From one blog to another. In yesterday's Altercation Eric Alterman posted e-mails from several historians who are debating the similarities between Bush's call for war with Iraq and Johnson's balancing act in Vietnam. Their analysis of the relationship between foreign and domestic policy during both administrations is fascinating.
First, from David Keiser (this one, I assume):
Meanwhile, a great change has taken place in the American military, which in the wake of Vietnam has been trying for 25 years to find ways to fight wars without arousing the American public and world opinion, and without requiring the manpower that only a draft could provide. This, apparently, will be the first major test of this effort involving the actual conquest of a whole country.
The last war took an overwhelming Democratic consensus and destroyed it. This one seems designed, in part, to establish an overwhelming Republican consensus -- something that was obviously lacking the last election. Time will tell.
Then, from Justin Hart:
A few years back, in his SHAFR Presidential address, Robert Dallek argued that given the political, social, and intellectual climate of the mid-1960s the question about LBJ and Vietnam should not be: “Why did he go in?” Dallek suggests that LBJ could hardly have been expected to choose otherwise (although some, notably Fred Logevall, see it differently). One can scarcely imagine the same statement being made of George W. Bush and his policy towards Iraq. He doesn’t have to go in -- at least not for domestic reasons -- but he wants to.
Finally, I’m simply mystified by the comparison between the Great Society and the Bush tax cut. Vietnam became the excuse for conservatives to limit social programs that LBJ dearly wanted. Whereas the Bush foreign policy, and the tax cut, has been the Bush administration’s excuse not to spend on social programs that they don’t want. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I shudder to think where the road paved with bad intentions leads.
I hope, someday, to block off enough time to work through Robert Caro's exhaustive biographies of Johnson. Perhaps Bush should consider doing the same.
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