Writing on the Daily Beast, Mark McKinnon chronicles the similarities between Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama. In truth, this is a flawed comparison. Johnson and Obama both pushed social engineering by the government, but for neither was this the most significant aspect of their presidency. Johnson was embroiled in Vietnam, a was that proved to be his undoing. The national upset over the Vietnam was was many orders of magnitude greater than anything exhibited thus far regarding Afghanistan or Iraq. Johnson was not even able to appear in public without hundreds of chanting or even rioting anti war demonstators. Indeed, many of the current Obamacrats got their start in politics and their leftist world view from participating in the antiwar politics during Johnson's presidency. Obama, on the other hand is failing due to his inability to improve the economy. Obama's promises of good times to come have gotten almost to the point of parody. No one actually believes them anymore. Obama has also suffered greatly by his inability to appear even remotely competent with regard to anything other than getting bills passed in Congress. Certainly, he did not do well with the oil spill -- a sorry display of incompetence that showed that the emperor had no clothes.
There are certain similarities between these two failed presidents. Johnson had a "credibility gap" while Obama is just an out and out liar. Same thing, but different words. Johnson led the Democrats to a big loss in the mid term elections in 1966. The same fate awaits Obama in 2010. Johnson had a loquacious glad-handing vice president, and so does Obama (although in fairness to Hubert Humphrey he was not a buffon like Biden).
There is one way, however, where I hope to see great similarities. johnson was unable to gain re-election at the end of his first term. Let's hope that history repeats itself.
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