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http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/15/david-frum-on-obama-lessons-in-robert-caro-s-lyndon-johnson.html
Johnson led the nation in its mourning for Kennedy, opening his first speech to Congress: “All I have I would have gladly given not to be standing here today.” Then he picked one out the late president’s many fitfully advanced causes and seized on that cause as the one and only fitting memorial. Johnson chose civil rights—his passion much more than it had ever been Kennedy’s. “[No] eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil-rights bill for which he fought so long.” Unsaid: Kennedy had to fight so long for that bill because he did not fight anywhere near so effectively as the man who followed him.
...
Having chosen his cause, Johnson started to assert his authority. The conservative Democrats who dominated Congress in the early 1960s had perceived Kennedy as weak. They pushed against him—and usually won. Within days of taking office, Johnson went looking for a way to push back. He found his opportunity in a battle over grain exports to the Soviet Union. Conservatives in Congress had introduced an amendment limiting presidential authority to permit such sales.
As Caro writes: “‘I hope that [bill] gets murdered,’ Johnson snarled, and, sitting in the Oval Office, he kept telephoning senator after senator, cajoling, bullying, threatening, charming, long after he had the majority, to make the vote overwhelming.” Why? To teach Congress the lesson that Johnson could not be rolled.
The lesson was learned.
Johnson led the nation in its mourning for Kennedy, opening his first speech to Congress: “All I have I would have gladly given not to be standing here today.” Then he picked one out the late president’s many fitfully advanced causes and seized on that cause as the one and only fitting memorial. Johnson chose civil rights—his passion much more than it had ever been Kennedy’s. “[No] eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil-rights bill for which he fought so long.” Unsaid: Kennedy had to fight so long for that bill because he did not fight anywhere near so effectively as the man who followed him.
...
Having chosen his cause, Johnson started to assert his authority. The conservative Democrats who dominated Congress in the early 1960s had perceived Kennedy as weak. They pushed against him—and usually won. Within days of taking office, Johnson went looking for a way to push back. He found his opportunity in a battle over grain exports to the Soviet Union. Conservatives in Congress had introduced an amendment limiting presidential authority to permit such sales.
As Caro writes: “‘I hope that [bill] gets murdered,’ Johnson snarled, and, sitting in the Oval Office, he kept telephoning senator after senator, cajoling, bullying, threatening, charming, long after he had the majority, to make the vote overwhelming.” Why? To teach Congress the lesson that Johnson could not be rolled.
The lesson was learned.
etc.
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