Is Joe Biden the best US President since LBJ?

[LBJer]

the modern left's love affair with this asshole is always funny to me

I don't think it should really be a surprise that the left likes the Civil Rights and Great Society president.

if that was his only actions you'd have an excellent point, but you know there is more to him than that.  Lefties of the time knew. For some reason, hundreds of thousands of dead brown men, women and children doesn't matter to modern lefties because you don't have any problem hand waving those deaths away.

Straw man.  It's not a matter of "waving those deaths away."  It's a matter of putting Vietnam into historical context and also of acknowledging that it is not the sum total of LBJ's record--that he did other things that were of comparable, and arguably greater, importance.

By using your type of reasoning, I could accuse you of being morally bankrupt for waving civil rights away and treating it as unimportant.

[LBJer]

the modern left's love affair with this asshole is always funny to me

I don't think it should really be a surprise that the left likes the Civil Rights and Great Society president.

if that was his only actions you'd have an excellent point, but you know there is more to him than that.  Lefties of the time knew. For some reason, hundreds of thousands of dead brown men, women and children doesn't matter to modern lefties because you don't have any problem hand waving those deaths away.

Straw man.  It's not a matter of "waving those deaths away."  It's a matter of putting Vietnam into historical context and also of acknowledging that it is not the sum total of LBJ's record--that he did other things that were of comparable, and arguably greater, importance.

By using your type of reasoning, I could accuse you of being morally bankrupt for waving civil rights away and treating it as unimportant.

he passed legislation that was inevitable, that he only passed for votes, not for some grand desire to help the down trodden and since it's passage, the people it was designed to help have done WAY worse than they were doing before.  If that outweighs a million dead to you, well, to me that's not a good look, but I understand it's quite normal with the modern left...hence my first post.  Your grandparents knew LBJ sucked, that's why if nominated he will not run.

And where do you put taking a dump during meetings, wandering around naked and pissing whenever he felt like it into historical context?  Sounds more like Trump (if he didn't have small "hands") than an important civil rights leader.

It's far from obvious that the legislation was "inevitable."  And the evidence strongly suggests that no, he didn't pass it just for votes.  And wars that have cost more than a million dead have been waged with far less moral justification that a war for civil rights would have been. 

And I strongly doubt that most African Americans and other minorities would say they're worse off today than before LBJ's presidency.

And "taking a dump during meetings" and such is neither here nor there.

[LBJer]

The premise that LBJ only passed civil rights legislation for electoral expediency is pretty absurd given by all accounts he expected to pay a serious electoral penalty for it. And calling his administration's civil rights achievements inevitable is beyond delusional. Vietnam was evil and indefensible but we don't need to rewrite history on something unrelated to make LBJ look like an even bigger bastard than he actually was, an accurate retelling of history makes him look bad enough without needing to deny his indisputable and substantial redeeming qualities

U.S. combat involvement in Vietnam wasn't "evil."  It was definitely enormously destructive and tragic, but it grew out of a mindset that most Americans at the time sincerely subscribed to.  In that sense, it was predictable.