With the Passing of Kennedy, Time for Obama to Emulate JFK

Though JFK inspired so many of ‘bulo’s generation with his appeal to youthful idealism, people forget that it was Lyndon Baines Johnson who succeeded in passing most of the landmark bills that JFK had proposed, but had not gotten moved through the Congress.

Here’s what LBJ did:

He resolved to complete Kennedy’s legislative agenda, and his success in this mission made him perhaps the greatest presidential legislator in the country’s history. Johnson termed his program the Great Society, and his achievements in civil rights, voting rights, easing poverty, and other measures between 1964 and 1969 rivaled and eclipsed Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Johnson’s Great Society agenda included initiatives that touched the lives of all Americans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, federal aid to education, immigration reform, environmental and consumer protections, the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Transportation (DOT). The Great Society also created the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, food stamps, Head Start, and Model Cities, and implemented many other reforms. Subsequent presidents and congresses challenged many of Johnson’s Great Society programs. But most remained in place, serving as a safety net for disadvantaged Americans, and as federal commitments to housing, education, and other programs cherished by middle-class Americans.

Here, in part, is how LBJ did it:

Robert Dallek, the historian, said that Lyndon Johnson might have been the greatest vote counter ever in Congress, not because of his math skills but because of his unrivaled ability to read his fellow politicians and his utter ruthlessness in using what he knew.

”He knew most everything about his colleagues in the Senate — what they drank, where their wives wanted to go on junkets, whether they had a mistress or not, were they happy with their parking space, what the interests and needs of their constituents were,” Mr. Dallek said.

Mr. Dallek said that L.B.J. also instinctively understood the all-consuming neediness of his fellow politicians.

”So many of these guys who go into politics are narcissistic characters — they want attention, they need it,’‘ he said. ”People like Johnson and Hoyer and Lott know how they can turn that sort of pathology into a very constructive business for themselves.”

And, here, straight from one of LBJ’s former top staffers, is how LBJ would enact a meaningful health care bill. Read it, it’s really cool.

The Beast Who Studies Presidential History believes that, like Kennedy, Obama’s weakness is not his willingness to pursue an aggressive agenda. Quite the contrary, it his unwillingness/inability to get beyond his own innate caution to pursue meaningful change. In other words, in honor of Ted Kennedy, Obama must emulate the successor of the fallen President Kennedy.

It is time for Obama to stop allowing these narcissistic freelancing senators from pissing all over health care. It is time for him to say, “We’re getting this done with 51 votes. It will be meaningful and it will include a public option in honor of the Lion of the Senate. We’re going to break the stranglehold that the insurance companies have over people’s healthcare. I’m getting to 51 votes by any means necessary. Either you’re with me or against me.”

It is also time for Obama to unleash Biden on the Senate he purportedly knows so well. If Biden can’t get hopeless shills like Carper behind this, then the voters will have to. But keep in mind: Carper is essentially spineless and he will do nothing to jeopardize his worthless but lengthy political career. And, there’s lots more where he came from.

The time for getting bogged down in process is over. Trying to logically rebut whacko ‘death panel’ and ‘they’re going to kill grandma’ crap is a sucker’s game. Rethugs are so terrified that their corporate sponsors in the insurance industry are going to suffer a direct hit that all they’re doing is throwing up the most far-fetched shit possible. And Obama has played right into their game. Obama must call a halt to this game. He must tell recalcitrant ‘Democratic’ senators that either they’re on the bus or they’re not on the bus (yes, a Ken Kesey reference). He must take the lead  in unmasking the insanity that has passed for discourse in order to give the Senators cover (aka courage).

El Somnambulo sees this as the defining moment of the Obama Presidency. If he continues on his overly-cautious path, his will be a failed Presidency, and his failure to implement meaningful health care protection for all Americans will be his signature failure. He must articulate the vision of Ted Kennedy and he must employ the tactics of LBJ to get this done. It’s right there for him. All he has to do is step up and do what effective presidents have done.