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No Rush to Escalate ("war kills off great reform movements")
The Washington Post ^ | 5 October 2009 | E.J. Dionne

Posted on 10/05/2009 4:15:16 AM PDT by SE Mom

At a White House dinner with a group of historians at the beginning of the summer, Robert Dallek, a shrewd student of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, offered a chilling comment to President Obama.

"In my judgment," he recalls saying, "war kills off great reform movements." The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that "Dr. New Deal" had given way to "Dr. Win the War." Korea ended Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to an abrupt halt.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; americanhistory; bho44; leftists; wot
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So here we have it- major domestic changes vs. national security.

If that seems too stark a way to view it- I invite nuanced thinking from any Obama tolls.

1 posted on 10/05/2009 4:15:17 AM PDT by SE Mom
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To: STARWISE; penelopesire; MestaMachine; 444Flyer; mojitojoe; BP2; Dog

ping


2 posted on 10/05/2009 4:18:25 AM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: SE Mom

Dionne finishes with this:

Those most eager for a bigger war have little interest in Obama’s quest for domestic reform. As he ponders his options, theirs are not the voices he should worry about.

...

As usual we on the right are viewed as war-lovers. Personally speaking- nothing could be farther from the truth.

Did 9/11 teach these towering intellects nothing?


3 posted on 10/05/2009 4:26:32 AM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: SE Mom

It’s hard when you have to deal with the harsh realities of the real world isn’t it? Seems history keep repeating itself over and over again, the Utopian dream keeps getting shattered by others who see it as weakness.


4 posted on 10/05/2009 4:31:01 AM PDT by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: SE Mom

It’s hard when you have to deal with the harsh realities of the real world isn’t it? Seems history keep repeating itself over and over again, the Utopian dream keeps getting shattered by others who see it as weakness.


5 posted on 10/05/2009 4:31:52 AM PDT by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: SE Mom

And we are still suffering from the “great reforms” of FDR’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society.


6 posted on 10/05/2009 4:35:30 AM PDT by Lawgvr1955 (You can never have too much cowbell !!)
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To: Lawgvr1955

Indeed..


7 posted on 10/05/2009 4:42:59 AM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: SE Mom
So we have a choice huh? We can have Obama's great vision of a thin [sugar tax, lack of money] 'healthy' America where the government controls an ever increasing portion of the GDP and the individual's "freedom of choice". Oh by the way, this also means a sky high energy cost because of "Cap 'n Tax" as well as nuclear Iran and Taliban-controlled Pakistan that has the Middle East in a knot. Europe and Japan also lying prostrate at the feet of Russia [Energy] and China [military] respectively because the USofA can no longer tolerate a right-wing military [remember absentee voting?].

Now what was that alternative again?

8 posted on 10/05/2009 4:49:41 AM PDT by SES1066 (Cycling to conserve, Conservative to save, Saving to Retire, will Retire to Cycle.)
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To: SE Mom
...Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to an abrupt halt.

Events last week in Chicago proved that LBJ's "Great Society" continues to bear its bitter fruit.

And why was the Korean war necessary but not the Viet Nam war?

9 posted on 10/05/2009 4:52:39 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: SE Mom

Just a new excuse for O to use when Bush’s fault no longer works.


10 posted on 10/05/2009 4:52:52 AM PDT by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: SE Mom
Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to an abrupt halt

You lie! (Dallek, not SE Mom).

11 posted on 10/05/2009 5:28:27 AM PDT by careyb
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To: careyb

LOL! Yeah...but he’s got the right idea- war normally takes precedent. Not so with this president. It’s not out of the realm that hearing Dallek’s reminder of it is what got the administration to reconsider their Afghan strategy...


12 posted on 10/05/2009 5:54:04 AM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: DuncanWaring

“Events last week in Chicago proved that LBJ’s “Great Society” continues to bear its bitter fruit.”

Obama and his followers wanted change...they got it...instead of facing 21st century problems and the menace of Islamic terrorists, we got the 1960’s.


13 posted on 10/05/2009 6:00:00 AM PDT by LottieDah (If only those who speak so eloquently on the rights of animals would do so on behalf the unborn)
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To: SE Mom

.....”Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to an abrupt halt.”

....not quite...LBJ didn’t have enough funding for both Vietnam and the Great Society entitlements...so he’d send Dean Rusk down to Congress to ask for more money....and Congress would beat crap out of him....so LBJ went to printing money and that set off inflation&stagflation that ran unabated until Volker jacked up the prime to 19%....that high prime was bitter medicine, but it worked and laid the groundwork for the Reagan recovery.

....these days nobody wants to take the bitter medicine.


14 posted on 10/05/2009 6:09:14 AM PDT by STONEWALLS
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To: SE Mom

I can’t possibly despise these people anymore than I do right this second.


15 posted on 10/05/2009 6:20:56 AM PDT by penelopesire ("The only CHANGE you will get with the Democrats is the CHANGE left in your pocket")
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To: SE Mom

Conversations like this just show how idiotic people have become in regards to the Constitution and the role of government. Running a war and protecting the US from foreign aggression is actually one of the duties of being president, whereas domestic reform is not.


16 posted on 10/05/2009 6:42:21 AM PDT by RWB Patriot ("Need has never produced anything. It has only been an excuse to steal from those with ablity.")
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To: SE Mom

Good post!


17 posted on 10/05/2009 7:49:21 AM PDT by 444Flyer ( "Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."--Mignon McLaughlin)
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To: SE Mom

Liberals never grew up. Peter Pan meets Robin Hood.


18 posted on 10/05/2009 8:03:16 AM PDT by MNSlim
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To: SE Mom

The Afghanistan war is now TOTALLY politicized. Our soldiers and Marines are now caught in the middle of it.


19 posted on 10/05/2009 8:12:08 AM PDT by headstamp 2
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To: SE Mom

The new Official Party Line has been announced by the Pravda-on-the-Potomac.

Perceptive apparatchiks will take note and change their positions accordingly!


20 posted on 10/05/2009 8:12:23 AM PDT by Poe White Trash (Wake up!)
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