The rather sudden ebbing of liberal hopes caused many scholars—and contemporaries—to blame Johnson. They have a point. LBJ, unable to contain his ego, indeed wanted to outdo FDR—and every other President in history. He measured accomplishment in largely quantitative terms: the more big programs passed, the better. Some of these programs, such as OEO, were hurried into law without much research to sustain them and without much aforethought about potentially divisive political consequences. Other programs, such as aid to education, relied overoptimistically on injections of federal spending to
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