Robert Dallek Quotes
Lyndon Johnson is not a comfortable model for President Obama to imitate. He is an all-but-forgotten president - pilloried for the failed war in Vietnam and criticized for grandiose reforms conservatives denounce as the epitome of federal social engineering that costs too much and does too little.
Dallek, Robert. "Obama and the LBJ Model." Newsweek, 20 Feb. 2010.
This quotation is puzzling to many in that Olasky seems to be castigating the President because he wanted to develop a “Great Society”—because he had a great vision for America. However, to Olasky and a small core of religious fundamentalist conservatives a President wanting to develop a great society was bad for two reasons. They do not believe that the government – any government should shape the nature of the society or interfere with individuals and families in shaping society. A government that could have such a vision and implement it must be a big government which is per se undesirable. In addition, in their orthodox view God has already determined the vision for society and no man should try and substitute his vision for God’s commandments. This concern of an energetic secular government having independent vision is not only a problem for the right wing Christian fundamentalists, but is typical of Muslim fundamentalists and Jewish also. There were a small minority of Jewish Israeli fundamentalists who objected to the creation of the State of Israel at the birth of the Jewish state for the same reasons that Olasky gives for opposing a strong visionary government.
Robert A. Dallek is an American historian specializing in the presidents of the United States, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. He retired as a history professor at Boston University in 2004 and previously taught at Columbia University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Oxford University. He won the Bancroft Prize for his 1979 book Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 as well as other awards for scholarship and teaching.
