In Merle Miller's biography of Lyndon Johnson, he quotes President Johnson saying in 1969, after he had left office, "I never felt I had the luxury of re-examining my basic assumptions. Once the decision to commit military force was made, all our energies were turned to vindicating that choice and finding a way somehow to make it work."

And, of course, it was that failure to reexamine the basic assumption that formed the tragedy of the Johnson administration – at the expense of tens of thousands of lives. THAT is what REPENTANCE is about – not just acting sorry, but going in and looking at the basic assumptions and then making real changes.