Word: lbj
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...however, the point of the article was that since the inanition of the current political scene makes participation therein unseemly and vulgar, there is a hellish need for something new -- before we all cop out. That LBJ might be displaced in the process -- or that the war might come to an end -- well, so much the better. But there are things even more important than that, one of which is the salvation of a political system which may no longer be worth fighting for. Lardner just can't see beyond LBJ or Vietnam. John Garson Research Associate...
...parts to the argument of the article. First, the primary objective is to develop a way to reverse the Vietnam policy represented by President Johnson, Dean Rusk, and Walt Rostow, including, if necessary, the President's defeat in the 1968 election. If the goal were simply "How to Remove LBJ in '68," the title supplied the piece by the New Republic, then Mr. Lardner's jibe about the argument being "internally ridiculous" would be correct, for, if that is one's sole goal, the answer is obvious: vote Republican in 1968. However, things aren't that simple...
...Romney would be a meaningful improvement on the incumbent--then who is to say a third party would benefit him? Is it not equally logical that the existence of such a party would split the anti-war vote in two and deprive the Republicans of their chance to beat LBJ? Certainly Levinson and Miss Kearns are not the only opponents of the war who would prefer to see a moderate Republican win in '68. The prospective supporters of a third party movement--mostly old line radicals and staunchly anti-war Democrats--are under no circumstances going to repeat their mistake...
Johnson is Mailer's political obsession; his speech about LBJ at Berkeley last summer was cut off by the university radio station after ten minutes. Johnson, he said, invented the war to satisfy the rednecks who wanted to kill gooks, giving him an alternative to continued support of the civil rights movement. "Yes, thought the President," Mailer drawled, "his friends and associates were correct in their estimate of him as a genius. Hot damn. Vietnam. The President felt like the only stud in a whorehouse on a houseboat...
...last few years, Mailer has proved himself equal to the task of taking on the literary and political world. His review of Mary McCarthy's The Group was devastating, and his piece on LBJ's Hope For America is a classic of literary demolition. He even dedicated Cannibals and Christians to Johnson, "whose name inspired young men to cheer for me in public...