It’s come to Broadway:
Last week’s observations of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act have rekindled debate over just how LBJ and his presidency ought to be remembered. Albert Hunt argues that the architect of the Great Society is under-appreciated, due in large part to the shadow of the Vietnam War:
In a Gallup poll, only 20 percent of Americans rated LBJ an above-average president, a lower ranking than George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter. Yet the 36th president affected the lives of most Americans and changed the fabric of today’s society more than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. …
It is especially appropriate to spotlight these civil rights measures now, as state legislatures, and even the U.S. Supreme Court, are rolling back some of those protections. Likewise, the conventional wisdom is that Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty failed. The centerpiece was the 1965 enactment of Medicare and Medicaid. Despite worries about future financing and occasional scams, Medicare is central to the contemporary American experience. Last year, 52 million Americans were on Medicare and 57 million were on Medicaid.
But, to Michael Kazin, the horror of Vietnam trumps LBJ’s civil rights record:
Of course, to remember what the United States, during LBJ’s tenure, did to Vietnam and to the young Americans who served there does not cancel out his domestic achievements. But to portray him solely as a paragon of empathy, a liberal hero with a minor flaw or two, is not merely a feat of willful amnesia. It is deeply immoral.
In 1965, as Johnson was pushing Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act and Medicare, he was also initiating the bombing of North Vietnam and signing the orders which eventually sent over 500,000 U.S. troops to occupy and fight to “pacify” the Southern half of that country. At the time, liberal Democrats who opposed the war condemned the hypocrisy of a President who could help millions of Americans win their rights and a degree of medical security while he oversaw the destruction of what he called “a raggedy ass little third rate country.” Fifty years later, powerful Democrats in search of a usable past would just prefer to ignore the contradiction.
Jonathan Bernstein disputes the conventional wisdom that Obama would be a more effective president if only he were willing to push people around like LBJ did:
Once we get past the fairy tales and look at the limited effects of Johnson’s bullying style, we understand that intimidation might work in the short run, but has important long-term costs. For one thing, presidents need information, and intimidation isn’t always the best way to get it. Even the most careful presidents find it hard to get people to tell them bad news. Wouldn’t it be harder if bullying and humiliation are added to the price? …
There’s a tendency among Johnson supporters to see the war as separate from the good parts of his presidency. At its worst, that thinking comes close to a claim that Vietnam was something that happened to Johnson, while historic legislation is something that he made happen. But even if Johnson is assigned proper blame for the war, it’s still separated out. That probably is wrong; the traits that helped Johnson do well in some contexts were poisonous in others, and it’s not clear that one could have the good without the bad.
And Serwer points out that the Texan wasn’t exactly a paragon of racial sensitivity:
Lyndon Johnson said the word “nigger” a lot.
In Senate cloakrooms and staff meetings, Johnson was practically a connoisseur of the word. According to Johnson biographer Robert Caro, Johnson would calibrate his pronunciations by region, using “nigra” with some southern legislators and “negra” with others. Discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, he’d simply call it “the nigger bill.” …
Even as president, Johnson’s interpersonal relationships with blacks were marred by his prejudice. As longtime Jet correspondent Simeon Booker wrote in his memoir Shocks the Conscience, early in his presidency, Johnson once lectured Booker after he authored a critical article for Jet Magazine, telling Booker he should “thank” Johnson for all he’d done for black people. In Flawed Giant, Johnson biographer Robert Dallek writes that Johnson explained his decision to nominate Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court rather than a less famous black judge by saying, “when I appoint a nigger to the bench, I want everybody to know he’s a nigger.”
The Dish 