Dead Presidents

Obama doesn’t have the legislative experience, years of close relationships, mastery of the parliamentary skills and tricks, and political balls that LBJ had.  It requires a certain level of risk that Obama’s personality isn’t built for, and President Obama is just not a mean guy.  Nobody is scared of him and fear can be a useful tool for achieving political goals.  At some point, the President just has to throw caution to the wind and roll over his opponents, as well as members of his own party who are an obstacle to what he’s trying to do. 

I’ll tell you what, LBJ wouldn’t have put up with a fellow Democrat like Senator Manchin of West Virginia nipping at the President’s heels constantly.  If LBJ were President, a guy like Manchin would either vote for the Administration’s agenda, keep his mouth shut, or end up working in one of his state’s beautiful coal mines when re-election came around.  And a guy like Joe Lieberman?  LBJ would have DESTROYED Joe Lieberman, just like Obama and the Senate Democrats should have done.  You know what LBJ would have done if he were a leading Democrat in 2006 when Lieberman made a third-party run after losing the Democratic nomination for Senate in Connecticut?  LBJ would have found five people in Connecticut also named Joe Lieberman and gotten them on the ballot in order to split the vote so that nobody named Joe Lieberman won the election.  That’s the kind of shit that we’re missing today.