Comparing Joe Biden and Lyndon Johnson Withdrawing From Presidential Races of 2024 and 1968
Current Events and History

Comparing Joe Biden and Lyndon Johnson Withdrawing From Presidential Races in 2024 and 1968

Johnson told his speechwriter, “I want out of this cage.” To break the stalemate, Johnson delivered a televised speech addressed to all Americans: “Tonight I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam,” offering to “stop the bombardment of North Vietnam unilaterally.” If Hanoi responded, he would withdraw American forces as Hanoi withdrew its forces to the North.
Then Johnson stunned America further. “With America’s sons in the fields far away, with America’s future under challenge here at home, I do not believe I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office, the Presidency of your country.” […]

Trump-Biden Debate Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 Debates: the First Televised Debates
Current Events and History

Trump-Biden Debate, Compared to Kennedy-Nixon 1960 TV Debates, With David Frum Editorial

Often when you catch Trump with his hand in the cookie jar, he first denies the existence of the cookie jar, then denies the existence of the cookies, and then says it was perfectly fine to steal the cookies!
When reminded how he said that US servicemen who are captured in war, like John McCain, or who die in war, are suckers and losers, Trump simply denies he said such things!
TRUMP: “First of all, that was a made-up quote, suckers and losers. They made it up. It was in a third-rate magazine that’s failing, like many of these magazines. He made that up.” “We had nineteen people that said I didn’t say it.” Maybe Trump is referring to nineteen right wingnut anchors on Fox News and Newsmax. […]

Lyndon Johnson, Enacting the Great Society and Vietnam, Review of an Unfinished Love Story
Current Events and History

Lyndon Johnson, Enacting the Great Society and Vietnam, Review of an Unfinished Love Story

Five days after JFK’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson addressed Congress and the nation, speaking of Kennedy’s domestic dreams, “the dream of education for all our children, the dream of jobs for all who seek them and need them, the dream of care for elderly, the dream of an all-out attack on mental illness, and above all the dream of equal rights for all Americans, whatever their race or color.”
Johnson emphasized, “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory that the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.”
Dick reminisced, “Impressive, a huge risk at the time. LBJ knew the path he was taking would cut him off from the southern bloc that was his heritage, isolate him from his oldest friends, and might well not succeed. But he was willing to take the path.” […]

Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War
Civil Rights

Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Civil Rights, Great Society, and Vietnam War

Addressing Congress, LBJ proclaimed: “No memorial or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory more that the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.” “We have talked about civil rights for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter and write it in the books of law.”
LBJ continued, “Let us put an end to the teaching and the preaching of hate and evil and violence. Let us turn away from the fanatics of the far left and the far right, from the apostles of bitterness and bigotry, from those defiant of law and those who pour venom into our nation’s bloodstream.” […]