It's Time for Barack Obama to Take a Lesson From Lyndon Johnson

My father died in December 2006. My only consolation is that it didn't happen two months earlier.

Because by early November of that year, the Democrats had regained control of Congress, ending their six-year wandering in the wilderness and the country's six-year descent into madness and my Dad's six-year winter of discontent. Though no ideologue for the Left, my father hated the neo-conservative, evangelical wing of the Republican Party that took over Washington with George Bush in 2000 and flowered after 9/11. I used to spend hours on the phone listening to him grit his teeth while he tried to say the names Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and Rove. He couldn't stand their arrogance, their superstitions, their jingoism, their doublespeak, or their disrespect for rational thought. On bad days, he was unable to tolerate their clothes or even their taste in music.

But my father reserved his purest anger for the Democrats, who'd allowed themselves to get walked on for six years without raising so much as a peep to ask for mercy. Oh lord, how he would go on for hours over the phone or across a delicatessen table about the wobbly-kneed Left that had caved on the PATRIOT Act, the War in Iraq, and tax breaks on private jets for billionaires.

So listening to him ramble joyously (and this was not a man given to doing anything joyously) that sweet election night in November was enough to bring tears to a son's eyes. By midnight the House had been called for the Democrats; by early the next afternoon, the Senate fell too. When the news came in, my Dad and I were delirious, as much from exhaustion as exaltation. Who could sleep on a night like that? It didn't hurt that my father's truest legacy, and the one he passed on to his son, was a desire and an ability to stay up later than anyone he knew.

So, though I hated to see my father go, I'm glad he went when he did: right in that golden moment after the Democrats has regained power but before they started proving yet again that they have no idea what to do once they have it.

Honestly, I don't know if my Dad could have handled the political season we've been living through this summer; this debacle, this slow death of American thought, rhetoric, and reason. The rise of Sarah Palin would have given him the shakes; the ascendancy of the Birthers and the Tea Baggers would have curled his toes and sent him into paroxysms of distemper; the asphyxiation of the Obama health care plan by ideologues carting around their lies about "death panels" and Nazi-ism from town hall to town hall would have laid him low.

But in the end, Democratic capitulation would have been what did Joel Rosenblatt in, just as it's doing his son in. Somehow, to distort a phrase, our party always manages to snatch defeatism from the jaws of victory, and this time is no different. Even with right and reason on their side, even with a filibuster-proof majority on their side, the Democrats have again found a way to lay down and cower. Even as I type, Obama is considering taking the public insurance option off the table. This after ghoulish fear-mongering "forced" the Democrats to get rid of free end-of-life-counseling. This after Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said, "We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma," yet remains the White House's point man in the Republican Party. Shouting "fire" in a movie theater will get you jail time; Grassley may just get an ambassadorship.

So I ask you, as much for my father as myself: Where is Lyndon Johnson when you need him?

Think of all that Johnson did to push forward a far more sweeping and complicated legislative agenda than health care in the mid-1960s, an agenda that would eventually bring the country the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the NEA, PBS, the Kennedy Center, and the War on Poverty? Go here for an in-depth examination, but the short version is: Everything He Had To, from sweet-talking Congressmen to threatening legislative aides to cajoling religious leaders to playing on the decency of reporters (not an easy thing to do) to setting up task forces to doing interviews with any newspaper or TV station that would have him. Say what you will about LBJ, but he was incapable of being beaten around on an issue (except Vietnam, but who am I to nitpick?).

We on the left could use a little of that spirit right now. We've got the majorities, so why not take them out for a spin? Where's that LBJ-like toughness we keep hearing our former Chicago-community-organizer-turned-president is possessed of? The problem is I worry that Obama would rather be liked than right, that he would rather win the approval of Congress than their votes. I hope I'm wrong about this, but over the last few weeks I've been feeling the presence of the old weak-kneed Ghost of the Democratic Party Recent Past. Just watch footage of Democratic Representatives trying to reason with constituents who think they're actually taking part in a political debate when they compare Obama to Stalin and Obamacare to the Final Solution. Johnson would have dressed these people down in public and then drank all the liquor in their cabinet. Today's Dems look like they're all searching for a back door they can slip out of.

Thank God Barney Frank is alive and kicking, or I would have abandoned all hope already.

I guess it's appropriate that it's Chuck Schumer (that tough Jew from the most Jewish of all cities who, as one of the architects of the Democrats' 2006 victory, decided that he was tired of getting kicked around by white Southern Gentiles claiming they alone were the possessors of true American values and patriotism. Jews had been hearing this forever - like blacks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and women - and I imagine Schumer finally got fed up) coming once again to the rescue of the Democratic Party, saying on Meet the Press that when Congress reconvenes in September Democrats will consider pushing through a health care bill without the support or involvement of the Republicans. "We could get a public option that could be passed with the 60 Democratic votes we have," he said. "It's looking less and less likely that certainly the Republican leadership in the House and Senate will go for a bipartisan bill."

This is the only reasonable approach to dealing with a party whose only goal is to stymie the president's agenda and who have gone so far off the intellectual deep-end in their quest that they may as well be speaking a different language. This way, not only do you get your law passed, but you regain the loyalty and respect of your constituents, most on whom spent the better part of the 2000s afraid to speak their party's name for fear of being kicked out of respectable establishments and who cheered the 2008 election as the end of their days of shame.

Maybe, just maybe, Schumer will be the man to knock some sense into the party and its president and help it realize that when you've got power, the only person you have to blame if you fail to use it is yourself.

Please, Chuck: Do it for my dear old Dad. I'm beggin' you.

Follow Josh Rosenblatt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/unfittimes

Comments

[InOv8]

Josh, I wish I had had the opportunity to get to know your Dad, Joel. Sounds like a really great guy! Where is anyone who stands for anything in the Democratic party? "Centrist technocrats" did not bust their asses in the 2008 campaign to cave to Wall Street, defend DOMA, ignore Human Rights violations, advance a war without a clear objective that Americans can actually track, sell out to Big Pharma, capitulate to corporate Health Care insurers, anoint the "Gang of Six", and fail to appropriately respond to the lunacy espoused on talk radio. Change is a collaborative effort but leadership begins at the top.

[concernedjaneco]

Oh, and BTW, congress (democratic) tried to vote in millions of dollars for their OWN private jets two months ago. Talk about hippocritical.

[concernedjaneco]

I always find it interesting when 50% of the population wants to force the other 50% of the population to finance their lives. What happened to pride? What happened to work ethic? Accepting a handout is not pride, it is ownership. I refuse to be owned. And those who refuse to be owned and work their tails off to get what they need and accept personal help, not governmental help, are FREE. You can't legislate charity, it comes from within.

[mychagal]

Great article and very telling. LBJ was the most ambitious and the master politician of our century.

[mychagal]

I mourn for LBJ's legislative and political genius. He was the only progressive president we ever had, and he was better at his job, than all the other presidents combined with a few exceptions. It saddens me completely that Obama cannot model his behavior after LBJ. If he did, he would be very well respected and it would give us the health care overhaul we have needed for the past 50 years.

[N2Sman]

Let's clear our heads, progressives. Pres Obama made a secret deal with big Pharma??? Who gave him permission to do that? Did Obama make the same kind of deal with Wall Street? How about Energy and Environment issues. Are secret deals in the works?
I think Obama is trying to finesse a small or no public option. He's got big Pharma and who knows who else to please. His word smithing hasn't worked. He can't "charm" Grassley and his ilk. We have to drag him kicking and screaming to a substantial game changing Public Option. Tavis Smiley said months ago that conditions will dictate to Obama. Hillary is Watching!

[sidneycat]

LBJ must be rolling in his grave, health care for all should be a non issue..Everytime he needs a group hug, he does a town hall..Preaching to the choir, indeed.. With his short time in the Senate, he really doesn't have the needed muscle to get anything done correctly..I thought that's what Rahm Emanuel was supposed to help with..I realize that the President needs a break, but he should have sent the family on vacation, and spent the week arm twisting all the absent congressional representatives, by phone, or personal visit..LBJ would have invited everyone to the ranch and held their feet to the barbecue grill..if needed.
from another disillusioned Democrat.

[zezel]

When will y'all realize that the people don't want this stinkin' bill? Obama has failed, he can't sell it sure, but also the people aren't having it plain and simple.

[cyndeewi]

Zezel, you have failed! You cannot count the President out. I know that you wish that you could. Wait until you health fails and see the bills add you.

[tjinc]

Hey zezel and all y'all.

Read the surveys! Over 70% of American people WANT a public option. Guess who doesn't? The small number of noisy and ignorant paranoids, and the politicians who would rather defeat Obama than represent the citizens of the United States.

If you're not wealthy and truly happy with the cost of your health insurance premiums and the cost of health care, fine. Stay with your insurance.

I for one am outraged over having a mediocre health insurance plan for just my husband and me that costs us over ...................
$1,200.00 per month!

[tjinc]

The other people who don't want this bill? The health insurance industry and the health care industrial complex. The people who profit obscenely by running our health care system.

[owleye]

Josh, I like your attitude and your fathers! I was crazy with joy in 2006 but wary as hell that they would blow it. I think Hillary would have pounded the Senate ass over health care, but man, this country will take a woman in power. Look who freaked out middle aged men are -- acting like baboons in the branches belowing about health care.

What I am suggesting you consider blogging is the relation between bankruptcy and health care.
Changes in the bankruptcy law by the Bush administration have brought down so many families and individuals who had private health insurance which they loved, until they really needed it because of injury, accident or ilness and suddenly were faced an insurance company that denies, delays, disputes health care claims and forces them to litigage -- which they cannot because they have no money from paying ever increasing private health care insurance premiums, pay for copays, co-insurance, cobra
and suddenly over the edge of economic disaster. There is no social network in the US. The right wing evangelicals made sure that got wiped out long ago -- so much for all of LBJ's great work.
It's time to start undoing what Bush and the Evangelicals did and you know -- turning back the clock
on the bankruptcy laws would be a great place to start.

[Jaywalkker]

One important thing that's left out, and I forgot the name of the bill or law, but the change that before Congress can spend a penny they have to save a penny. LBJ did a good job of withholding the long term projections on Medicare and just selling the initial out of pocket. He also didn't have to contend with OMB doom-and-gloom accountants pointing out salient facts, like financing. I think the GAO has also grown a bit in authority since Johnson's time as well. So yes, Obama could definitely use a bit of Johnsonian strongarming and get the dems (blue dogs) in line, but he also has a steeper climb than Johnson did.

[postman66]

LBJ not only had the will of the nation firmly behind him after the assassination of JFK and the raw TV footage of what went on in the South. LBJ had also had a long Congressional record that included powerful leadership rolls.

[Dosadi]

If a special interest can donate money to an elected official and then that official votes exactly the way the special interest wants, that is a bribe. The elected official has been bought. Why are we putting up with this? Where is the outrage at the tyhing that causes these problems? We are all participating in this great democracy lie. It's time to demand some accountability from anyone we elect.

[owleye]

Lobbyists for the insurance companies, AMA, Hospital Associations, Clinics, and providers who suck off the private health care industry are just like military contractors -- milking the system they
have rigged by buying off legislators. Yeh, it's bribery, creed and corruption. But hell we're making a profit so who cares as long as the green back flow ( And not over the borders until we can bribe them too.) Yeh -- when will an American politician be accountable. When New York floods from global warming!

[sparky09]

'...I worry Obama would rather be liked than right...'

I started thinking that very early after the election & it's only gotten stronger lately...It's time Obama & the rest of the Dems grew a spine & a pair.....

[owleye]

During the election it was apparent this man likes being liked -- by team players from both sides.
He needs male approval -- the absent father snydrome -- and wants to be the respected
impartial, fair to all, modest character in the movie -- Atticus Finch, Sidney Poitier, Andy Griffth.....
who gets everyone to see the right way to accomplish things. Doesn't he get that the GOP -- guys like Grassley are mean, tough, sob's who don't gave a damn about health care as right. They prefer to see it as a privelge for playing the for-profit game to win. Oh, how terrible that the public option might make the for profit health care industry have to compete in a real free market rather than the rigged system Congress has allowed for generations. When will the GOP realize that while Christ
was into healing the sick and helping the poor -- that Grassley is hypo-crite. And why Obama is pandering to this guys and won't whip the Democrats in to line like Johnson did, and Truman did.
If the Demo's don't pull this off. They are dead.

[JailNeoconVicts]

I have been a registered Democrat for over thirty years. If Healthcare does not pass with a strong public option, I am going independent, and not a dollar more to any Democratic organization. It's that simple. I am disgusted.

[sparky09]

Same here...

[SensibleAmerican]

Your father (rest in peace) was a "Sensible American" Josh and so are you! :-)) Hillary's words are so true that "you campaign in poetry and govern in prose"! Obama's eloquence had the far left in a tizzy while his ambivalence and vagueness had moderates and independents swinging to his tunes. Now the same eloquence sounds like an overdose of blah-blah and his vagueness is seen as "sitting on the fence" and "not taking a stance"

No wonder all the damage done in the Bush years to the constitution, FISA, the Bill of Rights has still not been repealed. Renditions are still on, prisoners are being shipped to countries that advocate and use torture, now you can carry a weapon to a National Park (so much for gun control), health care reform has so many shades that most do not know whether they are coming or going, the deficit soars while government keeps ballooning in size

As for the Dems, the "right" has always been able to get their message across and define everyone from Carter to Mondale to Dukakis to McGovern to Gore to Kerry while the "left" only reacts to such "definitions". No wonder Palin's rants on "Facebook" carry more momentum than a sitting President's pronouncements!

[Jaywalkker]

Seconded. Its mostly non-actionable rhetoric. I don't listen to any Presidential speech except State of the Union's or rare instances (Obama's egypt speech or any national emergency). Often President's don't do much but set a tone, its their appointments that I pay attention to. Look at Bush administration, when he came to office, his goals were No Child Left Behind, immigrant reform while showcasing his cozy relationship with Vincente Fox, and to restore baseball as the national pastime. Then 9/11 happened and the keys were handed to Cheney and the neo-cons. Then you run into DOJ scandal, FEMA and Katrina, and mishandling of all sorts - all committed by staffers and appointments that I doubt Bush orchestrated or was even aware.

[jhNY]

Although Obama took the White House as part of a national revulsion against Bush II and his incoherent policies, there was no consensus among the citizenry comparable to the New Deal-Four Freedoms consensus of the 40's-60's, and the de facto consensus in place, especially among the Beltway press and Congress, has been corporatism. And Obama was a Senate freshamn when he got the nomination, with few allies and no long-term relationships in that chamber, in contrast to LBJ, the most powerful senator of his day.

Obama, instead of making a bold break from this Beltway corporatist consensus, has contrived to give us corporatism with a human face-- a bail-out of banksters but with gentle chiding re bonuses, a health care reform which first must pass muster with drug comapanies and insurance executives before it is unveiled. To date, not a pretty picture. But then again, Obama is no LBJ. Nobody is. Nor could be. The Senate doesn't work the way it did 50 years ago, and the elites and the party and the people have changed. And not always for the better.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Very salient asessment by "jhNY"....­...particu­larly regarding the fact that reforms and regulations must pass muster FIRST with the industries so regulated. Only then can they be trotted out for us Rubes to swoon over. .......
("And LOOK sonny, here's a quarter.... right behind your ear!!! Hold it up and show everybody son,... and then you can KEEP that.")

I voted for the President, and I suspect he PERSONALLY has his heart in the right place.......

But I can't help but think that he may now and then sneak off to the War room, past the dusty storage closets where the faded "Yes We CAN!" and "Change We can Believe In" placards are stored; enjoy a forbidden-in-public cigarette: and admire the placard with the FRESH paint which reads:

"Corporations Uber Alles"...........

and chuckle to himself.

Sigh.....

Eight and 1/2 years late...I think we may have our "Compassionate Conservative" after all.

Regards
tm