A lot of people don't remember that Johnson's Great Society economic programs were radical, in their day. The Economic Opportunity Act created Head Start, the Job Corps, and a host of other programs. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act for the first time pumped a lot of federal money into education. The Social Security Act of 1965 created Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Many of these were enormously controversial. Johnson also had to figure out what to do about Vietnam. That he failed so disastrously on that only underscores how much he had to deal with.

In 1964, Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act. In 1965, Johnson pushed through the Voting Rights Act. Both were inflammatorily divisive. Tapes of Johnson's White House phone calls have revealed just how much pressure he brought to bear on timorous Democrats in Congress. After succeeding, he legendarily told his top aides that they had lost the South for a generation. He was right. The political cost was enormous. And he did it despite having so much else to deal with, while the country was slowly being torn apart. He didn't wait for the most politically opportune time. He didn't wait until he had finished with other priorities. He did it because it was a priority. He did it because it was the right thing to do. He did it because he was the president, and he had a chance to make historic decisions that would move the country forward.