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Commondreams.org
November 21, 2009
How LBJ Was Sucked Into Escalation In Vietnam And Why Its Happening Again
Elders are considered wisdom keepers in most of the world's cultures, perhaps just not our own. They are repositories of important lessons, keepers of the collective memory, and as such, usually revered. In our own midst, in our own time, one man deserves all praises due for the role he's chosen to play as the sage of the electronic stage, as our educator in chief, as the voice of the national conscience, as the best journalist on television.
His name is Bill Moyers and he proved again on Friday night why he is such a giant and national treasure.
On the very day that the world's media honored one of their richest and most powerful TV brands, Queen Oprah, who announced "the show was my life" but that she was stepping down two years hence, Bill Moyers delivered one of the most important programs of his career in an effort to call our young President to account, to prevent another similar tragedy in the making. As she reveled in the headlines as a a celebrity goddess, he went back to work.
Alas, like Oprah, Moyers will also be stepping down next year, not in 2011. Who got all the media attention? Ms. O, not Mr. M!
He aired this report on this weekend of the anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination to remind us what happened to the leader who replaced that generation's young prince. I am talking about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the master of the Senate, who succeeded John F Kennedy on that terrible day in Dallas.
LBJ came to office with many heavy burdens, including a war raging in South East Asia. His Presidency would be defined by how he handled it, or failed to handle it. As fate would have it, a 30 year old Bill Moyers was one of Johnson's aides and an eyewitness to the tragedy that followed that original sin.
On his Journal, Moyers went back to the historical record, to selected but revealing tapes of Johnson's own phone calls with his colleagues and appointees-yes he wiretapped himself the way Nixon did years later-and those calls showed how he agonized over whether to escalate the war, a course of action he knew could not succeed.
The parallels with the present day, and the upcoming decision by President Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan are unmistakable and undeniable.
Read on to finish the story.
Click on picture to watch this program online at PBS.
Bill Moyers Journal airs tomorrow, Sunday November 22 KUAT 12 noon
