(Outside of Vietnam) Was LBJ a good President?

[LBJ Revivalist]

Outside of Vietnam, do you consider LBJ to be a good-great president? I'd say outside of Vietnam he's an A grade president, Vietnam drags him to a C grade.

[LBJ Revivalist]

Of course.

To be honest, I think if not for Vietnam he would've been as popular as FDR is and was. And LBJ never interred any American citizens based on their ethnicity as far as I know.

[LBJ Revivalist]

No, he was a great liar and manipulator of the press who used tactics similar to Nixon but unlike him managed to keep the press on his side and was never held accountable.


Not to mention the fact that his policies did what Slavery and Segregation never could, destroy the African American family.

He was an F on all fronts and an F- on Vietnam which he both escalated and subsequently lost for the US.

Well you figure while he escalated over Vietnam he only presided over the war from 65-69 (as that's when the war went from just being military personnel to ground troops), Nixon and Ford had the war from 69-75 and presided over the middle and end of it and tried different strategies and still weren't able to win.

And I love that you basically say his policies were worse than segregation and slavery. Slavery did destroy families. Families were split apart at auctions and sold to different masters.  They were token on boats away from their families where many of them became sick and died Slavery dehumanized the African American people as nothing more than a possession, a thing to be bought and sold. It was a hateful, humiliating existence for them.

And I guess the ones who were lucky enough to not be sold to different masters did stay together as a family since slavery was, you know, a generational thing. The son or daughter of a slave was by birth also a slave. But you go on comparing the Great Society and Civil Rights Act to slavery and those black voters will keep turning out 90% GOP every election.

 I love that old Republican "They destroyed the African American family" Sort of like the Welfare Queen Reagan spoke often of, or how Republicans say Blacks vote Democrat because they're brainwashed and don't know any better. I'd say in the last 30-40 years Conservatives have a much more dark record on race.

[LBJ Revivalist]

Funny how I only see reference to his ''bugging'' of Goldwater's HQ on Conservative websites such as Free Republic and the Heritage Foundation. Not exactly unbiased sources.

I still think he was one of the best, personally.

And divorce rates climbed overall in the 60s and 70s for all races, I don't think it had as much to do with LBJ as it did with the growing social openness and liberalism. I've read divorce dates in the late 60s doubled, and they've been rising ever since. I think it was just a facet of the era, rather like the Hippie movement, which was nothing more than a Communist inspired 50s Beatnik & 1920s Bohemian movement on steroids.

Moderator note: In future, please avoid crossposting identical replies to multiple threads.  The two copies of this post made in the The Civil War thread caused me to be in a shoot first ask questions later mentality. Quoting what you are responding to when it isn't in the post immediately previous would also help. Post restored to original text.

[LBJ Revivalist]

He was a socialist who used the poor, elderly, and minorities for his own political gain. If it weren't for the GOP the civil rights bill would never have been passed.

It was introduced by a Democratic congressmen, by the way.
And LBJ could've vetoed it if he really wanted political gain.
And from everything I've read about him, he genuinely felt for the poor and minorities. The guy was a teacher when he was younger and taught Mexican kids who could barely speak English and he tried as hard as he could to give them a good education.

[LBJ Revivalist]

Funny how I only see reference to his ''bugging'' of Goldwater's HQ on Conservative websites such as Free Republic and the Heritage Foundation. Not exactly unbiased sources.

I still think he was one of the best, personally.

And divorce rates climbed overall in the 60s and 70s for all races, I don't think it had as much to do with LBJ as it did with the growing social openness and liberalism. I've read divorce dates in the late 60s doubled, and they've been rising ever since. I think it was just a facet of the era, rather like the Hippie movement, which was nothing more than a Communist inspired 50s Beatnik & 1920s Bohemian movement on steroids.

Indeed, but the movement was disproportionately among blacks in the era. In 1950, the percentage of intact White families was 88%, for blacks it was 78%. Over the twelve years following 1967, the percentage of blacks dropped to 59% while Whites were still at 85%. Most of the decline came after 1967. You can't dispute that the black family 1) collapsed in this period 2) if did, what else caused it to drop so much compared to whites. Certainly the things you mentioned had an impact and certainly didn't help but financial incentives are powerful forces and in an environment in which family and marriage were being challenged by social changes, one can be sure that it had a large impact. Keep in mind blacks are overall much poorer and thus more likely to need assistance and so the effect of it would be much larger on them.

Bugging was fairly common in that era before laws were enacted following Wategate. J Edgar Hoover used them against Martin Luther King Jr. This source mentions the "bugging of Goldwaters campaign plane" and is hardly a right wing source either and it is describing a passage from a book which it names above

Well, to be honest, if it comes down to greed--Which that's what it would come down to, as you said money being a big incentive to people--Than you can't blame greedy people for a system. What I mean is...Is it the fault of the program or the fault of people who feel its easier to get money from the government than keep a family together? I blame the individuals who abuse the system for abuses, not the system itself.

I think in the end the programs he created or helped create have done more good than harm for a lot of people, you don't have to agree. I don't really agree with Welfare though as in Food Stamps and whatnot, I think welfare should be more workfare.

And the Great Society was more than just Medicaid and Medicare--It had such great environmental legislation, educational legislation for example the secondary school grants and Nursing Program grants which helped revitalize the Nursing industry and within a decade or so turned it from a relatively low paying and under taught skill to becoming a professional occupation. My mother benefited greatly from the Nurse Training Act, the school she attended used it to fund a 'free' program for potential students whose parents worked at that hospital. Or the Bilingual Education Act, which offered aid to schools to teach children English. Or the Teacher Corps. Or the Higher Education Act. Or Head Start--A great program which has benefited many kids, many of whom I know who aren't users and it enriched their lives. It was just about Medicare or Medicaid, and a lot of the Great Society programs have done a lot of good.

And I believe the War on Poverty, which was aside from the Great Society, worked. It didn't eliminate poverty, but that's not possible. But I've read poverty rates for both blacks and whites and while the white poverty rate didn't decline significantly, the black poverty rate within a decade went down by more than 20%.

The overall Poverty Rate (all races) in 1960 was 22.2%, and in 1974 (ten years after the War on Poverty began) it was 11.2%

The white poverty rate overall in 1960 was 17.8, and in 1974 it was 8.6%.

The black poverty rate overall in 1960 was 55.1 and in 1974 was 30.3%.

And if bugging was common than, and really not challenged until Watergate, I don't see the problem with it. I really didn't see the problem with Watergate itself either. It's politics, politics is like war, all sorts of dirty tricks abound. Bugging is just more obvious. The press had a big issue with Nixon from the '60s and were just waiting for him to slip up, and as he said himself, he gave them a sword and they twisted it in with relish. Sadly it ended a nice era of private presidential recordings; I love listening to people like FDR or JFK or LBJ or Nixon speak in private and casually, it sort of sheds light on who they are as people.

[LBJ Revivalist]

He was a socialist who used the poor, elderly, and minorities for his own political gain. If it weren't for the GOP the civil rights bill would never have been passed.

It was introduced by a Democratic congressmen, by the way.
And LBJ could've vetoed it if he really wanted political gain.
And from everything I've read about him, he genuinely felt for the poor and minorities. The guy was a teacher when he was younger and taught Mexican kids who could barely speak English and he tried as hard as he could to give them a good education.

Uh, LBJ opposed civil rights throughout his career. Even when presidential aspirations caused him to flip-flop on the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Johnson's primary goal was to water it down as much as possible.

Johnson was a crooked lying sociopath who didn't care about anyone but himself and his own political ambition.

Johnson's agenda, foreign and domestic, was a total failure by any reasonable measure.

He may have done that in '57 but with the '64 Act he fought tooth and nail to ensure it wasn't diluted, and was told by other Southern Democratics that it'd cost him his political career, however by then his views had changed and he fought for it's passage. He felt had Kennedy been alive it would've been watered down like the '57 bill.

People's opinions can change, and people's opinions in private and in public can contradict. Nixon created Affirmative Action for the most part and also is credited with fully desegregating schools yet in private believed blacks were ''just down from the trees.'' Politicians overall are weird people.

And I think he cared a lot about this nation, but that's just my opinion.

[LBJ Revivalist]

He was a socialist who used the poor, elderly, and minorities for his own political gain. If it weren't for the GOP the civil rights bill would never have been passed.

It was introduced by a Democratic congressmen, by the way.
And LBJ could've vetoed it if he really wanted political gain.
And from everything I've read about him, he genuinely felt for the poor and minorities. The guy was a teacher when he was younger and taught Mexican kids who could barely speak English and he tried as hard as he could to give them a good education.

Uh, LBJ opposed civil rights throughout his career. Even when presidential aspirations caused him to flip-flop on the Civil Rights Act of 1957, Johnson's primary goal was to water it down as much as possible.

Johnson was a crooked lying sociopath who didn't care about anyone but himself and his own political ambition.

Johnson's agenda, foreign and domestic, was a total failure by any reasonable measure.

He may have done that in '57 but with the '64 Act he fought tooth and nail to ensure it wasn't diluted, and was told by other Southern Democratics that it'd cost him his political career, however by then his views had changed and he fought for it's passage. He felt had Kennedy been alive it would've been watered down like the '57 bill.

People's opinions can change, and people's opinions in private and in public can contradict. Nixon created Affirmative Action for the most part and also is credited with fully desegregating schools yet in private believed blacks were ''just down from the trees.'' Politicians overall are weird people.

And I think he cared a lot about this nation, but that's just my opinion.

LBJ fought for the CRA of 64 because it's passage would add to his presidential prestige while it's defeat would have been an embarrassment. Johnson was a two-faced backstabbing bigot like Nixon; both were vile human beings.

"The Civil Rights program is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill... I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill...I have voted against the FEPC."
--Lyndon B. Johnson

Sounds more like something Goldwater or Ron Paul would say, seeing as they viewed the later Civil Rights Act as tyranny.