LBJ

C'mon, this is historical. Might as well get the history right.

B

ut after he became President, Johnson risked everything, including his own office and the Democratic Party’s electoral future, to pass the landmark bills for civil rights in 1964 and voting rights in 1965. He achieved greater things in domestic legislation than any President other than F.D.R. He achieved far more than the man he succeeded, John F. Kennedy. Johnson’s Presidency represented the zenith of American liberalism, and its downfall.

For decades Johnson has been a pariah in the Democratic Party, because

of the disaster into which he led the country in Vietnam. And

today, because of our complex racial politics, even his successes, which partly redeem the sins of his war, can’t be attributed to Johnson.