Word: johnsons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...just the war or his occasional crudities that soured the promising Johnson years. Horace Busby, Johnson's friend and a perceptive former aide, pointed out recently that social changes now come so rapidly that they outstrip the ability to comprehend them, let alone cope with them. Occasionally, Johnson's shrewd mind did grasp the moment and the need. When, after Selma, he went before Congress to vow "We shall overcome," he was genuinely moving. And some of the innovative programs he began, such as Headstart, testified to his willingness to seek new solutions. Yet all too often...
...nation needed to be engaged. It needed a personality that it could warm to and trust. Instead, it got a preacher and teacher who measured accomplishment in statistics that were irrelevant to the haves and incomprehensible to the havenots. And as opposition became increasingly strident, Johnson reverted more and more to the defensive, secretive, untrusting and, in return, untrusted...
Uneven Efficacy. Yet by one traditional gauge-the enactment of major legislation-the Johnson Administration was conspicuously successful. Medicare and federal aid to education broke through longstanding barriers. Three far-reaching civil rights acts went beyond anything since Reconstruction. A series of laws aimed at slum renovation and consumer protection were progressive and long overdue. The various anti-poverty programs, while uneven in efficacy and wisdom, were the beginning of a necessary break with the dole approach. In the foreign field, the continuing torment of Viet Nam overshadowed significant accomplishments. Most notable were agreements with the Russians and the beginning...
...record, both domestic and foreign, is curiously unsatisfying and even misleading, despite the piles of bills and billions for good causes. Indeed, Johnson enjoyed two periods of Congressional bliss within 14 months-immediately after John Kennedy's assassination and then after L.B.J.'s 1964 victory over Barry Goldwater. In the 1960s, however, the measurement of success in box scores was not enough. If the New Politics has any validity, it is that the politician needs continuing mass support, in election year and out. Johnson had earned his reputation and learned his trade in closet politics...
Early in his tenure, this lack mattered little. After Kennedy's murder, the country needed a figure to rally round. Then it needed a responsible alternative to Goldwater. Johnson mistook happenstance for deep, wide support and even for the affection he craved. "I'm sure glad," he would say in those days, "we got rid of that image that nobody likes Lyndon...