

And RFK would still be alive to run in 1972 and 1976.

And perhaps the one bad in Teddy's life would not have occurred either.

(and we will get the two titans in 2016 for the soul of the country(Hillary/Jeb).
Would have been something to see President Obama cream a bush himself, but he was too chickenspit to run this time but this another thread).

[hifiguy]

14. The Vietnam War was the price TPTB/MIC exacted from LBJ

in return for the Great Society. That is all.

[Democracyinkind]

11. Strange... I've never met anyone whose top five matched mine exactly.

Usually, the point in which I differ from others is JFK, but I really do not believe that he holds up to the other 5, although there is lots of laudable stuff he did. However, I do suspect that if RFK would have gotten his rightful chance, I would have a list of six instead of 5 - but that may just be me being fancy with conterfactualism.

[graham4anything]

13. Wow, I never did either.

yeah. We can't know what someone might have done we can only know who actually did get the accomplishment and used their capital to get it..

A few more democratic presidents following and both LBJ and Jimmy Carter will be fully redeemed.

I always delete the worst of someone and the best, and then all those other things show the true person.