lumber on over

The Fourth of July! (Just remember, if it hadn't been for that War of Independence -- we'd all be speakin' English right now!)

--------------[excerpt, Grace and Power]--------------- Kennedy and Johnson were by nearly every measure opposites. In his appearance, Johnson surpassed Kennedy only with his sheer size; four inches taller, he could stretch himself to a seemingly even greater height. His arms were disproportionately long, his hands like baseball mitts. Compared to the handsome President-elect, LBJ's face was powerful but irregular, with droopy dark eyes, a large nose, prominent ears, and a strong cleft chin.

Johnson had been born dirt poor nine years before Jack Kennedy; as a young man LBJ had picked cotton and worked in harness with mules on a road gang. While the serenely cerebral Kennedy was graceful and discerning, Johnson was moody, lumbering, and coarse. "Lyndon was a powerhouse who filled a room," said Ben Bradlee [Washington Post]. "Jack was more demure." Johnson was overwhelmingly physical in his behavior: poking chests, grasping shoulders, leaning close. "He'd suck your guts out," said Orville Freeman, the governor of Minnesota who became Kennedy's secretary of agriculture.

...Kennedy and Johnson were as different in speech as they were in manner. Kennedy was casually terse, sometimes stopping short of a finished sentence when he had made his point; Johnson was legendarily loquacious, repeating something a dozen different ways to make sure he was understood. It was, in a sense, a generational difference between speaking for television and addressing the crowds in a dusty Texas courthouse square. Johnson was a gifted storyteller who rarely read a book and tended to get his information from men he trusted. While many of Kennedy's acolytes underestimated LBJ's intelligence, JFK recognized the mental agility behind LBJ's simple words and colorful locutions. Like Kennedy, Johnson had an impressive memory -- for facts, names, and situations.

Kennedy...admired Johnson's drive, cunning, and dedication, viewing him as a talented workhorse deeply knowledgeable about the intricacies of legislative politics. Since his election to Congress in 1936 at age twenty-eight as an ardent New Dealer, Johnson had been building his base, cultivating allies, accumulating IOUs, flattering, and trading favors... .

Kennedy's selection of Johnson as vice president had been crucial to the Democratic victory. While LBJ did not actively oppose Kennedy for the presidency in 1960, he maneuvered behind the scenes to gather delegates and strike alliances to deny Kennedy a first-ballot victory and emerge as a compromise candidate at the convention. The strategy failed, but Johnson still logged the second highest tally of votes by a significant margin. As liberals [protested] that an old-fashioned conservative southerner besmirched Kennedy's message of youth and vigor, Kennedy told his aides that Johnson could deliver the South and take "the Catholic flavor off me." Joe Kennedy, the ultimate pragmatist, endorsed the choice as "the smartest thing" JFK ever did.
---------------- [end excerpt]
{Grace And Power, by Sally Bedell Smith.
Copyright, 2004. Random House, New York.}

I was thinking I disagree with that, where it says that John Kennedy's speaking style was "speaking for television" -- from what I've read, that was just JFK's speaking style, in life, not just "for TV." TV was still brand new (less than a decade, in most households); and John Fitzgerald Kennedy had learned to speak long before 1952! (But that's a small point; I love that book, the author's research and telling....)

The other question (a.k.a. What??!) is where it says "liberals" looked upon Lyndon Johnson as an "old-fashioned conservative southerner" ...Mmh.

We just said LBJ got elected as a "New Dealer": plenty of anti-Roosevelt Republicans would have thought any New Dealer was liberal, not conservative.

When Johnson ran in the 1964 election, Republican Barry Goldwater was "conservative"; does that make incumbent President Johnson a "liberal"?

But yet jumping back to 1960, Johnson is seen as a "conservative" by Kennedy supporters.

Reading this, shows us -- so much of the labeling, categorizing, and pigeon-holing of political leaders is incorrect, because their positions are fluid, changeable. Every politician, even the president, is just a guy "hired" (by our votes) to do a job.
Doing the job is what's important. The real world issues should be our concern.
"Positions on the political spectrum" are gratuitous; and
name-calling is worse than a waste of time.
The sneering, snotty way many people spit out the word, "liberal" these days -- that's Rupert Murdoch pretend-"news" playtime-hour entertainment: I don't take what they say seriously any more than I would take a comic strip seriously.

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