Perhaps it is because I’ve moved to central Texas and visited his home, or perhaps it’s because he compares so favorably to our current crop of politicians, but I’ve developed a soft spot for LBJ. Wednesday would have been his 100th birtheday, and they gave away cake and bar-b-que at his presidential library, located at the university I attend. Twice daily I drive over a lake now named for his wife. Texans, above all else, like Texans. So take this for what it’s worth.

This post is a wonderful summary of what we’ve lost since LBJ died. He was a titan of liberalism in its finest, most idealistic form. The party he left behind now occupies only a portion of his shadow. They seek neither American greatness nor their own moral superiority; at best, they seek to continue only a few of a the programs he started, and to have America be only one country among many.

Whatever criticisms conservatives have leveled at the Great Society–they are both plentiful and salient–there is still something admirable about the man. He didn’t want to destroy the country and rebuild anew; rather, he wanted to build on the greatness that he already saw in America. Compared to the current crop of Democrats who only love America to the extent that they can envision something better, Lyndon Johnson is a breath of fresh air. He loved America for what it was and what it had been, for its values and its faults, while seeking to make it better in the future. That he was the last Democrat to seek to defeat the Communists should not be overlooked.

Before he died, he grew his hair long and devoted himself to cattle ranching; that was probably preferable to watching his party being taken over by New Left nitwits.

Posted by Apollo in Ourselves, Amer-I-Can!, Deep in the Heart of Texas