Posted on 07/11/2006 6:14:32 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Why is the father of The Great Society ignored? Sure, he messed up with Viet Nam, but that's blamed on W anyway, but he made sure to transfer zillions of dollar$$$ from your back pockets to the back pockets of other people. What's up with that?
"In 1954, the French implored Eisenhower to send the U.S. Navy to rescue Vietnam. Eisenhower refused. He acquiesced in the division of Vietnam into a Communist North and a South informally allied with the United States and sent a few hundred advisors."
If you can believe Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Eisenhower
Hell, Truman bears some responsibility, too, for not giving Uncle Ho his due after fighting the Japs along with us.
1. The 'Rats try to blame Vietnam on Nixon, but they know that there are too many people who won't go along with that and remember chanting things like, "Hey, Hey LBJ how many boys did you kill today?" They also realize that if history were to be assessed accurately, that the initial blame for Vietnam would have to be put on JFK and the WILL NEVER allow that, so they let LBJ be the fall guy.
2. The civil rights movement and Great Society hurt the 'Rats more than it helped them. They alienated the Southern politicians and furthered the notion of the elite Northeast liberal. Nixon won in 1968 because he won the South and the 'Rats will never forget this. They realize today that they have lost the South and that their only success on the national level has been to run Southerners (Carter and Clinton) and pretend they are moderates. By the time 2000 came around they realized that they couldn't even pull that charade off anymore. Were it not for LBJ, they think they would still have the South and with it total control of the country.
Ladybird owned Fruhoff (which was the exclusive contracted transporter of military stuff) and much of Bell Helicopter (Huey's--the disposable vehicle of Viet Nam).
How true. For liberals, history is always being rewritten.
But as the old saying goes, Democrats start wars, Republicans end them.
A Ho Ho for Uncle Ho or maybe just a Ho. We should have also given Castro a job playing baseball.
Leni
LBJ gave dems every liberal program they ever wanted, but as a southerner from Texas he was never accepted. To the NE liberal intellectuals, LBJ was common, maybe even crass... sooooooo not a Kennedy.
If only Adolf's watercolor pictures were prettier . . .
Johnson lied, soldiers died.....
Vietnam was most properly Kennedy's war although we'd been creeping up on it since Truman. Eisenhower was wise enough to plan for contingencies but keep our role to belated support to the French.
Johnson's blunders were in ramping up much faster than would have happened otherwise, in believing that he'd get the same party support his former boss had enjoyed, in believing that the administration had been widely popular & that it would continue if he waived JFKs banner, and in being much more suited to local politics than world affairs.
More than 'why do liberals ignore Johnson'....why do we let them ignore kennedy's being an old school, elitist more than liberal, hawk?
It was apparently necessary to sacrifice LBJ so that John Boy could remain as their slain icon. Once Nixon gained office the left sort of pulled a curtain over johnson's years and went full press after a more comfortable target.
They got away with both and we are still hearing odes to JFK and his illegitimate political offspring WJC.
I think the answer is simple. Because the LBJ presidency was a "failed" presidency. LBJ tucked his tail between his leg and declined to run in 1968 because of VN. BTW the Carter presidency was a "failed" presidency as well, after the Desert One fiasco, the misery index, etc. etc. You don't see libs talking up the Carter years either.
In the libs minds, the clinton presidency was a "banner success". Of course we all know that was an illusion, but they dont' see it that way. Same with JFK.
It's all about wanting to associate onself with a "winner".
Nothing more complicated than that.
As bad as Carter and Clinton were, LBJ by far did the most damage to this country in the long run. At least Carter's mistakes were mostly corrected by Reagan.
Let's not forget that it was the Kennedy administraion that got us militarily involved in Vietnam. Also, the CIA under the Kennedy administration assassinated South Vietnam's premier because he was not "someone we can work with." Johnson escalated the Vietnam War by lying about the Gulf of Tonkin.
This begs the question "what was citizen Nixon supposed to do about it". Since Nixon was no longer an elected official when JFK was killed, what was he supposed to do? Liberals... just plain stupid.
If JFK were in today's Democratic Party, they would run him out just like they are with Lieberman.
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