THE REASON FOR THE ENDORSEMENT:Clinton's LBJ Comments Infuriated Ted Kennedy

[Bianca]

                                          THE REASON FOR THE ENDORSEMENT:


                                     Clinton's LBJ Comments Infuriated Ted Kennedy





JANUARY 30, 2008
The Washington Post

There's more to Sen. Edward Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama than meets the eye. Apparently, part of the reason why the liberal lion from Massachusetts embraced Obama was because of a perceived slight at the Kennedy family's civil rights legacy by the other Democratic presidential primary frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act accomplished. Jealously guarding the legacy of the Kennedy family dynasty, Senator Kennedy felt Clinton's LBJ comments were an implicit slight of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who first proposed the landmark civil rights initiative in a famous televised civil rights address in June 1963.

One anonymous source described Kennedy as having a "meltdown" in reaction to Clinton's comments. Another source close to the Kennedy family says Senator Kennedy was upset about two instances that occurred on a single day of campaigning in New Hampshire on Jan. 7, a day before the state's primary.

The first was at an event in Dover, N.H., at which Clinton supporter Francine Torge introduced the former first lady saying, "Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually" signed the civil rights bill into law.

The Kennedy insider says Senator Kennedy was deeply offended that Clinton remained silent and "sat passively by" rather than correcting the record on his slain brother's civil rights record.

Kennedy was also apparently upset that Clinton said on the same day: "Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Ac. It took a president to get it done."

Both comments that day, by Clinton and her supporter, were meant to make the point that Clinton would be better equipped to get things done as president than Obama, her chief Democratic rival. Sources say Clinton called Kennedy to apologize for the LBJ comments. But whatever she said clearly wasn't enough to assuage Kennedy, who endorsed Obama earlier this week.

Kennedy insiders say the Massachusetts senator has also been angry with former President Bill Clinton for his "Southern strategy" themed comments on the campaign trail. The senator didn't hide his disdain for the nasty tone of the campaign during his endorsement speech at American University on Monday.

Kennedy's spokeswoman, Melissa Wagoner, would neither confirm nor deny that the senator was angered by Senator Clinton's LBJ comments. She simply said: "Senator Kennedy knows that candidates can't always be responsible for the things their supporters say. He's proud of President Kennedy's role in the civil rights movement, and believes that it's time to unify and inspire Americans to believe we can achieve great things again."

The Clinton campaign hasn't responded yet to our evening-time request for comment on Clinton's telephone apology to Kennedy. On the day of the LBJ rhetoric, however, a Clinton campaign spokesman was quoted on the New York Times' politics blog distancing Clinton from the surrogate who made the inappropriate assassination comment.

[Bianca]

LBJ, a profile in courage. He knew the Democrats would lose the South (and we have) for a generation.

A passage from a Kennedy biography that indicates that not only did LBJ's support for civil rights predate the assassination, he also pressed JFK to make his famous televised civil rights speech.

The book is titled "JOHN F. KENNEDY: THE PRESIDENTIAL PORTFOLIO; History As Told Through the Collection of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum", written by Charles Kenney. Certainly a "popular" biography but nevertheless a good one (published in 2000 by PublicAffairs). Here is the passage:

In early June [1963] there came a critical moment. The president asked Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who had been the leader of the Senate for years, whether he had any advice about getting a civil rights bill through Congress. Johnson launched into an impassioned plea for Kennedy to make a major public statement on the issue, to make a dramatic stand. Kennedy listened, then asked Johnson to make the same plea to Sorenson. Johnson did so on June 10. He told Sorenson that "the Negroes are tired of this patient stuff and tired of this piecemeal stuff and what they want more than anything else is not an executive order or legislation, they want a moral commitment that he's behind them." Johnson was fiery about the issue.

"I want to pull out the cannon!" Johnson exclaimed to Sorenson. "The president is the cannon. You let him be on all the TV networks just speaking from his conscience... I know the risks are great and it might cost us the South, but those sorts of states might be lost anyway. . . He ought to almost make a bigot out of nearly anybody that's against us, a high lofty appeal."

The book goes on to state that originally JFK was reluctant to make the televised speech on civil rights that LBJ had suggested, but RFK encouraged him and JFK did make the speech on June 11, 1963.

[Bianca]

Most of the people who come into this website are too young to have known John Kennedy.

He was the greatest orator since Cicero and the most inspiring man since Jesus of Nazareth.

Listening to John Kennedy speak made one willing to charge hell with a bucket of water.





But his memory has been distorted by two strains of historians. Some seek to perpetuate the
myth of Camelot. (And the Kennedy Camelot was as fictional as the Arthurian one.)

Others demonize him as a commie-loving liberal. They even vilify him for the greatest act by
any American President ever--avoiding by calm and shrewd diplomacy nuclear war in October,
1962.

In his dealings with Congress, however, he was an ineffective President. His legislative agenda
was log jammed in Congress and he could not move it forward. He proposed one the best ideas
for economic stimulation ever thought up--the investment tax credit. Even though the economy
was still sluggish from the Eisenhower years, Kennedy could not get even that through Congress.

Obama is the best orator I've heard since Kennedy. But there the similarity ends.

Unlike Obama, Kennedy was a realist.

He didn't ask us to hope for that which can never be.

He challenged us to reach inside ourselves and tap the full measure of greatness we have as a
people.

He reminded us we were the new generation who took the torch "born in this century, tempered
by war, and disciplined by a long and bitter peace..."

He told the world what we knew of ourselves--"we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe...to assure the survival...of liberty."

In Kennedy was grit, determination, dedication, perseverance.

Obama offers only fanciful hopefulness.

I can understand Ted"s anger. He, the last survivor, wants to preserve Camelot.

Besides, he and Bobby hated Lyndon"s guts. He will not give LBJ credit for anything, and will resent
any credit he gets.

But the historical truth is Camelot was built upon the legislative skills of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

[Monique Faulkner]

He didn't ask us to hope for that which can never be.

I totally disagree with that one, Obama.  Putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s was pretty incredible and out of reach at that time. 

Also the Civil Rights legislation that Johnson got passed was something that was written by Kennedy. Would Johnson have even wanted to pass it had he not wanted to get the Kennedy people behind it?  I doubt it.

Kennedy did a lot of great things during his presidency, making the Russians back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the only time the world was on the brink of nuclear annihilation was just one. 

The problem is not that people idealize the Kennedy administration, the problem is that some people have forgotten just how much promise there was.

[Monique Faulkner]

I'm also getting a bit pissed at all these Hillary supporters that want to keep knocking Obama's oratorial skills, as if that is supposed to be a bad thing. 

In order to lead people to be something better than themselves, you have to inspire them first, I would think we all learned that from George W., who can't speak worth a damn and is perpetually down to 32% in the polls. 

[Bianca]

QUOTE:



"I'm also getting a bit pissed at all these Hillary supporters that want to keep knocking Obama's
oratorial skills, as if that is supposed to be a bad thing."


Monique, with all due respect, at times like these, SUBSTANCE seems to me a tad more important
than "oratorial skills"....... 

I will refrain going into specifics, as it might incense you even more.

I'd much rather spar with someone on the LIBERAL BLOGS  than here.