Lyndon Johnson

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Obama Poll Watch -- January, 2010

Chris Weigant | Posted 02.03.2010 | Politics

Read More: Polls, Obama Polls, Populism, Special Election, President Obama, Monthly Polls, Obamapollwatch, Trendline, Reform, Poll, Obama, Plouffe, Disapproval, Charts, Bush, Richard Milhouse Nixon, Approval Ratings, 2010, Ma, Polling, Richard Nixon, Data, Tricky Dick, Johnson, Opinion Polls, Health Care, Obama Approval, Obama Poll Watch, January, Graph, Trend, Daily Polls, Chart, Richard M Nixon, Democrat, Massachusetts, Undecided, Approval Rating, Democrats, Volcker, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Job Approval, Realclearpolitics, Obama Poll Numbers, Opinion Poll, Chris Weigant, Gallup, Poll of Polls, Sotu, Health Care Reform, State of the Union, Graphs, George W Bush, Lbj, Watergate, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Healthcare Reform, Senate, Healthcare, Pollster, Politics News

After taking a look at Obama's numbers for the month, we continue our march backwards through history, this month serving up a comparison between Obama and Richard Nixon's term-and-a-half.

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End the Filibuster and Pass a Lot of Stuff

Joseph A. Palermo | Posted 02.04.2010 | Politics

Read More: Supreme Court, Treasury Department, Gop, President Obama, Washington, George W. Bush, Obama's State of the Union, Standard & Poor's, Federal Reserve, Obama Administration, Beltway, Democratic Party, Goldman Sachs, President Obama's State of the Union, Timothy Geithner, Colbert Report, Republican Party, Pundits, Stimulus Package, Moody's, Republican Obstructionism, Foreclosure Crisis, Time Magazine, President Barack Obama, Filibuster, Housing Bubble, Stephen Colbert, Democrats, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Ben Bernanke, Republicans, Lyndon Johnson, Progressive Politics, Politics News

Harry Reid is getting rolled by a pugnacious Republican minority so bereft of ideas it has no choice but to filibuster every piece of legislation the Democrats put on the table.

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Great Speech, Mr. President: But Are You Ready to Deliver?

Steven Hill | Posted 01.28.2010 | Politics

Read More: Susan Collins, Lbj, Ben Nelson, Olympia Snowe, President Obama, Joe Lieberman, Lyndon Johnson, Democrats, Barack Obama, State of the Union, Maine, Blue Dog Democrats, Republicans, Politics News

Call it the "audacity of governing." It's time for battle. If Obama cares about the country as much as he says, and believes in his ideas as much as he professes, he will pull out all the tools at his disposal.

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Learn From History Mr. President: Articulate Your National Security Vision Or Pay the Political Price

Julian E. Zelizer | Posted 01.25.2010 | Books

Read More: National Security, Terrorism, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, Iraq, Barack Obama, Reagan, Kennedy, Obama, China, Presidency, Books News

Playing defense on national security can quickly turn into a huge political liability for presidents.

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The 41 Percent Majority

Kara Vallow | Posted 01.25.2010 | Politics

Read More: Senate Majority, Scott Brown, Massachusetts, Joe Supreme Court, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Cosmo Model, Bailout, Rahm Emanuel, Health Care Reform, Harry Reid, George W Bush, Lbj, Joe Lieberman, Lyndon Johnson, Health Care, Senate Majority Leader, Politics News

So much for reconciliation -- apparently, when the GOP uses it, it's a legitimate legislative tool, but the Democrats refuse to touch the one potent weapon at hand.

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Eyes off the Prize: Liberals Who Want to Kill the Health Care Bill Should Remember History

Ariel Gonzalez | Posted 01.03.2010 | Politics

Read More: Ed Schultz, Health Care Bill, Howard Dean, Rahm Emanuel, Social Security, Civil Rights, Joe Lieberman, Obama, Republicans, Lyndon Johnson, Ralph Nader, Daily Kos, Fdr, Politics News

Progressives can be as bad as teabaggers, with their chronic dissatisfaction, ideological disdain for compromise, and limited understanding of historical precedent.

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Battle Between David Broder And Harry Reid Heats Up: Broder Comments 'Mind-Boggling'

HuffingtonPost.com | Ryan Grim | Posted 11.25.2009 | Politics

Read More: White House, Birthers, Columnist, Cbo, Afghanistan, Broder Column, Senate Health Care Bill, Mansfield, Obama, Democrats, Reid Broder, Jim Manley, Senate GOP, Broderisms, House, Everett Dirksen, Lbj, Senate, Broderism, Mike Mansfield, Unemployment Insurance, Health Care Reform, Harry Reid, Washington Post, Lyndon Johnson, Senate Democrats, Baker, David Broder, Republicans, William Noland, Politics News

David Broder simply doesn't understand the way that today's Senate operates, Jim Manley concluded on Wednesday. Manley, the senior communications advi...

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In 1963, A First State Dinner For The Record Books

Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn | Posted 11.30.2009 | Style

Read More: Food, Texas, Lbj Ranch, Lbj, Lyndon Johnson, Barbecue, Lady Bird Johnson, Cooking, Bbq, State Dinner, Cuisine, Barbeque, Style News

LBJ's first state dinner was a barbecue in Texas for West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. No politician ever used the conviviality and informality of eating outdoors better than the 36th president.

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Lyndon Johnson, His National Security Advisor and His Secretary of Defense Say All

Norman Lear | Posted 11.23.2009 | World

Read More: Obama Afghanistan, Johnson Tapes, Vietnam Tapes, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Moyers Journal, Johnson Vietnam, Bill Moyers, World News

Was the Vietnam War an act of prescience, or simply a prelude to today? You decide. The first 1000 people who respond to this blog will receive a free DVD copy of last Friday's PBS show, Bill Moyers Journal.

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Bill Moyers Plays LBJ Tapes, Draws Similarities With Obama And Afghanistan War

Posted 11.21.2009 | Politics

Read More: Pbs, Lbj, Bill Moyers Journal, Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson, President Johnson, Barack Obama, Afghanistan War, Bill Moyers, Politics News

On Friday night, Bill Moyers played clips from the Lyndon B. Johnson tapes on his PBS television show. Moyers drew correlations between the factors f...

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Health Care Reform Struggle Will Not End This Year

Chris Weigant | Posted 11.17.2009 | Politics

Read More: Social Security, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, Compromise, Democratic, Obama, Reform, Ama, Republican, Reagan, Call to Action, 1935, Johnson, New Deal, Democrat, Congress, Conservative, Medicaid, Democrats, Barack Obama, Fdr, Socialized Medicine, Progressive, Chris Weigant, Health, Great Society, Medicare, Lbj, Republicans, Lyndon Johnson, Healthcare Reform, Third Rail, Senate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Healthcare, Roosevelt, Politics News

No matter what healthcare bill passes, it is not going to remain static. It is going to be revisited again and again over the next few decades. That's how lawmaking works.

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Hold the Hofstadter: Why the GOP Is Winning 2010

John R. Bohrer | Posted 11.12.2009 | Politics

Over the last few months, a number of prominent political columnists have pointed to historian and social critic Richard Hofstadter to explain what is happening to the Republican Party. Here's why they shouldn't.

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The "Goldilocks Principle" and Afghan War Options

Joseph A. Palermo | Posted 11.09.2009 | Politics

Read More: John McCain, George Ball, George Kahin, Rand Corporation, Afghanistan Occupation, President Barack Obama, Juan Cole, Lindsey Graham, The Nation, Peter Baker, Afghanistan War, William Polk, American War in Afghanistan, Nato, American Military Forces, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Goldilocks Principle, William Westmoreland, Richard Nixon, Vietnam War, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, New York Times, General Stanley McChrystal, Joe Lieberman, Afghanistan, Lyndon Johnson, Undersecretary of State George Ball, Helene Cooper, Robert Dryfuss, Vietnamization, Politics News

General McChrystal's recommendation for more troops and material has a distinctly Westmorelandian flavor to it. If approved, it could create an additional $40 to$80 billion per annum in war costs.

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Dem Leaders in 1965: "Filibuster Threat Is Too Daunting -- So Let's Just Drop This Civil Rights Crap"

Martin Lewis | Posted 11.10.2009 | Politics

It's March 16, 1965. We have a Democratic President. We have large Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate. It's long been part of the progressive and liberal platform...

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What Obama Is Up Against

Russ Baker | Posted 11.04.2009 | Politics

Read More: John F. Kennedy, Central Intelligence Agency, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Military Industrial Complex, Harry Truman, President Obama, George W. Bush, Obama, Bob Woodward, Bush Administration Torture, Robert Gates, George H.W. Bush, Richard Nixon, National Security, Gerald Ford, Nancy Pelosi, Congressional Oversight, Fdr, Hamid Karzai, Bill Clinton, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, Bush Administration, Dwight Eisenhower, Cia, Military Spending, Stanley McChrystal, Jimmy Carter, Prescott Bush, Allen Dulles, Lyndon Johnson, Iraq, Torture, Politics News

We Americans harbor a quaint belief that a new president takes charge of a government that eagerly awaits his next command. But that's not how things work at the top, especially where "national security" is concerned.

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Keeping Afghanistan Safe from Democracy

Robert Scheer | Posted 11.04.2009 | World

Read More: Robert Scheer, Insurgency, David Axelrod, Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, Al-Qaida, Vietnam, Democracy, Hamid Karzai, Stanley McChrystal, Soviet Union, World News

The most idiotic thing being said about America's involvement in Afghanistan is that the best way to protect the 68,000 U.S. troops there now is by putting an additional 40,000 in harm's way.

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The Kennedy Assassination: New Details About the Transfer of Power

Steven M. Gillon | Posted 11.03.2009 | Books

Read More: John F. Kennedy, Politics, Lbj, Vice President, Warren Commission, Kennedy, Kennedy Dead, Kennedy Assassination, Jackie Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jfk, President, JFK Assassination, Books News

Exactly when did doctors give up their efforts to save Kennedy's life? And when did Lyndon Johnson learn that JFK was dead?

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A New Wrinkle in the JFK Assassination Story

Steven M. Gillon | Posted 10.30.2009 | Books

Read More: John F. Kennedy, Kennedy Assassination, Lyndon Johnson, Dallas, Books News

A recently declassified oral history by Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy's military aide on the Dallas trip, sheds new light on the critical hours after the shooting.

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Obama Should Tear Up Matthew Hoh's Afghan War Resignation Letter

Earl Ofari Hutchinson | Posted 10.27.2009 | World

Read More: Pentagon, Polls, Matthew Hoh, Afghanistan War, Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Bush, Truman, President Obama, World News

Matthew Hoh told Obama exactly what he needs to hear about Afghanistan: that the war is a failed, flawed, no-win war. That it's a sinkhole for billions of tax dollars and a death trap for US troops.

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Getting the Vietnam Analogy Right in Afghanistan

Leon T. Hadar | Posted 10.21.2009 | World

Read More: Nazi Germany, President Obama, Lebanon, Iran, Hitler, China, History, Muslim, Saudi Arabia, Nato, Vietnam War, John Kennedy, Chechnya, Munich, Analogies, Czechoslovakia, Syria, Xinjiang, West Germany, South Vietnam, Hamas, Soviet Union, Hizbollah, Afghanistan War, Al Quaeda, Kashmir, Shiites, Iraq War, Communism, North VIetnam, Taliban, India, Lyndon Johnson, Cuba, Ospolitik, Detente, World News

The ghosts of the Vietnam War seem to be hanging around the White House Situation Room as President Obama and his national security aides debate a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

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Wall Street Is More of a Threat to Obama's Domestic Agenda than Afghanistan

Joseph A. Palermo | Posted 10.20.2009 | World

Read More: Matt Taibbi, Bill Clinton, Pecora Commission, Treasury Department, Sec, Joseph P. Kennedy, President Barack Obama, Cdos, Collateralized Debt Obligations, Larry Summers, Federal Reserve, Credit Default Swaps, Newt Gingrich, Fdr, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, Vietnam, Tim Geithner, Vice President Dick Cheney, Afghanistan, Timothy Geithner, Bear Stearns, Lyndon Johnson, Alan Greenspan, Securities and Exchange Commission, Too Big to Fail, President George W. Bush, Blue Dog Democrats, World News

Whatever Obama decides to do in Afghanistan is of little consequence compared to Wall Street's ongoing "plutonomy."

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Health 'Opt-Out': Brilliant Maneuver or Crippling Compromise?

Richard (RJ) Eskow | Posted 10.09.2009 | Politics

Read More: Health Insurance Monopolies, Nate Silver, Public Option, Sherrod Brown, Medicare, Lbj, Opt-Out, Lyndon Johnson, Chuck Schumer, Health Reform, Politics News

The opt-out is a hard blow to the public option, and potentially a crippling one. When a solution sounds too good to be true -- we can compromise and still get everything we want! -- it probably is.

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Because Bipartisanship Is Dead Until 2011: A Defense of Senate Moderates

John R. Bohrer | Posted 11.30.2009 | Politics

The GOP cannot even claim credit for bringing the bills to the middle of the road -- the Democrats are hogging all of it. And that is a good thing, despite what some may think.

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New Rule: If America Can't Get it Together, We Lose the Bald Eagle

Bill Maher | Posted 11.25.2009 | Comedy

Read More: Supreme Court, Wall Street, Ondemand, Jon Cryer, Cap-and-Trade, Washington, Max Baucus, Youtube, Medicare, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lyndon Johnson, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Ground Zero, Fdr, Bill Maher New Rule, Real Time With Bill Maher, Bill Maher, Comedy News

If America can't get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute.

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The Time The President Didn't Intervene

John R. Bohrer | Posted 11.24.2009 | New York

In the first year of his first elected term, Lyndon Johnson made the presidency look easy. Landmark bills on education, health care and civil rights were flying through Congress. But he stayed out of New York politics.

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