Posted on 11/09/2004 11:55:51 AM PST by neverdem
GWB may be the GOP's LBJ.
With a historic electoral victory at his back, George W. Bush is now being compared to some pretty consequential presidents. Lincoln and FDR--as war presidents--immediately come to mind. But there is another, more obvious, comparison that strikes to the heart of why the left hates this president with such intensity. GWB may be the Republican LBJ.
This isn't meant with any disrespect to Mr. Bush. Nor are the two simply comparable because they both came from Texas, came to power after each man's party prevailed in a narrow electoral victory (LBJ served out the term John F. Kennedy barely won over Richard Nixon in 1960) or because both were faced with a protracted war abroad while their party controlled both houses of Congress.
The two presidents are comparable for the place they share in their respective political movements. Today we cannot be sure what place JFK would have in history had he lived. But we do know that upon assuming the presidency and then later launching his Great Society welfare programs, LBJ delivered a second wave of liberal ideas that propelled the progressive movement well into the 1970s--which isn't bad for a political philosophy based on the faulty economic assumptions that high taxes, price controls and expensive government handouts could deliver a booming economy. Without LBJ, it is conceivable that FDR's New Deal ideas of the 1930s and '40s would have run out of steam in the 1960s--continuing to roll on through Social Security and other established programs, but no longer pushing forward public policy prescriptions for new and emerging problems.
Today President Bush represents a similar second wave of fresh ideas for a political movement that came of age a generation before he became president: the Reagan revolution. President Bush has revived the...
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Ping.
Until Lyndon and his Democrats decided to put the New Deal and the Great Society on the nations credit card.
Similar to LBJ because the Prescription Drug Benefit and No Child Left Behind are like the Great Society programs, except they cost more money.
"Similar to LBJ because the Prescription Drug Benefit and No Child Left Behind are like the Great Society programs, except they cost more money."
And there's more where they came from, too. Let's see, we have the illegal alien "NON-amnesty" program. Social Security reform which doesn't cut any payments to the retired or soon-to-be retired. I'm sure there are some other things, too...I'll think of them right after I stop writing.
I just hope no universal healthcare.
Dang. I saw the title and thought the article was about Yassar.
They're both socialists.
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