Obama & LBJ: Even with Great Society & historic Civil Rights legislation, LBJ was sunk by the war

[yurbud]

pardon me for being impolite, but if Obama signs health care reform that looks anything like the deeply compromised and watered down bills in the House and Senate, that will hardly be an accomplishment on par with starting Medicare, most of college financial aid, and finally ensuring the full civil rights of African Americans.

LBJ did all that, and people still hated him for the war, and he was unable to run for a second term of his own.

Obama won't have even the figleaf of a major domestic policy victory to cover continuing and escalating the war in Afghanistan. He will barely have an aphid on a figleaf if he keeps following the path of micro-incremental, semi-reforms of the DLC, and worse, leaving the criminals who caused our economic problems in charge of economic policy instead of throwing them off the roof of the White House.

I think Obama is a good guy, but our democracy has a serious problem when he can't take the action necessary to correct our problems for fear of offending the people who created the problem, even as their actions are likely to drag us into more debt, war, and poverty.

[Hippo_Tron]

1. Nixon, on the other hand, escalated the war and got re-elected in a landslide

I think Obama is trying to repeat what Nixon did, not what LBJ did.

[wileedog]

2. The Vietcong didn't destroy 2 towers in downtown Manhatten

Can we stop this stupid analogy?

[IndianaGreen]

3. and neither did the Taliban

[yurbud]

9. neither did any Afghans or the Taliban for that matter. If it was really about 9/11 we would have

invaded Saudi Arabia.

Just because they peddle that stupid War on Terror shit on TV and talk radio doesn't mean you can sell that childish propaganda here.

If it was about Al Qaeda, we could have wrapped that up in a month or two.

[VMI Dem]

4. He couldn't carry LBJ's jockstrap.

Sorry.

[IndianaGreen]

6. or his hat!

LBJ was a hands on President when he fought for Medicare and Civil Rights.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Equating Afghanistan with Vietnam? Completely absurd.

We lost as many American soldiers in two weeks of Vietnam in 1969 as we have in eight years in Afghanistan. Get real.

[IndianaGreen]

7. While the body count is not the same, politically they are very similar

but give Obama enough time, he just might cause the death a lot of people.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Your writing is becoming as incoherent as your thinking