I've decided to skip the Kennedy Administration, the 1960 election won by Kennedy by a margin of just over 100,000 votes, delivered as needed far into the 11th hour by Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, and graveyards in Texas, which opponent Tricky Dixon's campaign manager is said to have declared, "They stole the election fair and square." 

I won't go into the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in which the CIA and a group of Cuban refugees attempted to invade Cuba with the usual outcome of a presidential war. 

I won't go into the near-miss of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, turned bellicose after Eisenhower left office thanks to the bluster of the Kennedy brothers and their determination to take a hard line.

I won't go into the Kennedy boys passing Marilyn Monroe  around among themselves as a sexual plaything.

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Instead, I'll go directly to Lyndon Johnson.

Once asked whether he approved of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, Johnson replied, "Of course I don't approve!  We still had one left when we quit."

Once asked to comment on the first US satellite, Explorer I, Johnson replied, "A basketball that goes beep-beep!  The only basketball that goes beep-beep I want to hear about is one someone tosses into the men's room of the Kremlin."

Johnson's our prez who created the Welfare State with his War on Poverty, much the way Reagan created a prison state with his War on Drugs.

Johnson's responsible for the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, a mockup incident to justify turning up the volume, contrast and color on Vietnam.

A surprising number of people in Texas continue to believe Johnson's also responsible for the assassination of the man who held the office he assumed upon the death of JFK.

But all that notwithstanding, LBJ was a roughly as good a prez as any of those after Reagan.

Further deponent sayeth not.

Jack