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| Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood in House of Cards |
The last episode of season one of House of Cards ends with Francis J. Underwood (FU) sitting at his desk in his cabinet conspiring with the audience in the style of Richard III, and on the table there is a book lying. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. IV by Robert A. Caro. For someone watching the show that is familiar with Lyndon Johnson’s bio, the parallels between him and the protagonist in House of Cards, played by Kevin Spacey, are obvious. Both FU and LBJ are savvy politicians and master strategist; both are obsessed with power, skilled at manipulation and ruthless in their approach (e.g. the infamous "Johnson treatment"); both men are aiming at the highest office in America and arguably – the world; both unbelievably smart and combinative, but most importantly – capable of passing bills through Congress.
The season of House of Cards ends in the tense moment where, after a series of hard scheming and morally (and legally) reproachful actions on behalf of FU, he is on the verge of becoming vice president. That is if an article exposing those actions doesn't come out first. In comparison, a sizable part of Passage of Power is dedicated to a piece of investigative journalism about LBJ’s money that was on its way to be published if it wasn't for the sudden assassination of Jack F. Kennedy that led to LBJ becoming the new president. Moreover, weeks after ascending to the presidency, he cleared his way from critical journalists in his typical manner - concealed transactions, blackmail, bulling.
As the show is gripping, provoking and revealing more than some would like to admit, so is the book. The Passage of Power is written with such immediacy, with so much skill, that one gets so involved and impatient regardless of their general familiarity with the events and their outcome. Gosh, I think to myself, here is another reason why I love this country. I mean the Anglo-Saxon tradition of writing about history in a fashion that compelling and humane. (The same goes for the supposedly dry American and British law books that sound like fairytales to me and perhaps to most Europeans used to the merciless formality of the continental legal tradition.) The descriptions of characters Robert Caro makes - their physical looks, demeanor, temperament, reactions to events and the preconditions to explain those reactions, such as upbringing, personal philosophy and so on - all that gives the book a novel-like quality.
When LBJ was ruling the Senate I was mighty and powerful with him; when he was frightened and refused to get into campaigning I felt frustrated and helpless; the night it was about to be decided whether Johnson would be on the Kennedy ticket, I was tense; during the years of his vice-presidency I felt the disgrace and to be honest I couldn't wait for Kennedy’s assassination, so that the humiliation would be over and Lyndon would be his full self again; but at the funeral I remembered all those pictures and films about the Kennedys and I felt America’s fascination with those people back again; then, seeing the mess Lyndon Johnson was left with, I was worried… Until he finally won my admiration anew. In the course of Passage of Power, the reader starts caring for LBJ’s goals and shares his aspirations, and by the end, he gets that deceitful feeling that he knows the man.
Precisely for that reason - the personal stuff and the vividness of those historical figures - we get hooked to Caro’s books. As he argues, personality is key in politics and consequential to a greater extent than people recognize. That is why he is so careful to examine the different styles Johnson, Robert and Jack Kennedy had.
“It is not clear who will bring to the Whitehouse those useful commodities of vivid language, a sense of history and most important - a sense of humour, but Johnson himself will provide many other attributes. He is effective precisely because he is so determined, industrious, personal and even humourless, particularly in dealing with Congress. (…) Kennedy had a detached and even donnish willingness to grant a merit in the other fellow’s argument. Johnson is not so inclined to retreat and grants nothing in an argument, not even equal time. Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. This may not be the most attractive quality of the new administration but it works. The lovers of style are not too happy with the new administration, but the lovers of substance are not complaining.” And.. “President Kennedy’s eloquence was designed to make men think; President Johnson’s hammer blows are designed to make men act.”
Doesn’t Kennedy remind you of Obama in that? Gentle and accommodating people, cool and too intellectual, and unable to cope with Congress (wink). It is easy to like Kennedy but I bet Americans right now wish they had a Johnson in the Whitehouse and a working government.
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| Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath of office on Air Force One |
In almost all his interviews Mr. Caro boldly underlines that what he is interested in is not doing a biography of a famous man. What he is interested in is how political power works. “And no one understood political power better than Lyndon Johnson”. In The Passage of Power, we get a glimpse of LBJ’s legislative genious (which is, I presume, developed more extensively in the preceding volumes) distinctly demonstrated in the first weeks of his presidency. If I have previously used the term Machiavellian for Bill Clinton (and I did), I now understand, I used it frivolously. The Machiavellian skill is way more distinctly displayed by LBJ (and Frank Underwood). But as much as decisiveness and shrewdness define LBJ, so does his compassion. I think that complexity specifically draw Robert Caro to devote four volumes so far on President Johnson, more than 3 200 pages and 35 years of his life, and we are still counting. For him, power may corrupt but not always; what power always does is reveal. The balance of LBJ’s presidency is: civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty".
"He was to become the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed. He was to be the bearer of at least a measure of social justice to those whom social justice had so long been denied. The restorer of at least a measure of dignity to those who so desperately needed to be given some dignity. The redeemer of the promises made by them to America. “It is time to write it in the books of law.” By the time Lyndon Johnson left office he had done a lot of writing in those books, had become, above all presidents save Lincoln, the codifier of compassion, the president who wrote mercy and justice in the statute books by which America was governed."
Lyndon B. Johnson speaks to Congress following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
Cracked Head Writer & Creative Director of Video, Daniel O’Brien joins Jack O’Brien (no relation) to discuss the many things you may not know about President Lyndon B. Johnson. They talk about some gems such as LBJ’s obsession with recording/transcribing almost every phone conversation to taking out his wiener (which he nicknamed Jumbo) in public all the time.
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