No, I never met Lyndon Baines Johnson (though I have seen the animatronic LBJ at the University of Texas). Neither am I an expert on his administration. I have, though, over the course of my life gather some impressions about the man, and I have to say, whether or not you meant to diss Dr. King with your remarks about his needing LBJ to make his Dream come true, your efforts to cast yourself as the standard bearer of Johnson-esque pragmatism goes waaay wide of the mark.
- His record of public service was no contrivance: Lyndon John was, like JFK, a war hero. He started his career in the Congress in 1937, and rose to Minority leadership in 1953, and Majority leader in 1954. Of the years you tout of public service, how many of those have been in an elected office? Your record of years in elected office is no more impressive than Senator Obama's, and is lot lot less impressive than the records of candidates who have left the race (like Richardson and Biden) and really is rudimentary when compared to Johnson's.
- In terms of leadership, Johnson was a very bold man. As Majority leader he helped to pass the first civil rights legislation since Civil War Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1957. From the Wikipedia page on Johnson:
Historians Caro and Dallek consider Lyndon Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader in history. He was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every Senator stood, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to win him over.[11] Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment",[12] described by two journalists:[13]
The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the LBJ Ranch swimming pool, in one of LBJ's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself — wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.
Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.
Have you ever put yourself forward for a leadership position in the Senate, Senator Clinton? Have you ever even considered the Senate as anything more than a springboard for a Presidential run? Similar arguments could be made about your opponents, I suppose, but neither of them has held themselves up to comparison with a man whose career began in the New Deal and ended with an attempt to establish the Great Society.
- Johnson learned from his mistakes. He learned too late, in the case of the Vietnam War, but we know from his historical recordings that Johnson ultimately understood how wrong he'd been about Vietnam, and that understanding drove him to eschew a second presidential run. You too have now helped to get us into a horrible, intractable war. Have you learned from that? Have you thought twice about the decisions that lead you to support the AUMF, Have you thought about it since you voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. If these things weren't bringing down your poll numbers, would you be losing sleep over them at all?
I'd ask you, and anyone reading this diary, to follow the link above and listen to Johnson talking about Vietnam. I'd like you to think about what kind of senator and president Johnson was, and look at the kind of senator Hillary Clinton has been. I think you'll agree with me when I say "Senator Clinton, you are no Lyndon Baines Johnson."