It was, indeed, America's "golden age". As a country there was no realistic threat to us, the "American Dream" was alive, a person could have a Union job, benefits, a living wage, a house, car, and send one's kids to school.

Was it great for minorities? No. And they were smaller minorities, then. We didn't have swarms of illegal immigrants, and did have very few Asians. And built into the society were the huge leaps to be made in the '60s. Civil rights.

And then, it a way known only to superpowers, America shot itself in the foot with the Vietnam War. Still, the economy was robust enough to also embrace the "war on poverty", guns, and butter. Superpowers can't help but squander their power on ever more of an empire.

In 1960 the US was not bogged down in quagmires, wasn't being challenged on any front by China, India, Japan, and only in it's imagination by Russia which was still recovering from The Great War.

I'm reminded of the story about the New York woman who took a chicken back to her butcher in the days when butchers served every customer.

"This chicken is rotten!", she hollers. "Rotten!"

The butcher looks at it, feels it, says, "Mrs. Candelski, there is nothing wrong with this chicken."

Mrs. Candelski pulls it out of the sack, pulls the legs apart exposing the body cavity, and says, "Here, you smell it!"

"Mrs. Candelski, not even Miss America could pass that test!"

Push aside all that's good, get a microscope, and you can find flaws in anything, even a liberal's heart. But that doesn't change the bigger picture, does it?