BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Eve of Destruction’
Gary Anderson, Washington Times, 2/20/2013
THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION: HOW 1965 TRANSFORMED AMERICA
By James T. Patterson
Basic Books, $28.99, 344 pages
Basic Books, $28.99, 344 pages
The old Roman Empire had it right. Conquering generals receiving a triumph were required to have a slave riding with them in their chariot whispering “Sic transit gloria” (All glory is fleeting). Presidents who are re-elected need a similar reminder. Since the presidential election of 1964, every president who has been re-elected has claimed some kind of a “mandate.” Nearly all have come to grief in their second terms. PresidentReagan and President Clinton survived with their reputations tarnished by Iran Contra and the Lewinsky debacle respectively; in Mr. Clinton’s case he just barely survived. Watergate destroyed President Nixon. However, no one was so consumed by the hubris of a huge re-election mandate more than Lyndon Johnson after his 1964 landslide. “The Eve of Destruction” is largely the tale of that fall from grace. President Obama should read this book. ...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/20/book-review-the-eve-of-destruction/#ixzz2LrTaQwJv
Setting aside the fact that a lot of young men will try to "merely" save "their precious skins" when an empire is fighting a war for which even the government could never quite manage to come up with a clear and consistent justification, the most significant change in 1965 was in immigration law, which would thereafter set the United States on the inexorable path of becoming an ever more third-world nation.
As far as Lyndon Johnson doing more than anyone else to "advance civil rights," yes, we can see the ultimate shining results of that achievement each day by visiting such Edens of brotherly love as Detroit, Flint, Camden and Memphis (best not at night), not to mention all the other vibrant multicultural gardens of urban delights, such as teeming Shangri-L.A.
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