Salon.com: "The Hollow Man" (Bush v. Lyndon Johnson casualties reactions)

[Hissyspit]

The Hollow Man
Bush's inability to feel the pain of others -- highlighted by Cindy
Sheehan's peace vigil -- is a stark contrast to the anguish LBJ felt over casualties in Vietnam.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Robert Bryce
salon.com
Aug. 15, 2005 |

- snip -

Both Texans will be tarred by history for having waged disastrous,
unwinnable wars. Both holed up at their Texas ranches whenever they wanted out of Washington. Both were surrounded by a coterie of hawks who believed that America's techno-military machine could prevail over any enemy. Johnson had Robert McNamara as defense secretary. Bush has McNamara's body double: Donald Rumsfeld, a man whose demeanor, defiance and even eyeglasses are the spitting images of his Pentagon predecessor from 37 years ago.

There are other similarities between Bush and Johnson: their personal charm, their predilection for cowboy hats, their ability to dial up their "Texan-ness" whenever the moment required. They are even twins in the polls: A recent Newsweek poll shows that just 34 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the Iraq war -- a number that is almost identical to the 32 percent who approved of LBJ's handling of Vietnam back in early 1968.

But these similarities are as nothing when comparing the two men on a more intangible quality: the ability to feel the pain of others. And it has taken a woman like Cindy Sheehan to reveal this stark difference. Sheehan is the antiwar mother of a soldier, Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq last year. She has set up a camp outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in the hope that Bush will meet with her to discuss the war. Bush has refused. On Saturday he told reporters that while "it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive" to people like Sheehan, it is also "important for
me to go on with my life."

- snip -

Johnson felt the ruin that came with the deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam. And he was devastated by it. In early 1968, according to Nick Kotz's magnificent book, "Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America," the war in Vietnam was going from bad to worse. "Since the Tet offensive had begun the previous month, five hundred American soldiers were dying every week. Often, late at night, the president would go down to the White House Situation Room to check on casualty reports. At times, when Johnson sat with visitors in the Oval Office, he would weep openly as he read from the previous day's casualty lists."

MORE AT LINK

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/08/15/bush_lbj/index.html

[rodeodance]

1. But greed fills that hollow soul.

[Wetzelbill]

2. yup, LBJ screwed up and you can't take back .....

those things he did. And, he did cost a lot of good Americans lives and everything. But, he had empathy. Vietnam killed Lyndon Johnson. Bush seems oblivious to anything that requires remote human decency.

[shraby]

3. Like I've said time and again he's

a sociopath. They can only mimic emotions that other people have, they don't feel them. If they're supposed to be sad, they'll act sad but never know that emotion.

[Wetzelbill]

4. his execution record in Texas

long ago led me to believe that Bush had something wrong with him. That he got off on having that power over someone's life. Forget the Karla Faye Tucker thing, that was horrible, of course, but just look at the amount of executions he presided over as governor. It didn't matter if they were mentally retarded or maybe even innocent. Bush was a regular slaughterhouse manager. Between his execution record and Iraq Bush is one of the most prolific mass murderers of all time. It's more than just politics. He's got something wrong upstairs. Top that off with him being delusional with his little Messianic Complex. He's got some issues, I think.

[Mr Rabble]

10. Does he play the fiddle? nt

[ET Awful]

5. At least LBJ had the courage to speak the following words . . .

"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

Johnson had one other thing that Bush lacks, the ability to accept the consequences of his failures.

[Wetzelbill]

6. right on

Not to mention that other than Vietnam, Johnson at least had the guts and morality to take on serious domestic issues. Civil Right, poverty, Medicare.

[liberal N proud]

7. Yeah, LBJ was more of a person the this schmuck will ever be.

[blindpig]

9. I will never forget that speech

Probably the first time that politics banged me upside the head. At age 14 I was struck by how broken LBJ was. The Presidency ages all but LBJ was the worst. He was wrong and damned but he was more of a human being than our current Waste of Jizz will ever be.

[Emendator]

11. At least LBJ

had the decency to die. This current callous jackass, as healthy as he is, will live to be 90 and not feel a qualm of guilt.

[Wetzelbill]

13. healthy, but quite accident prone.... nt

[Jade Fox]

14. "Vietnam killed Lyndon Johnson"....

It did, didn't it? I've never seen it stated that baldly, but the fact that he
died only four years after leaving office is remarkable.

Johnson has a lot of good to his credit. He almost single-handedly pushed
civil rights legislation through to become law, suceeding where Kennedy
might of failed because Johnson knew how to strong-arm the Southerners
in the House and Senate.

[Wetzelbill]

15. I watched a PBS documentary on him

that was about 4 hours long. Man, he got old quick. It showed him after he left office, he grew his hair out long, quit shaving for a while, was totally unkempt looking. That war took that man's soul. As I said, he screwed up badly, and didn't know how to get out of it, but he felt something. He suffered for his sins. That's something Bush doesn't have in him. He's too dumb and too spoiled and too dogmatic. LBJ cared. Bush never will.

[enough]

8. And our current masters of war always put on the big happy smiles

whenever they are being photographed. I don't understand why they can't even PRETEND to be grave and serious about what is going on.

What exactly do they think they are projecting with all those smiles? This is not a rhetorical question. I'm really wondering.

[Hissyspit]

12. It really is a striking contrast.

In the Vietnam era even the bastards looked serious or concerned or disturbed. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Perle, Rice etc. all seem to think this is all just hunky-dorey.

[Hekate]

16. LBJ had a son-in-law who had to go to 'Nam, and a daughter who...

...asked him "Why, daddy?" with tears in her eyes. You know he loved his girls, and you know that tore at his heart. The effects of war were not an abstraction to LBJ.

Won't ever happen to W and his girls, will it?

Bush really, really makes other presidents look like jewels by comparison, as flawed as they might have been. Brains, hearts, souls -- all human elements that W appears to be lacking.

Hekate