Ted Kennedy: "Can you imagine Lyndon Johnson sitting on his ass in Texas"

[WI_DEM]

I have a friend in Boston who said he heard that Kennedy was overheard making this comment to the effect, "Can you imagine Lyndon Johnson sitting on his ass in Texas? he would have had a bullhorn in hand and been in a helicopter in New Orleons running the damn thing."

I thought that was pretty funny and also has a lot of truth in it.

[stevedeshazer]

1. True, and Ted was no LBJ fan.

LBJ would be there, all his faults aside.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Good one, Ted! nt

[newswolf56]

3. That's exactly what LBJ would have done. Remember...

that in terms of domestic policy, he was the most radical Leftist ever to occupy the White House -- even more radical than FDR. (In fact I have always believed the Vietnam War was very specifically the oligarchy's revenge for the War on Poverty and the Great Society.)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Hmmm. LBJ was a conservative Dem who passed himself off as a....

...liberal. The Civil Rights Act was something that had been started under JFK's presidency.

[comsymp]

9. Sheeit, LBJ was far more liberal on race than Kennedy

Kennedy piddled around with some Civil Rights legislation but was faaaar from eager to push the agenda.

[orpupilofnature57]

10. Who started the concept of insurance for everyone regardless of class

L.B.J. WAS MORE HUMAN AND ASTUTE THAN , SHRUB! big deal, he's still on my suspect list.

[newswolf56]

13. The Great Society with its War on Poverty was the most radical...

redistribution of wealth this nation has ever seen -- especially with its myriad job-training programs intended to permanently lift people out of poverty by giving them salable skills. But the deliberate undermining of this vital program began almost immediately: first through betrayal by local politicians, who used it as pork to reward their own private machines (NYC's Powell and Chicago's Daley, though probably the worst and most notorious, were anything but unique); next by bourgeois careerists, who took over the anti-poverty bureaucracy, greedily turned it into a personal cash-cow and milked it dry; lastly by Nixon, who feared how effectively Great Society community-action agencies were mobilizing impoverished and minority peoples -- not just to vote, but to take charge of their own communities. Nixon thus used Powell/Daley malfeasance to discredit the entire program and eventually shut it down.

[H2O Man]

15. Very true.

I think that JFK, LBJ, and RFK were all fascinating characters. They were complex men, with good and bad qualities.

JFK was hesitant on civil rights. In fact, he had lacked LBJ's talents in the Senate. But who didn't?

Was LBJ a social conservative? Certainly. And RFK was a hot-tempered, self-righteous aide to Joseph McCarthy. But LBJ and RFK matured into something very different than those things that they were at one time.

LBJ was, in a strange way, a radical. At the same time, he knew how to get results from a stagnate system, but was frustrated as president, because he no longer had the type of power he had best understood.

He was also cowardly in too many ways. He didn't know how to deal with Vietnam, and he disgraced himself. But if it were not for the war, he would be the hero of the left, and surely recognized as one of the top four presidents in our history.

[Art_from_Ark]

18. I think RFK was forced into that McCarthy stint by his father

but he quit 6 months later after seeing what McCarthy was really made of.

[H2O Man]

20. Sure.

Robert's transformation came from 1966 on, when he stepped out of the shadow of his father and older brother's influence. The Robert who would be trusted by the traditional Native Americans, who do not easily come to trust white politicians, wouldn't have worked for McCarthy for 6 minutes.

Each of the three (JFK, LBJ, and RFK) had unique talents.

[Art_from_Ark]

22. His epiphany came long before 1966

"In 1954 family connections helped him get a job working for Joseph McCarthy's Senate Committee on Unamerican Activities, but Kennedy resigned after six months. Subsequently, he was chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee where he investigated corruption in the Teamsters Union...

"As attorney general, Kennedy supported civil rights, ordering U.S. marshals to protect James Meredith, the first African American student admitted to the University of Mississippi. As the president's brother, he was able to communicate a quid pro quo with the Soviet ambassador that ultimately resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given Robert's generally confrontational stance against opponents, his brother may have given more weight to his call for military restraint during those tense weeks in October 1962."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kennedys/peopleevents/p_rfk.html

[WI_DEM]

16. interesting since LBJ passed more liberal/progressive legislation

than any other president and was (as the WH tapes show) much more passionate on Civil Rights than JFK. JFK dragged his feet for two years.

[orpupilofnature57]

4. A True Civil Servant ! Ted has done more for the needy, than shrub has..

For his " Base "

[Doctor_J]

5. Big Dog would have too

when millionaires start dying by the thousands, maybe a GOP pres will care.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Big Dog would have been in one of the boats getting people....

...out of the water, and/or handing out water and food.

[amandabeech]

11. And it would've been at a real shelter, too.

The few secret service needed to protect him would have had to have dragged him out or he would'v been there all day and all night.

[ima_sinnic]

6. can you imagine any of our Democrat leaders sitting on their ass?

sheesh--why don't the people fucking GET IT?

by the way, has George even donated blood?
How come he and Laura haven't had a big photo op with him presenting a check as big as a Cadillac to some friend organization?
I wonder how it makes the freepers feel to know Gore rescued almost 500 people while * didn't rescue anybody or give anything to the effort. Dumbasses! At least we have a REASON to see our president as a hero!
:patriot: :kick: :patriot: :kick: :patriot: :kick: :patriot: :kick: :patriot: :kick: :patriot:

[shrike]

12. LBJ would also know exactly how to handle Bush.

He'd walk on up to the Boy King, a big grin on his face, then reach down -- and twist his nuts in a knot.

Then say, "Get those people out of there now or I'll pull 'em off."

[Mein Bush]

14. Particularly if he was Bush's Vice President!!!!

[MN ChimpH8R]

17. I can so see LBJ doing just that.

:rofl:

[bluedawg12]

19. He was an icon then, we need icons now.

We need to have Dems on the ground and in front of mikes with good strong solutions. IMHO.

[mopinko]

21. funny you should mention this

i was gonna start a thread- let's go back to the war on poverty.
go teddy. one more example of dems get hung for misdemeanors, thugs get away with murder. how long are we going to let our best leaders be shot down by spin, and measured by a double standard???