Clinton's LBJ Comments Infuriated Ted Kennedy

[Myra Bronstein]

Men like Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush aren't all bad.

Sure, overlooking a couple of million dead Vietnamese, a million dead Iraqis,

millions of addicts who got hooked on Reagan's contra coke, etc.

Johnson was planning to go to war and recognized the need to pacify blacks

before sending a disproportionate number of them off to 'Nam.

I could go on.

Didn't Hitler love his Mom? Not such a bad sort...

I suspect this is part of the answer. However, you have to remember that when LBJ signed the 1964 Civil Right Act he stated to associates that signing the bill had lost the South for the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future. This was true and enabled right-wing supporters of the Democratic Party to switch to the Republicans. The 1964 Civil Rights Act therefore united the right in such a way that it destroyed the potential of the Democratic Party as a progressive force.

I still don't see much courage in Johnson's actions. Forgive my seemingly limitless cynicism, but Goldwater already had the Republican nomination by this time. LBJ knew he only needed to swing slightly left in order to occupy the political middle ground. JFK knew he would have BG on toast if the Republicans nominated him and LBJ also relished his chances against this unsophisticated redneck.

Throw in the media's messianic support for LBJ in the aftermath of JFK's assassination, and the war LBJ started in August '64 against the 'communist menace' and LBJ was a shoo-in in '64. He wasn't too worried about temporarily alienating the right wing fringe of his southern constituency, because he knew he had the media to help him appeal to the wider electorate. After all, they helped him cover up the assassination, venomously attacking all WC dissenters.

Of course LBJ would portray himself to colleagues as some kind of courageous statesman gambling with his political future for the greater good of America. That's his familiar behavioral pattern. However, I've yet to see any genuine courage on LBJ's part in my analysis of his public or private life.

I always wondered about the Civil Rights Act and how incongruous it seems when analysing LBJ's career. I think Cliff Varnell hit the nail on the head and I'm kicking myself for not tumbling earlier.

Nice call, Cliff.

"People just don't realize how conservative Lyndon really is."

Bobby Kennedy, November 22, 1963

http://books.google.com/books?id=bVrRvYV7i...Kt8FJl8HeetH7FA

Yes, the civil rights act was incongruous. Lyndon was merely trying to get some good ink in the history books at the tail end of one of the most corruption-filled murderous presidencies in history.

[Robert Howard]

There are a couple of points that should be made. Which is that while Ted and Caroline Kennedy are definitively for Obama, [so am I] Hillary has the endorsement of Robert Kennedy Jr as well as sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. While a few years ago, a wide margin of Americans were polled as stating they would never vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton, there are warning signs that may no longer be the case.....Why?

In a sign that suggests Britney Spears may not be the only one with psychiatric problems, the acid-tongued Ann Coulter stated she prefers Hillary to Sen John McCain, which was about as anticipated as a UFO appearing in Times Square at midday.

If John Simkins statement regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being a factor in the decline of the Democratic Party is true, [a view certainly with its adherents], it is a fact that does not speak well of the America of the 1960's. Offering my own view on Lyndon in regards to that issue, I would state he was the ultimate "opportunist," who realized he had to continue, to a certain degree the social/domestic agenda of JFK to be successful, for lack of a better word. I personally believe LBJ was a closet conservative regarding certain issues, and while he may have elected to carry on the fight to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, one would have to be naive to even think that LBJ admired MLK, views and holy writ of Doris Kearns Godwin, notwithstanding.

ps The reference to Ann Coulter as possibly having psychiatric problems is not a implied insult to HRC, rather a reflections that Coulter usually embraces Democrat's the way older men love to pick up babies with soggy diapers, they don't.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Robert Howard