Lyndon Johnson was the greatest ever president in terms of social progress. His accomplishments in the fields of civil rights, poverty, healthcare, education and the environment were on a different scale to any other president. The war in Vietnam was an inherited problem. A giant of the 20th Century.

What can I say? Mr. disaster. Much of what is wrong with the country today is his legacy. The changing of the immigration law is one of his legacies. Another is the war on poverty. Another is Viet Nam, of course. Need I go on?

LBJ had a very aggressive legislative agenda. In many respects, he was a very accomplished President, even if some of his projects expanded government a bit too much. His contributions particularly in the field of civil rights were exemplary, even if there wasn't enough follow-through due to other political problems like Vietnam. He did have a very weak foreign policy, primarily because Vietnam dogged him all along. In my view, the mistake Johnson made was to adapt a gradualist approach to the conflict. Rather going in and going out quickly using overwhelming force, Johnson prolonged the war by gradually adding troop strength. What this did was create pockets of insurgencies rather than a solid line of conflict. This made the conflict a guerilla insurgency, something very difficult to fight. In the final analysis, the Vietnam conflict became the overwhelming issue for Johnson both domestically and internationally. His micromanagement of the war and his consuming obsession with it scuttled the rest of his agenda and arguably weakened the Democratic Party, especially their ability to win the Presidency, for years to come. In the final analysis, he was a President who started out very strong, was elected with a solid mandate, but then took it for granted. Johnson ended up a broken man both personally and politically.

I think some of his contributions are overlooked because of the Vietnam fiasco, but overall, it's fair to say he deserves much of the criticism that dogs his legacy to this day.

LBJ was the right man for the right man as far as the civil rights legislation was concerned. He was the ONLY president for that time who could move that legislation through Congress and handle the anger of the South. Unfortunately, his handling and stubborness over Vietnam was so very costly for this nation.