Said Conan O'Brien, quoted in "Conan O’Brien’s Unrequited Fanboy Love for Robert Caro" by John Koblin (NYT).
“One of the things that makes him one of the greatest biographers of all time is he’ll write about Lyndon Johnson, but when he encounters another character who’s interesting — Coke Stevenson — he will drop everything and go down deep, incredibly deep, into, ‘Who is this man really?’” he said. “He’ll find all this deep rich ore, which, once you know it, it’ll make the whole story that much more powerful. Whereas other people would dispense with those characters in a paragraph or two.”...Great topic for a NYT article. Credit to the NYT. And I love the illustration. First class. The NYT at its best.
As he continues his quest [to get Caro to appear on his show], Mr. O’Brien said he will draw on what he has learned from Mr. Caro’s epic series. “Like Johnson, I have an incredible drive and a complicated relationship with my father,” he said. “I’ll stop at nothing.”
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54 comments:
Connan O'Brian did a series of "Serious" interviews years ago. I can't remember if he did them for PBS or showed them in his regular TV slot. Anyway, they were OK, so I would like to see him interview Caro.
I enjoyed the first LBJ book, primarily because Caro obviously disliked LBJ and exposed a lot of things we didn't know about. Like most biographers he's more or less got to like his subject, and his last volume almost showed LBJ as a hero. I guess you can be a complete S.O.B. and corrupt liar as long as you help Civil Rights.
The NYT at its bets.
Sorry I didn't see anything in the story that was interesting.
Then I saw the word bets.
I didn't know the NYT took up gambling!
What's the line?
Conan O'Brian (COB) is just like LBJ, LOL.
"The NYT at its bets."
Well... it wasn't me at my best. Typo corrected. Thanks for the heads up.
Caro showed his intense dislike for LBJ in his well-written series and reading about Coke Stevenson does evoke interest in this admirable statesman [I especially like his proposal that, IIRC, Congress meet only once every four years]. But Stevenson was far from flawless and Johnson did possess a few commendable traits.
I'm the same way about Robert A. Caro. I wasn't aware that I had any heroes, but when I was watching the adulatory film intro to LBJ a the LBJ library last April and Robert A. Caro appeared on screen (momentarily), I heard myself say, out loud, "My hero."
Ann Althouse said...
"The NYT at its bets."
Well... it wasn't me at my best. Typo corrected. Thanks for the heads up.
You mean they didn't take a long position on something?
=(
Ann Althouse said...
I'm the same way about Robert A. Caro. I wasn't aware that I had any heroes, but when I was watching the adulatory film intro to LBJ a the LBJ library last April and Robert A. Caro appeared on screen (momentarily), I heard myself say, out loud, "My hero."
Fine fine I will go look at the wiki...
hope it is somewhat accurate
If Robert Caro were ever to appear on Conan O'Brien's show, we'd be guaranteed a six-minute segment with O'Brien inanely blabbering about himself. Spare us that, Jeebus.
"According to a 2012 New York Times Magazine profile, "Caro said he now thinks that Princeton, which he chose because of its parties, was one of his mistakes, and that he should have gone to Harvard. Princeton in the mid-1950s was hardly known for being hospitable towards the Jewish community, and though Caro says he did not personally suffer from anti-Semitism, he saw plenty of students who did."..."
=/
"He took a brief leave to work for the Middlesex County Democratic Party as a publicist. He left politics after an incident where he was accompanying the party chair to polling places on election day. A police officer reported to the party chair that some African-Americans Caro saw being loaded into a police van, under arrest, were poll watchers who "had been giving them some trouble." Caro left politics right there. "I still think about it," he recalled in the 2012 Times Magazine profile. "It wasn't the roughness of the police that made such an impression. It was the—meekness isn't the right word—the acceptance of those people of what was happening."[12]"
>.<
Yeah, Althouse hearts Caro. That's fine.
But isn't that more of a secondary feeling?
Example: I love the way Howard Cosell covered boxing legend Muhammad Ali, but I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about Ali, but Cosell is my hero.
That seems kinda odd.
Caro wrote about Robert Moses, too -- a similar political hack as LBJ, albeit at a lower level.
"That was one of the transformational moments of my life," Caro said years later. It led him to think about Moses for the first time. "I got in the car and drove home to Long Island, and I kept thinking to myself: 'Everything you've been doing is baloney. You've been writing under the belief that power in a democracy comes from the ballot box. But here's a guy who has never been elected to anything, who has enough power to turn the entire state around, and you don't have the slightest idea how he got it.'"[12]
No shit sherlock. Welcome to the democrat party.
This is immediately followed by:
"Caro gave a speech to introduce Senator Ted Kennedy at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. "
For fucks sake. Ted Fucking Kennedy?
Caro is just another lefty that is not as smart as he thinks he is.
Why are all of these people frauds?
His response to injustice was to quit politics.
His response to anti-semitism at princeton was to say he should have gone to Harvard.
He writes really long papers.
The aristocracy liked a couple of his glowing touching caring biographies of a couple of it's members they gave him a pulitzer.
He talks about how little he talks.
I am going shopping. I was planning on doing that before I was convinced this Caro guy would be interesting to read about.
The Cliff Notes version of Caro's LBJ opus, "One scuzzy individual who didn't a cent of what he stole and who disgraced anything he touched."
I am going to buy one of these.
Way cooler than a guy who was mad about a bridge being built that would have piers so large they would affect the tides.
!!!
>.<
They should wear LBJ tie clasps and cuff links. My dad was an LBJ guy. I guess after
LBJ quit in 68 my dad had a whole lot of LBJ tie clasps and cuff links. I was still giving those suckers away at the end of the last century.
Love Caro. Conan is fun. Despise the NYT.
But you are correct, Ann. The illustration is great and so is the article.
I found Ann's post and this thread very interesting.
I remember being riveted to Caro's account of Johnson v. Stevenson and that book. Then I wandered away (or maybe the next was not yet written), but then I read the one that included the 1960 election and also found that very informative, especially how Johnson blew the 1960 nomination and then Kennedy (apparently) was smart enough to know he could not win without Johnson to hold parts of the South (Texas and North Carolina and maybe others). It also was interesting to read the Kennedy assassination section and how Johnson hated Bobby and thought Jack a lightweight during their Senate days. Interesting stuff about an important era that now seems insignificant.
Is it true that Caro became more fond of LBJ through the procession of books?
Read Caro's 1st volume. Masterly. Early Lyndon, the can-do Texan, bringing electricity to rural people. Can't recall if it also covered the Beltway poker games with Sam Rayburn et al or maybe I'm confusing with some other read.
And let's call him Bob Caro like H-wood folks would if they knew who he was.
I've read all four and have the audio book which we have listened to twice driving to California.
My wife heard me listening to it and insisted I start again from the beginning.
I just hope he lives long enough to finish volume 5 on Vietnam.
His editor is 85.
What the Johnson people did to Coke Stevenson must have been a model for what they are trying to do to Trump.
" and though Caro says he did not personally suffer from anti-Semitism, he saw plenty of students who did."...
Yeah right. I'd love to hear all the details of the supposed "antisemitism". No doubt it consisted of someone wishing them "Merry Christmas" or not inviting them to the family country club.
Is it true that Caro became more fond of LBJ through the procession of books?
No, I think the opposite. He is definitely a Democrat (of the traditional type) and wanted to like him but by the 1948 election he loathed him.
Thanks.
I do recall some sympathetic writing regarding the old racist Stevenson in the account of the 1948 election.
My recollection of his account of the 1960 election and the 1963 assassination was that it seemed pretty neutral, almost sympathetic to LBJ for him letting the nomination slip away and for the JFK people (but not JFK) treating him with disdain as a country bumpkin.
These are only very faded recollections, so I would defer to more knowledgeable people
Caro's books ARE brilliant.
Caro is just another lefty that is not as smart as he thinks he is.
The fact that Caro is a lefty, not in the sense that Occasional Cortex is a lefty, gives more depth to his revulsion at Johnson as he learned more about him.
How did he show his revulsion at Johnson?
Again, my memory is faded, but I do not remember revulsion in the account of him letting the 1960 nomination slip away or suffering in mostly silence as Kennedy's VP.
I think it was in Caro's book that I read how Newsweek (or maybe Time) was poised to do an expose on LBJ's crooked business deals the week of the assassination and killed the story so as not to hurt the country and new president. Sounds quaint now.
That's a really funny article.
Whenever someone says that Trump is sui generis, I wonder about Johnson and the Caro books. I'm too young to have a real vivid memory of Johnson, and I've only read reviews of the Caro books. I'd like someone who really knows both to compare Johnson and Trump.
I'd like someone who really knows both to compare Johnson and Trump.
I remember LBJ quite well, thank you. It would be more apt to compare LBJ to Hillary.
"What the Johnson people did to Coke Stevenson must have been a model for what they are trying to do to Trump"
Yes.
LBJ is one reason I don't worry about Trump's "character."
Amen, Michael K, really hope Caro is in good health. I suspect one reason he won't go on Conan is to avoid discussion of when he will be done.
I think it sad that he is going to have to cram most the LBJ presidency (and post-presidency) into one volume. One would think that domestic and foreign affairs would each rate a volume. I suppose these are the years that others have already covered at length. But Johnson and his dealings with RFK, his foreign policy team, his generals, his Supreme Court nominees, Nixon's presidential campaign, there's so much stuff.
I think it was in Caro's book that I read how Newsweek (or maybe Time) was poised to do an expose on LBJ's crooked business deals the week of the assassination and killed the story so as not to hurt the country and new president. Sounds quaint now.
It was Life and they had a whole issue devoted to it. The assassination was on a Thursday and the meeting to discuss the issue was underway when the news arrived.
Much of the pathology we have to deal with now, including the deficit, is a result of Johnson.
Good point. How do you cram 1964 through 1968 into one book. It will need to be a big one.
I'd like someone who really knows both to compare Johnson and Trump.
A better comparison would be with Teddy Roosevelt. He was hated by the Establishment.
Johnson was just dishonest and owned by Brown-Root Construction. George Brown owned him.
They made out big in Vietnam. Most of Cam Rahn By was built by them.
Blogger Kansas City said...
Good point. How do you cram 1964 through 1968 into one book. It will need to be a big one.
I doubt he can do it. The best I expect is why he decided to go in.
Max Boot's Lansdale biography has a lot about how Diem was murdered on the orders of Cabot Lodge.
How many of us have relatives and friends who deserve (who deserve, meaning who are worthy, in the way that someone who is a friend to someone else is worthy of friendship) .... whose lives would be better inspiration for a multi-volume biography than poor unloved Lyndon Johnson? I mean, I would be glad to be wrong, but are there really more than 2 or 3 people still living who feel true love for Lyndon Johnson, not counting mystics who claim to love everybody, and so on.... ?
How many of us? I have read a few thousand (maybe up to 20,000) comments here, and reading all those insights, and all those memories, you get a feel for how much people - even people you will never meet, people who just happen to be people who have written on the internet around the same time you did - you get a feel for how much people would love, love, love to have someone they cared about, and who was important in their lives, be lucky enough to have a long 5 volume biography written of their lives, so that the person who cared about that long gone friend or relative could read it ... I have no problem imagining that almost everyone who comments here could say, within a couple of seconds, exactly who they would most like, among their closest friends and relatives, to have a 5 volume biography available for the reading .... assuming the biography was written by a decent human being ....
I am lucky, I can remember exactly how people, how quite a few specific people, who were born around the time Lyndon Johhnson was born - some of whom have been dead for half a century - I can remember, God bless their hearts, exactly how they used to sound, when they laughed, when they were happy, when they were talking about the old days. I don't need a 5 volume biography of any one of the people I cared about so much when they were alive in order to feel joy at the memories I have of those people, and to feel joy at the fact we will one day meet again, somewhere far from this vale of tears ....
I grew up in San Antonio and was especially fascinated by the part in The Path to Power that discussed the ecological history of the Texas Hill Country. All those cedar trees only emerged after European settlers tried to farm the land.
Johnson blew the 1960 nomination
My father never forgave Gov. Terry Sanford for switching the NC delegates to Kennedy.
I don't remember if he said LBJ as VP nominee got him to vote for Kennedy, or if my grandfather voted for Kennedy despite despising him.
I remember reading something like the settlers came in the late 1800's and farmed the heck out of the land and within a relatively short time had worn out the soil and it was no good anymore (sorry for lack of knowledge of how to describe it).
Then, about ten years ago, I had business in the area (Marble Falls, actually), so I had to fly into San Antonio and drive up a two lane highway (Highway 281 I think) past Johnson City. I had heard Johnson talk about the "beautiful Hill County," but what I saw off the highway was barren, rocky, ugly landscape. I did not get off the highway, so maybe it got better if you went into it, but the view from the highway was pretty bad.
I just went to the hillcountryalliance site to see if they are junipers or true cedars (the former), and this was at the bottom:
"All my life I have drawn sustenance from the rivers and from the hills of my native state... I want no less for all the children of America than what I was privileged to have as a boy." -Lyndon B. Johnson
If I remember correctly, Caro wrote that LBJ had doubts about whether he could win and/or whether he could be/deserved to be president and, as a result, he equivocated and delayed while Kennedy racked up delegates. He still thought he could pull out something at the convention and failed to accomplish much of anything. Then, JFK alone decided he needed LBJ as VP to win some southern states and the election, and went to his suite to ask him. LBJ would not take it without the permission of Sam Rayburn (who disliked Kennedy), so either LBJ or JFK had to go see Rayburn and get his permission. Strange times.
One other thing is that LBJ took the job in part based on the math that about 20% of presidents had died in office.
All this is from recollection. I may have some details wrong.
I read that RJK was against it, but JFK asked LBJ anyway, hoping he would turn it down.
Ike won in a landslide in '56. LBJ probably thought it would not be a Dem year. It's incredible that neither seemed worried their sleaziness, sexual and non-, might come out.
No doubt RFK was against it and even went down to LBJ's suite to try to change his mind about taking it - got nowhere.
Caro said JFK very much wanted LBJ to accept, because he (perhaps alone or one of few) had figured out how valuable and necessary LBJ was to the ticket in the south. I think JFK was the one who went to Rayburn to persuade him to give Johnson permission to accept.
Again, all from recollection. I may have some of it wrong.
The fact that O'Brien likes Caro has made me drop him from my reading list.
O'Brien is not funny and more than a bit of a jerk.
'Do you have heroes? Look again; you have diminished yourself in some way.'
---IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD, KILL HIM
I had forgotten the part Hugo black, had played in the case.
From some of the comments looking like Democrats have had permission structure for everything.
I saw a review of Caro's first volume by Victor Lasky. He found it grossly unbalanced: so much so that it made Lasky, "who had gone down in flames with Goldwater in 1964, feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch." (LBJ)
"Yeah, Althouse hearts Caro. That's fine. But isn't that more of a secondary feeling?"
If that's supposed to mean that I love LBJ, it is completely wrong. Of all the presidents within my lifetime, the one I hated most was LBJ. It is still true today. He hasn't been elevated, and I've read thousands of pages about it.
For one thing, I was strongly in favor of his opponent in the 1964 election, when I was 13. My parents had lived in Texas during the period when he was rising and becoming Senator (the topic of the great second book in the Caro series), and they were adamant that he was corrupt.
Though I became completely liberal in the 60s, it was far to the left of LBJ who was the ugly face of Vietnam war. I favored the "doves" and rooted for Eugene McCarthy. Then, there was RFK, the only presidential candidate that I truly loved.
RFK doesn't come across too well in the Caro biographies, but I've never read any other biography of RFK.
I favored the "doves" and rooted for Eugene McCarthy. Then, there was RFK, the only presidential candidate that I truly loved.
I was county campaign chairman for McCarthy, being a naive leftist at the time. He was a good guy. But RFK? On what did you base your love? The corruption of the Kennedys put LBJ's to shame. The only difference was style and the unwavering support of the media.
I think JFK was the one who went to Rayburn to persuade him to give Johnson permission to accept.
Again, all from recollection. I may have some of it wrong.
No, I think you have it just right.
The other part is that the Kennedy team treated Johnson like dirt once elected. There was a real possibility that he would be dropped for the 1964 election.
The level of irony in the whole story is just amazing.
Yes, the irony of JFK/LBJ is remarkable and Caro captured it pretty well. I think LBJ's financial misdeeds were about to be exposed and likely Kennedy would have used that as cover to dump LBJ in 1964.
As another example of irony [I guess], I just read about an opposite VP story. In 1840, Henry Clay was mad that Harrison secured the Whig nomination and refused a request to be VP candidate. Harrison won with a large Whig majority, then died after 41 days as president. The VP Tyler was not really a Whig and abandoned their policies. It effectively killed the chance of the Whigs to dominate U.S. politics, which ultimately led to the demise of the party in the 1850's and the creation of the Republican party. Huge impact on American history, which I either had never heard or had forgotten. The Whigs somehow had significant Southern support in 1840 and were not overtly against slavery, but they were for modernity, industrialization, federal power and the middle class. I doubt they could have maintained Southern support, but in hindsight, the Whigs might have been our only chance to avoid the Civil War.
Surprised by Ann's love of RFK. He was a jerk, and Caro is tough on him. Seems like Ann has stayed wilfully ignorant about her first love.
More on Whigs (still able to elect a president in 1848)
http://www.dailyadvance.com/Other-Views/2016/06/06/Taylor-President-who-could-have-prevented-Civil-War.html
"Surprised by Ann's love of RFK. He was a jerk, and Caro is tough on him. Seems like Ann has stayed wilfully ignorant about her first love."
Reread what I wrote. You've got it wrong.
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