It's also clearly a way, in its ruthlessness, the Bush WH is categorically different from Lyndon Johnson's. His, as we know, was all about personal relationships.
It's because LBJ was a creature of the Hill. He learned from people like Rayburn and Russell. And they had a sense of institutional pride in Congress. And Johnson, whatever else he was (and, as you know from Caro, he was a lot of seemingly contradictory things), had a sense of history, and a desire to build on the legacy of FDR. And of course it helped their sense of institutional pride that, as Speaker and Majority Leader, Rayburn and Johnson could together control the Hill (not that that was in the spirit of the Constitution either, but nevermind--better that than have the WH and Congress all warm and cozy with each other). But Bush had people like Frist and Hastert, who said more than once that their primary function was to shepherd the Bush agenda through Congress, not to mention the other crook from Texas who was primarily motivated by profit and the feeling of power. |
