Good morning. It’s Friday, Dec. 8, and the day of the week when I share a quotation intended to be informative or uplifting. Last week, I quoted Rosalynn Carter, may she rest in peace. Today, I’m invoking another first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, on a subject that is always relevant, and not just during the holiday season: How children should be treated by their parents and other adults in their lives.
Fifty-six years ago today, Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife Lady Bird Johnson met just before noon in the family sitting room at the White House with Raymond L. Scherer of NBC News, Frank Reynolds of ABC, and CBS’ Dan Rather.
The breaking news story that impelled the session was not a looming foreign policy issue or a crisis here in the United States; you could call it a domestic issue. It was the purest kind of domestic matter, actually: The following day, President Johnson was to walk his elder daughter, Lynda, down a short aisle in the East Room to wed a U.S. Marine named Charles Robb.
The on-camera conversation with the First Parents was designed to reveal a softer side to the gruff, macho, and sometimes coarse Texan who occupied the Oval Office — as indeed it did.
I’ll have more on that interview, which I’ve written about previously, in a moment. First, I’d direct you to RCP’s front page, which contains the latest poll averages, political news and video, and aggregated opinion pieces ranging across the ideological spectrum. We also offer the usual complement of original material from our stable of columnists and contributors. Recent highlights include the following:
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Knives Out in Tuscaloosa at Final GOP Debate of 2023. Phil Wegmann and Tom Bevan recap the moderators’ strategies and the candidates’ fiery exchanges at Wednesday night’s event.
Suspend China for Repatriating North Korean Defectors. Susan Crabtree reports that U.S. lawmakers are putting pressure on the U.N. to bar forced return of refugees — a move that could mean certain torture and death for thousands.
How Liberals Let Antisemitism Happen Here. Peder Zane writes that the violence of Oct. 7 has shown true liberals the price of a dangerous alliance with the far left.
Why Social Security Must Be Reformed. Bill King deploys simple demographics to make the case that Americans will have to work longer and save more to keep the system solvent.
All the News Fit for You To Hear. Margaret Little and Margot Cleveland profile the lawsuit filed this week challenging the State Department on the censorship of Americans and the blacklisting of conservative media outlets.
Samantha Power and the Politics of Genocide. Stephan Pechdimaldji spotlights the Obama appointee’s fraught relationship with genocide survivors and implores her to use her influence to hold other countries accountable.
If You Didn’t Like the First Term, Just Wait for the Second. Ron Faucheux shares a cautionary tale of several U.S. presidents and their lackluster encore performances.
Wokespeak Grants to Arts Groups. In RealClearInvestigations, James Varney reports that the Department of Homeland Security, whose mission includes border security, is awarding counterterrorism funding to cooperatives and educational initiatives that strike some as odd for a department charged with protecting the United States.
An Amazing Story of Redemption Out of Pearl Harbor. At RealClearReligion, Jerry Newcombe marks this week’s 82nd anniversary with a review of the new “Wounded Tiger” by T. Martin Bennett.
Tracing the Roots to Pearl Harbor. And at RealClearHistory, Donald Bryson remembers the “day that will live in infamy” and notes how it accelerated the rise of aircraft carriers as the preeminent power in the world’s navies.
Let’s Please Not Turn Back the Clock on Air Travel. At RealClearMarkets, Nicholas Calio argues that a re-regulation of the airline industry would be a step, or a flight, in the wrong direction.
High Tariffs Cause Hardship for Farmers. At RealClearPolicy, Harold Wolle contends that ill-advised action by the U.S. government has driven up fertilizer costs more than 30% and has battered the bottom lines of the country’s food producers.
Conservative Internationalism Is the Bush Doctrine 2.0. Writing for RealClearDefense, Francis Sempa offers a critical analysis of the foreign policy approach, claiming the Founding Fathers would have rejected it.
Like a Flock of Demons Released Upon the World. At RealClearEducation, Nathan Harden speaks with Rikki Schlott, co-author of “The Canceling of the American Mind.”
Inversions, Conversions, Perversions. At RealClearBooks&Culture, Sheluyang Peng reviews Lexi Freiman’s new novel and meditation on cancel culture, “The Book of Ayn.”
An Answer to College Students’ Medical Care During the Holidays. At RealClearHealth, Alicia Plemmons highlights the value of nurse practitioners in filling health needs for young people living between home and school.
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The first question in that December 8, 1967, interview came from Raymond Scherer and it was addressed to the first lady. The NBC White House correspondent asked whether the Johnsons’ residence would “be a terribly lonely house with both your daughters married and gone.”
“Ray, I am sure there will be moments when I will walk into Lynda’s room and stand quietly and look at a snapshot, a sort of a yellowed newspaper story, a napkin with something from a party on it and those Ernest Shepard drawings on the wall that she loved so well, you know, from the Winnie the Pooh books,” Lady Bird replied. “Then I will have a sudden little wave of loneliness.”
When the same question was posed to the president, LBJ conceded that the White House would seem lonelier than before. Then he spoke touchingly of the women in his household while mentioning the previous night’s bachelors’ dinner.
“They asked me to make a few observations,” the president added. “I told them that there were many pluses and minuses in life … but I am not sure that I ever stressed the great pluses for me — my three girls: Mrs. Johnson, and Lynda, and Luci.”
Dan Rather followed up, prefacing his question with a rather inappropriate statement: “Mr. President, there are those who have said over the years that Luci was your favorite. Would you talk to us about the contrasting personalities of the girls?”
Johnson obliged, but only after taking issue with Rather’s tone-deaf premise.
“I have never known many parents who had favorites among their own children,” he replied. Warming to the question about his daughters’ differences, however, LBJ continued: “I think you see different things in different children. I think Mrs. Johnson has expressed it very well. They are quite different. Luci writes it and Lynda reads it.”
Johnson spoke glowingly of Chuck Robb and his pride that he was going to serve in Vietnam, betraying only a hint of the worry that would be felt by any father-in-law, not only the commander in chief. The president also mentioned his own childhood. “My father used to say to me that you will never know what it is to be a father until you are one.”
“He also said to me when he would spank me as a youngster, ‘Lyndon, this hurts me worse than it does you,'” Johnson added. “I never did quite believe that. I wondered if he really knew how much it was hurting me and how could it hurt him that much.”
This piqued the interest of Dan Rather, a fellow Texan, who asked three times whether the Johnsons had employed corporal punishment in their child-rearing methods.
“Oh, I was an outlaw compared to these dainty little girls,” the president replied. “We have never had any problem like that with them. I think they are so good because I have had very little to do with raising them. Their mother is the one who brought them up.”
So Rather turned to Mrs. Johnson, who also deflected the question. “I really don’t have any experience with boys,” she said. “But I haven’t found it difficult with the girls.”
“Well, how did you handle discipline when they didn’t do something that you thought they should do, particularly as they got older?” Rather persisted. “What kind of discipline did you impose on them?”
“I just talked to them, Dan,” Lady Bird said.
This could have been an awkward exchange, and certainly Dan Rather often prompted such uncomfortable moments in his career, many of them at the White House. But the news person who perseveres, even to the point of impertinence, is sometimes rewarded, and the public interest is served. What came next may have been prompted by presidential pique, but it’s one of the most poignant observations ever made by a president, one who was speaking as a protective father on behalf of a classy first lady.
“The answer is she didn’t apply any [punishment], Dan,” Lyndon Johnson interjected.
“She would just say, ‘Always remember you are trusted, always remember you are loved, always remember we care and I know that you are going to do what is right.'”
And that is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon
Washington Bureau chief, RealClearPolitics
@CarlCannon (Twitter)
ccannon@realclearpolitics.com
