Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

... what's in a person's heart and soul will not likely be changed by the ability to command a helicopter to land on the South Lawn.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

Truman is now seen as a near-great president because he put in place the containment doctrine boosted by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and NATO, which historians now see as having been at the center of American success in the cold war.

What makes war interesting for Americans is that we don't fight war on our soil, we don't have direct experience of it, so there's an openness about the meanings we give it.

One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to nose. I should admit that he also reminds me of my father, quite an overbearing and narcissistic character. And in some ways, he reminds me of myself. Another workaholic.

In counterfactual history, nothing is certain.