champagne and the fox trot

But I question some of that, from the book about Kennedy admin.: Lyndon Baines Johnson's "loss of influence was agonizingly conspicuous. After running the Senate, now he could only carry out orders..." -- Hold the phone, folks! Lyndon Johnson knew what a Vice President does, and doesn't do -- he would have known the "background, supportive" nature of that role -- for heaven's sake, he had been in politics since the FDR days. You don't live and work in that atmosphere for a gazillion years and succeed as well as Johnson did, and not know that a Veep is
a) not the star of the show, and
b) there to help the president. Period.

If he thought it would be too frustrating, or stifling, to go in every day and serve the president instead of running the Senate, Johnson wouldn't have accepted the position, surely.

And in light of the fact Johnson --
a) was 9 years older than Kennedy, and
b) had longer (and more successful) congressional experience than Kennedy --
his strategy of saying, "I agree with the President" in meetings where other people were prseent was correct, I'd think. He could still offer Pres. Kennedy a different viewpoint in private, later -- just not when there's an "audience." (Look at how people quote and describe and postulate and weave yarns and analyze years later, anyway! Think how much more "drama" they could create if Johnson had disagreed with anything during those meetings!)

It seems like when you read history or bio, sometimes the people talking about things and recalling things are creating a "narrative," a story-line: it's a natural tendency to do that because part of human nature is, we want (need) to impose order on experience. We want to make sense of things.

And the part about "I can't stand Johnson's damn long face," a quote attributed to Pres. K.: that's just the way Lyndon Johnson looked! That's -- his Face. (To me, it sort of sounds like the president was showing a little insecurity, or feeling a little guilty, maybe because some of these other folks around him are whispering in his ear and telling him, Johnson used to be such a big shot in the Senate and now he feels marginalized in this new position as vice pres. ...)

I think other pundits and commentators may have characterized Johnson as being in a "political wilderness," but they were dramatizing -- story-lining....I think Lyndon Johnson knew the opportunities AND the limitations of the vice presidency before he accepted -- I don't think he was worried about any damn "wilderness"...

And -- where Schlesinger worte, "self-effacement was unnatural" to Johnson: well, in the course of trying to accomplish something in life most of us have to do some things, some times, which may not come as naturally to us, but we do them anyway.
Come to work.
Do your homework.
Be polite.
"I agree with the President."
Have a nice day.

----------------------- {excerpt}: The black-tie candlelit dinner dance for eighty on Saturday, November 11 [1961]...Lester Lanin played, adn Oleg Cassini introduced the twist, the hip-gyrating dance sensation that was sweeping the country. The twist, which originated at New York's Peppermint Lounge, was considered so improperly suggestive that Pierre Salinger [press secretary] denied it had been part of the evening's festivities. Charley Bartlett [Washington journalist], a self-confessed prude, afterwards urged JFK to ban the dance at the White House. "That crowd has been getting along for years on champagne and the fox trot, and they won't need the twist to keep them stirred up," Bartlett wrote. "It's bound to get out, and it doesn't seem to me to be worth the price however small."

The champagne flowed until 4 a.m....
{end excerpt}--------------------
{Grace and Power,
by Sally Bedell Smith. Copyright,
2004. Random House, New York.}

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