Word: lbj
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...understood them. When the economy flagged a bit, Snow was a less than inspiring presence on TV. And by the time the first term ended, White House officials were leaking widely that he too would soon be going - so widely that Bush decided to do one of his famous LBJ-inspired personnel U-turns and keep Snow just to spite the critics...
...Journalists (and Republicans) are fond of remarking on how Bush has tried to avoid the mistakes of his father. And that is surely true. But Bush now faces the woes of his fellow Texan, LBJ, too-how to expand government at home and fight a sluggish, unsatisfying war abroad. Johnson did so with a landslide election victory, a surging economy and a more optimistic view of government at his back. Bush lacks those advantages and has skyrocketing energy prices to contend with as well...
Johnson’s story is sobering as well. His once-rich father lost everything to the heat and floods that destroyed his cotton crop. As a result, LBJ vowed to amass a fortune big enough to withstand any disaster. This pursuit of money would lead to allegations that Johnson improperly used his congressional position for his personal gain—for instance, he tended to help companies that ran ads on his wife Lady Bird’s radio station. And finally, there is Nixon, who as a child was devastated by his younger brother’s death...
...that the mere mention of the Vietnam analogy was demoralizing to troops and comforting to enemies seemed, ironically, to be a reminder of the 60s when protestors, not without cause, were chided the same way. With his literally limitless commitment to government power in Iraq Bush sounded like the LBJ of the Great Society or Vietnam, as expansive as the Texas sky. ?We are going to change the world,? Bush said, eschewing any of the humility about federal power that anchors conservatism. Was Woodrow Wilson ever so bluntly idealistic...
...When it came to spending, it was open checkbook time. Like LBJ, he committed himself to as many troops as needed, to arm Iraqi forces and give them all the necessary training. His few concessions to the cruel April in which 83 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq was to say repeatedly that the last few weeks have been ?tough.? One of Bush's first lines was a classic example of his sometimes-mangled syntax: ?This has been tough weeks in that country...