re: Lessons of Viet Nam--everyone should watch the PBS series--

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Our family changed our mind about the war when my youngest uncle went there in 68. He came back forever changed. He was drafted out of a poor Mississippi community and thrust into the worst part of the war. He will not talk about it even today. We were all for the war until he came home from the war.

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I think that was common for guys who had been in the infantry and saw combat. Something about the environment over there made the PTSD more noticeable than it had been in previous wars. (Although it wasn't unheard of in previous wars -- they called it "shell shock" in the World Wars).

My dad was in 'Nam in '66-67 (also drafted from a small southern town) and he was messed up badly so I can relate to this sort of story.

Lesson 1: Democrats stopped winning wars in 1945.

Class dismissed.

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But, if we really wanted to win that war, again, much like the Iraq War, we could've and would've unequivocally.

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Well, we actually won the Vietnam War. It sill wasn't worth it, but we won the war. We lost the sequel, but that was after we had withdrawn and the Congress of the United States in a rare show of bipartisanship refused to authorize the President to enforce a negotiated peace.

But as far as the "war" part -we won that.

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he film shows how terrible LBJ was as a leader and president, among our worst ever.

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We had some pretty bad Presidents in the 20th Century - Harding, LBJ, Clinton, Nixon, Hoover, Wilson

I mean - bad. LBJ is probably the worst of the Century and perhaps all time, mainly due to Vietnam. As crazy as Nixon was, he committed to ending the war and, generally, followed a plan to do just that.

I disagree. I think Burns did a good job.

He didn't show any mercy toward LBJ--hero of the left.

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LBJ--hero of the left.

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LBJ is no hero of the left, unless you classify crooked bastards as hero's

JFK had to put LBJ on the ticket to get elected

the Great Society was a con perpetrated on Blacks and Poor's for votes, and doomed them to a life of subsidized insignificance

After listening to the recordings of Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, etc. I am at a loss to understand why anyone in America would ever believe one word that comes out of any politician's mouth in Washington D.C. Arguing over which one was the worse president is like arguing over what is the worse venereal disease.

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Arguing over which one was the worse president is like arguing over what is the worse venereal disease.

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Meh - take Watergate out of the equation, and Nixon is one of the greatest presidents of the century. Opened up China, ended the Vietnam War (had he remained President, it likely would have stayed "won" - recall the North Vietnamese thought he was crazy and weren't sure what he would do if they broke the Paris Accords - that's why they waited until he left office to reinvade the South), decent economy (that Carter flushed down the toilet), etc.

Compare that to LBJ - most of the casualties of Vietnam are on his hands. Destroyed the black family (utterly) with his "War on Poverty(tm)" and "Great Society(tm)". Just an unpleasant, corrupt guy. He gets some credit for the space program, but Kennedy deserves the lion's share of that. But that's about it on the positive side of the ledger.

That documentary is amazing.