Business remains brisk and posting has been light for weeks now, so here's a review at the WaPo from the
recently published Lyndon biography by Robert Caro.
The book opens in the rump years of the Dwight D. Eisenhower
administration, with our hero — or should that be antihero? —
contemplating a presidential run. It chugs through the grand detour of
John F. Kennedy’s reign, with LBJ sulking on the sidelines. And it ends
in the first weeks of Johnson’s presidency, which has been thrust upon
him by JFK’s assassination.
Although these are, for Johnson, years
of relative inaction, Caro infuses his pages with suspense, pathos,
bitter rivalry and historic import — with Robert F. Kennedy in
particular emerging as a nearly co-equal, second lead in the
psychodrama, always looming offstage and threatening frequently to steal
the spotlight from his arch rival.
In Caro’s account, LBJ comes
across by turns as insecure, canny, bighearted, self-defeating, petty,
brilliant, cruel and, of course, domineering. In the opening pages, he
longingly eyes the presidency but, psychologically paralyzed, can’t
bring himself to declare his candidacy or enter even a few primaries.
Instead, he rages at the upstart Kennedy, who shows unforeseen
proficiency in the old game of locking down governors and state
Democratic Party leaders for the convention and in the new game of
winning over the masses via television.
When Kennedy claims the
party’s mantle in Los Angeles and searches for a running mate, a
different Johnson suddenly appears: calculating, cagey, capable of
subsuming his contempt for Kennedy to a steely desire to place himself
next in line for the presidency. LBJ has staff members look up how many
presidents had died in office and then does the cruel math, admitting in
many conversations — and Caro recounts several of them — that such a
route is his best hope of becoming president himself.
About a decade or longer ago I went with some online friends -- we were meeting offline -- to the LBJ library, which I always have considered a
tour de force of the man's life. I was not an admirer of Johnson so much as I was in awe of him, much like Caro (and everybody else for that matter). In our group of about ten was a guy who had fought in Vietnam, come home and protested the war, been gassed, arrested, etc. I did not know this prior to our tour; in fact I found out about a year or so later. As we left the library I asked him how he liked it and he said he didn't. I apologized (I had organized the trip) and he shrugged and said, 'no problem", so I forgot about the incident.
Sometimes my superhuman ability to empathize with others fails me. Anyway...
When Kennedy is shot in the Dallas motorcade, Johnson is transformed
again — in an instant, according to Caro. Facedown on the floor of his
car, a Secret Service member’s foot planted in his back, Johnson is
magically possessed by self-assured calm. Rising to the immense
challenges before him, he guides the country with a strong hand through
the dark days of November using Kennedy’s martyrdom to realize his slain
predecessor’s unfulfilled agenda, although not without exacerbating
already-miserable relations with Robert Kennedy.
Like Popeye
after a can of spinach, the once-impotent Johnson finds his legislative
powers revived. The previous summer, as Kennedy was preparing to
introduce at long last a civil rights bill, Johnson had advised Ted
Sorensen, JFK’s close aide, to wait until he passed other key
legislation first, because Southern senators would hold it hostage. “I’d
move my children [the other bills] on through the line and get them
down in the storm cellar and get it locked and key[ed],” he urged, but
to no avail.
In December, however, Johnson, now president, undertakes a
series of brilliant legislative maneuvers, which Caro deliciously
recounts, to pick the locks of the congressional committees that had
been caging up Kennedy’s controversial civil rights and tax bills and
set them free.
If only Lyndon's ghost had provided some inspiration to Barack Obama with respect to the Affordable Health Care Act. Can't blame LBJ in the grave for someone else's lack of leadership, though.
Read the rest
here. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to reading the book itself.
