<p>In your opinion, who's Presidency was better, Lyndon Johnson's or Richard Nixon's? Why? Can you look past Watergate and pick Nixon? Please weigh in! (i have to write about this)</p>
<p>seeing as i go to the same school and am in the same class...i have to write this too. It's really hard, because they both pretty much sucked. Johnson refused to make Vietnam any better, Nixon had Watergate...but Nixon had detente as well, pretty much ending the Cold War, while still in Vietnam. I dont know, this is gonna be rough</p>
<p>bump.</p>
<p>yeah</p>
<p>I vote LBJ</p>
<p>While neither sucked, I feel Nixon was worse, simply due to the embarassing "dirty tricks" wrought by his administration.</p>
<p>I vote for Nixon.... Don't kill me, but he would have won the election anyway- even without Watergate. Nixon was prob. the first person to get caught, much like Clinton was probably the first person to get caught having an affair in the White House.</p>
<p>As previously mentioned, Nixon had detente. He ended the Vietnam War. He also created the EPA, and started the first affirmative action program. He also approved the developement of the Space Shuttle Program. </p>
<p>Or, according to wikipedia:
Normalizing of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and partially abandoning the Republic of China on Taiwan as part of Realpolitik, a foreign policy eschewing moral considerations. In the short term Nixon was successful in playing the "China card" against the Soviet Union and its client state North Vietnam.
D</p>
<p>thanks motormouth...ha, as a liberal, i find it hard to determine which is better. im leaning to Nixon...but i remembered we could also write who was worse, any thoughts there</p>
<p>If you are a liberal, you probably would prefer LBJ. His Great Society was an extension of the New Deal Programs and he wanted to be the greatest domestic policy president ever. He supposedly lowered poverty significantly by creating programs like the AFDC. I like Nixon personally. He got us out of Vietnam and made important connections with China. I think Watergate will eventually fade away from his legacy. And come on, who doesn't love Nixon's goofy gestures.</p>
<p>Nixon. He completely straight-up lied, and sent 500k soldiers to Vietnam, and then lied again to the American people, and stuff. Nixon's only success is the China/USSR/US detente.</p>
<p>LBJ: "I had to leave my baby(Great Society) for that b*tch(female dog) of a war(Vietnam)."
Nixon: "I am NOT a crook."</p>
<p>LBJ was a terrible president who accomplished nothing positive.</p>
<p>The legacy of LBJ's presidency has been marred by Vietnam; however, LBJ's presidency especially in the wake of Kennedy's assisination marked a period of incredible executive power which led to the ultimate passage of the civil rights acts and the creation of programs like medicare.</p>
<p>The Nixon administration may have successfully brought China and the Soviet Union into competition with each other. However, it would be unfair not to criticize Nixon for continuing to keep us in Vietnam because of his insistence on "Peace with Honor" rather than an outright concession. Moreover, the Watergate scandal extends beyond the sheer act of the burglary itself. In essence, the scandal represented an obscene level of corruption and abuse of executive power which denigrated the office of the president and led to the ultimate curtailing of executive power.</p>
<p>In short, regardless of his accomplishments, Nixon's severe lack of personal integrity and abuse of his office ruined his presidency. Unlike Clinton, Nixon would most certainly have been the only president to be removed from office by a wide consensus in the congress had he not resigned previously; he will be remembered as a symbol of executive corruption. As a result, there really is no question as to who was the worse president.</p>