We want our politicians to act like LBJ. But not really.

[DonViejo]

By Matt Bai

The problem with Barack Obama, people are always telling me these days, is that he just doesn't love the full contact sport of politics. He has no capacity for the inside machinations or tactical brutality we associate with a more sophisticated and celebrated president like Lyndon Johnson.
What we really need, I guess, is an executive in the mold of a Chris Christie or an Andrew Cuomo or a Rick Perry, all of whom are more extroverted and more brazen about wielding their power as governors than Obama is — and all of whom, not incidentally, are now fending off prosecutors and investigations while scrambling to keep their national ambitions afloat.

And this illustrates an interesting paradox of modern politics: We love this idea of the ruthless and effective political operator, right up until the moment we're confronted by the reality.

There are differences, of course, among the governors I just mentioned and the controversies in which they find themselves tangled. Christie's closest aides rained down havoc on the good, unsuspecting people of Fort Lee, N.J., just to prove a point about the perils of crossing the governor (though Christie has maintained he didn't know about the infamous bridge closure, and no one has yet turned up evidence to the contrary). Cuomo unceremoniously closed the doors of an anti-corruption commission he himself created less than a year earlier, arrogantly proclaiming that it was his commission and he could do what he wanted with it.

And then there's Perry, whose macho mug shot ricocheted around Twitter this week. He'll soon be indicted on charges that he tried to bully a Democratic district attorney from office after she was picked up for drunken driving, first by vetoing her state funds and then by offering to restore them only if she quit. Apparently, obnoxiousness is now a crime in Texas, albeit one of the few that can't get you executed.

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https://news.yahoo.com/we-want-our-politicians-to-act-like-lbj--but-not-really-083854348.html

[Aristus]

1. "One of the few that can't get you executed."

Boy, is that the truth.

Texans love to execute people the way Torquemada loved to torture them. The sheer unbridled glee they get from killing leaves me cold...

[davidpdx]

2. I read this yesterday

It sure makes LBJ sound ruthless. I also though it was interesting the author used Chris Christie, Andrew Cuomo, and Rick Perry as examples of the type of leadership we need. Perry has been indicted and Christie and Cuomo both have ethics problems facing them.