The youngest member of the Supreme Court is fifty-four. Let’s see how they rule on gay marriage.
I hope Iraq’s government enjoys their 175 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, 15 Hercules tank recovery vehicles, and 55,000 rounds of main gun ammunition for the tanks. Price Tag: $3 billion.
Everybody has an opinion on Selma.
I’m not sure Europeans can quite believe that Fox News actually exists.
Why do we die?
Would you let your kids do all things that your parents let you do?
Unlike me, Kevin Drum hasn’t basically given up shouting into the idiot wind about Obamacare subsidies.
Academic politics, Ferguson, and Ebola.
Here’s some more Paul McCartney:
I have been completely appalled by the big news and broadcast networks’ treatments of “Selma”. I’ve seen at least five news segments where Johnson Administriation officials, an executive from the Johnson Presidential Library and others have been completely teed up by the show hosts to blast away at the movie’s dramatic representations. The appalling part is that none of these segments have brought on someone from the movie production, or a more neutral observerto defend their work. It’s been the journalistic equivalent of getting a bunch of people pin a person’s arms against their sides so you can pummel them.
My favorite critique have been those who have said Selma was Johnson’s idea, and that he didn’t need to be dragged along to get the CRA and VRA passed. Yeah, Johnson’s record of pushing for Civil and Voting rights during his pre-VP decades in Congress was so sterling. In his Preidential recordings, Johnson did plenty of griping about King and other movement leaders, complaining about being pushed by them.
I missed most of the pro-Johnson anti-Selma movie media action, but your description sounds about right. LBJ left behind more of his yes-men and in powerful or influential positions in the media world than probably any other modern president.
Jack Valenti as head of MPAA for decades. Bill Moyers at PBS and CBS. Tom Johnson was publisher of the LA Times for years. Katherine Graham publisher of WaPo, a major Johnson apologist. Wm Paley CEO of CBS and Dick Salant president of CBS News both friends of Lyndon. Joe Califano and others I’m forgetting.
It’s a near miracle that the Oliver Stone movie JFK, that some see as insinuating involvement of Johnson re Dallas, got made at all, but once it appeared there was Valenti trying to tear it to shreds in the op-ed pages of the Times. Then, last decade, another near miracle that the the History Channel was able, once and only once, to broadcast a segment of The Men Who Killed Kennedy that also implicated Johnson. LBJ’s people produced a huge public firestorm, enough to ensure the network would back down and never re-air it (though it’s still available on YTube).
As for Selma, my understanding of the history is that Johnson did need some nudging to introduce a voting rights bill, as he preferred to get other legislation cleared off his check list first.
Selma may be a perfectly fine movie. (I reserve judgment on that score until after I see it.) And it may be more deserving of awards than Foxcatcher that also has serious issues. However, it’s highly inaccurate portrayal of the relationship between King and LBJ deserves as much criticism as its getting. And it’s not only white folks that are speaking up.
God forbid any filmmaker portray the St. Kennedys accurately. Better to ascribe a Kennedy sin to LBJ.
John Lewis takes exception to the critics of Selma with a bit of historical revisionism of his own.
In real time, Spielberg’s Lincoln was heavily criticized for the Douglass omission even if during the time depicted in the movie, Douglass wasn’t present in DC. Thaddeus Stevens, a major abolitionist, along with other abolitionist members of Congress were most certainly accorded a central role in the movie. So, Lewis is incorrect on that point. As for Lincoln being a masterpiece, it didn’t win the Best Picture of Director Oscars.
Two years ago we had all the complaints that the African-American produced and directed Lee Daniel’s The Butler was snubbed by the Oscars while the white movie Lincoln received a lot of nominations. Those complaints failed to acknowledge that The Butler was a poorly crafted movie that took full advantage of artistic license and in doing so failed to tell the real story. What it did have was a wonderful performance by Forrest Whitaker. Unfortunately, nobody that year (any year?} could compete with Daniel Day Lewis’ performance in Lincoln.
Movies always omit historical details. If Selma hadn’t distorted LBJ’s relationship with King, the whole “who initiated the idea of a march in Selma” wouldn’t have been raised in discussions of the movie. This from both sides of the critical aisle is an irrelevant distraction. But the director did herself no favors with her testy response.
AMPAS members are subject to political pressure — and when they submit to it is when they most often honor a lesser deserving nominee. IMHO, they do their best when they set everything but artistic merit aside, but they tend to do that only about 50% of the time. Then there are oddities such as The African Queen not being nominated for Best Picture while Huston was nominated for Best Director and Bogart won Best Actor for it.
I guess I missed the articles and news blurbs and fury over the inaccuracies of Imitation Game, American Sniper, Theory of Everything…etc.
So Ana F “attitude” took away from the acting of the film?
What was “testy” about it..let me guess the “no white savior” quote that’s been bandied about.
Ok. Let’s talk about the lack of diversity in totality of this year’s awards including the fact that there is a lack of women across the board as well.
A more diverse body among the various guild would lead to a more diverse voter pool?
All of those movies you list have received criticism for historical inaccuracies. However, all historical inaccuracies aren’t created equal. A degree of poetic/artistic license is permissible. What you don’t do is turn a supporter of the lead protagonist into an antagonist. Still, overall Selma has enough merit as a movie that it was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. So, turn down your outrage meter against the Oscars.
Only five actors are nominated in each of the Best Actor categories. Perhaps professional actors think the five they nominated gave more worthy performances than Oyelowo. Have you seen the performances of all the other contenders? Or have you seen but one movie, Selma and have no basis for comparison in concluding the Oyelowo should have been nominated. Then jump to an assumption that Oyelowo was snubbed because of racism.
wrt to “diversity” within any one year, should white people have complained that 40% of the 77th Academy
Awards Best Actor nominees were African-Americans? Or that African-Americans won both the lead and supporting actor Oscars that year? Foxx and Freeman deserved their awards.
Directors and actors don’t always win for their best career performance. Is Training Day Denzel Washington’s finest? Or was that performance merely the best among the nominees that year? Or was it even the best that year — Russell Crowe was very good in A Beautiful Mind. Some of the finest actors never win an Oscar. Very few actors, including Washington, can hold a candle to Richard Burton or Peter O’Toole who were much nominated but never won an Oscar. Emily Watson, one of my favorite currently working actors, has yet to win.
Would you prefer that AMPAS members pander to diversity in years when in their opinion it’s not merited?
Given the heavily Caucasian older male skew of the Academy, it’s only natural, and probably not unwarranted, to suspect race and gender are factors in who gets nominated, who wins. The perception might be that this is the normal default position of the voters given who they are.
And when they get significant public flak for the undesirable outcome of their voting, remembering they’re supposed to be liberals and not wanting further negative attention, they may try to make up for it in a subsequent year — as with the one you noted. Many in the audience might rightly suspect these are well-intended makeup votes, and not take them too seriously, while applauding themselves for having finally recognized a few minorities and women.
Btw, for you younger folk here: none of the small controversy re MLK and LBJ over the Selma movie holds a candle to the huge media firestorm surrounding another movie that briefly featured LBJ — I’m referring to Stone’s JFK movie, which appeared 24 yrs ago. This Selma movie is just a polite disagreement in the elevator going from the first to the third floor compared to that one.
All members vote for Best Picture nominees; so, given that Selma was nominated, postulating racism/sexism among AMPAS members is not warranted. (Or have we forgotten last year so soon?) The total Academy membership will skew older, male, and white because many of the branches are technical and in the producers, directors, and writers branches, the industry has always been dominated by men.
Oyelowo wasn’t nominated by the members of the Actors branch which is less white, male, and old. While professionals aren’t perfect, in general actors recognize high quality performances better than others do.
wrt JFK, the movie was based on Jim Garrison’s reconstruction, speculations, postulations about the JFK assassination and Garrison’s trials and tribulations. To be analogous to the issue under discussion about Selma, Stone would have had to seriously distort a significant relationship and historically accurate relationship between Garrison and another person. Depicting an authentic Garrison supporter as an enemy or an authentic enemy as a supporter because the inauthentic has more dramatic punch. Stone didn’t go anywhere near such a line in JFK.
well that’s part of narrowing the window covered. Leaving Douglass out of the film was incredible [i.e. not to be believed]
Didn’t mean to imply that even if it were historically accurate that Douglass wasn’t present in DC within the timeframe of the movie that excluding him was a good creative decision. Not that sticking him in if inaccurate would be any better. That was but one of many problems with the screenplay.
Douglass was central to Lincoln’s stance on emancipation. enough said.
Absolutely. However, that preceded the period depicted in the movie. In that way the movie is too cramped and limited and didn’t deserve its title.
If not for Day Lewis’ sublime performance would have had trouble sitting through one viewing. I had to go see it a second time to experience the delight of such fine acting all over again.
there are lots of ways he could have included Douglass in the time period covered
Lincoln was set from January 1865 to April 1865. As Douglass didn’t support Lincoln in the 1864 election, doubt that he and Lincoln had any interactions during that period. So, no within the story told in the movie, there weren’t lots of ways to include Douglass.
you’re kidding! screenwriting 101 – a scene of Douglass talking about what is happening, that he didn’t support Lincoln in 1864, etc. maybe even a few more AA personages! but you’re just proving my point. the topic is defined in a way to avoid major AA roles. the dressmaker? a fascinating person, but in the absence of strong men – ????
I’d say compare movie and book of Color Purple to see how it’s done and in the meanwhile fooling audience goers like you
Good Lord, this sort of thing is generally very bothersome to me as a method of film critique- “They should have put the thing in that I wanted to see and taken out the thing I didn’t want to see, then it would have been better.” Well, maybe you would have liked it better, but what about the rest of us?
Me, I was very intrigued by the remove of Lincoln’s character from relationships with African-Americans and his personal questioning of whether AA’s were truly full, equal humans alongside white Americans. The scene with his wife’s servant draws this point sharply and realistically. Those representations feel very right to me. That Lincoln could harbor such doubts while concluding the Civil War and cleverly pushing through the 13th Amendment is a sign of the greatness of the man. And Abraham was a very human man; none of us are saints.
well it’s the problem much discussed recently – ok for fiction but not if it tries to represent history
But, in any depiction of historical events, cinematic or otherwise, there isn’t just one truth, and it’s infuriating that so many pretend that there is just one truth. The director of “Selma” wanted to concentrate on the activists on the ground; my understanding is that her film places King’s leadership in context with the actions of others in the movement, lots of whom had been courageously working in Selma for many, many years.
In association with the “one truth” falsehood is this preposterous pretending that any film (even documentaries!) can perfectly capture everyone’s understanding of a historical event. All commercially successful movies have to make choices to keep their stories entertaining. These choices do not have to make their historical representations historically inaccurate, but there is zero doubt that, at the very least, some dramatic shorthand has to be applied.
A movie that depicted every aspect and point of view of any major historical event would be one looooooooooooooooooooong, boring-ass movie.
I’m not defending Lincoln. A sublime performance by Daniel Day Lewis (not bad performances by a few of the other actors) and lovely cinematography, but otherwise, was weak. IMHO the weaknesses were mostly inherent in the screenplay.
To invoke “Screenwriting 101” for a way to interject an historically inaccurate scene within the confines of a story being told about documented historical period.
As I’m not interested in devoting the time to re-read The Color Purple and then go see the movie, why don’t you tell me your point? The book is a novel — and therefore, a movie based on it isn’t bound by much of any fealty to the book. There’s no rule of thumb for when a movie should hew closely to a novel and when it’s best to re-imagine it to the point that the novel ends up being closer to inspiration than a cinematic retelling of the novel. If translating a novel to a movie were so easy, such efforts wouldn’t so often be miserable failures. And when not bad as a movie, still pales in comparison with the novel.
A real example of the difference between translating a novel to the screen versus re-imagining a novel for the screen.
I would likely enjoy and be entertained by These Foolish Things. It also seems to me that there would be a couple of major problems with a faithful translation to a big screen movie. First, the number of characters in the book is large. How many could realistically be eliminated or combined without losing the character drivers of the story. Second, and more serious, is when the book was written and the audience that understands the issues. The entry point in the novel is the Thathcherite depreciation of the NHS and its impact on elderly, unhealthy Brits. As a novel, there would be enough flesh on those bones for it to be accessible for a Yank, but pared down would be more difficult to understand. Much less appreciate.
Fast forward from the publication date of the novel, 2004, to when the movie was put in production, 2009-2010. What happened between those two dates was the western financial meltdown. Re-imagine the story as mostly and suddenly financially struggling retirees. Suddenly it’s accessible, based on what is known and/or experienced by both Brits and Yanks. Keep Muriel that needs a new hip because delays in non-emergency major surgery is common in the healthcare systems of both he US and UK. Collapse of re-imagine the other retiree characters as broke but not ill. Junk the focus on the UK Indian doctor in favor of Sonny, the Indian hotel operator. The characters have now been placed not in paradise but a place so different that adjusting to it is a challenge for all of them and success or failure in adjusting is based on the individual differences of the characters.
Then the filmmaker had the delightful The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
I don’t know about L and D’s interactions at that date but I will check
Sort of a material fact wrt to discussing a shortcoming of Lincoln don’t you think?
if you really want to ponder this question take a close look at Color Purple movie vs book
Loved that book too much to do the movie once I’d seen pictures of the clothes and houses and read of the changes Speilberg made to Celie and Shug’s relationship. He “Disneyfied” the book. That recollection does make me shudder a bit at the prospect of him doing a MLK, Jr. biopic.
to talk about the topic here you should watch the movie and do a careful comparison
On the bugging of Dr King, you and Andy both seem to suggest this was something the “St” Kennedys were eager to do. In fact, in the latter part of 1963 Hoover was pressuring Bobby constantly to bug owing to Edgar’s firm belief that King was being run by communist advisers. Bobby was convinced there was enough probable cause in the case of one adviser to look into it, and both Kennedys were worried, just after introducing their landmark Civil Rights Bill in June, that the whole effort could be fatally compromised if in fact King could be linked to communist influence. They decided it would be better to get the question resolved rather than have an unfortunate surprise sprung on them later that could ruin the CR bill and movement.
So in a compromise, the AG agreed to a surveillance of King for a limited period. A review of the situation was to occur about the time of the president’s TX trip, but because of Dallas, no such review occurred, iirc, and the surveillance just continued.
You and Andy also neglected to mention that Lyndon by all accounts seemed to enjoy some of the alleged surveillance data on King that his friend Edgar brought him — particularly the sex stuff. And I don’t recall Lyndon attempting to put a stop to or severely limit the King surveillance by FBI the way the Kennedys did. IN fact, Lyndon wanted it to continue, I suspect, because it enabled him to know what Dr King was saying about him in private (apparently not always positive) and because it gave him a heads up on King/SCLC strategy.
Finally on Andy, the gaffe-prone former UN Amb with the second-rate mind, he seems to have a rather rosy revisionist view of Lyndon, at least for this 1965 period. On VN, which LBJ was beginning to escalate than, he has stated Johnson was “lured” into the war by those darn Best and Brightest Harvards that Kennedy left behind. This is of course the opposite of what happened — the record reveals LBJ determined “not to be the first president to lose a war” from the moment he took office.
History is complicated.
IMHO, at his worst, LBJ was in a league with Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes (and Carter and Clinton and probably Obama aren’t far behind them). At his best, he was in a league of his own in comparison with all the other post WWII Presidents.
JFK might have ended up in that same league — but that’s only hypothetical. RFK was a weasel that worked for Joe McCarthy; so, can the halo for him.
What do you find so remarkable about this:
How is that different from any other POTUS? Hell, Nixon was still trying/hoping for a military win in SVN after the signing of the Peace Accord. And we can thank ole Ike for getting us involved in SVN in the first place when our assistance for France in SVN didn’t pan out and they threw in the towel.
While first rate on domestic issues/policies, LBJ was insecure in the foreign relations arena. Are you saying that he wasn’t dependent on the JFK “best and brightest” team? Bullshit. And the lead role was played by that McNamara SOB.
I have no objection to accurate depictions of LBJ. He had plenty of negative personal, behavioral, and policy positions to satisfy those that loathe him. But that is a selective and incomplete profile of the man. He was ruthless and ambitious, but that doesn’t differentiate him from JFK, Nixon, and the other post Carter Presidents. Compared to those listed, LBJ might be at the bottom of the ruthless/ambitious pack. Far easier for me to envision Nixon and GHWB (Reagan was too ga-ga) bumping off a President to assume the Presidency than LBJ. The only reason I leave out Cheney is that he aspired to be the power behind the throne and not sitting on the throne.
Re “first president to lose…” Johnson apparently with that macho TX background, and his Daddy being considered a failure both in the community and by Lyndon, and with Lyndon’s insecurity over the lack of real war hero status like his predecessor, he almost certainly wanted a place to show his toughness. VN offered that opportunity.
Recall the probably true story of LBJ being questioned sometime in the first half of 1965 by a foreign reporter, who asked him why the US was going militarily into VN. Johnson responded by unzipping, pulling out his thing he called Jumbo, grabbing it and declaring “This is why!”
And he also bought way too much into the totally bogus Domino Theory.
And all the while –according to his own tapes — he never believed we could win over there. So he plunges in headfirst nonetheless. What an idiot — unless rationally it might be explained by, say, reference to enriching his political benefactors from the corporate world in TX.
As to advisors, again, go look at the record, then listen to a tape of LBJ and McNamara from around Feb 25 (roughly) 1964 on the subject of what LBJ wants McN to say publicly about VN. Johnson references how he didn’t really care for his predecessor’s decision to begin drawing down over there, didn’t think that was a wise decision. Then as McN tries to explain a possible nuanced position, Johnson jumps in to direct him on exactly how he wants the SecDef to make clear that the US will not be abandoning its commitments in Nam. The tape is absolutely clear about who is advising whom.
McN gets his marching orders that there will be a change in policy. Dramatic stuff. Go give it a listen.
As to ruthlessness, Nixon was a piker compared to LBJ, but both were capable of having people “removed” or “gotten rid of” if they got in the president’s way. Let’s see, for instance, about the upcoming book about the USS Liberty being attacked by Israeli forces — apparently according to the author as a result of some political scheme for 1968 by LBJ to make himself look better in the eyes of Jewish voters here. Just saying what I believe this author (well respected in the assassin field) has already said will be disclosed in her book. Controversial allegation for sure …
This is not a constructive conversation. I view LBJ as a specific individual with flaws and strengths, his own personal bio up to the point of becoming President, and within the context of that time. You seem to view him as particularly evil and charting the whole course of his actions for the country while President and ordering everyone else around him to get in line.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the military or national security that didn’t also buy into the bogus domino theory. And it wasn’t an LBJ construct. There was that little thing that had been going on for almost two decades by 1964 called the Cold War. JFK ran in 1960 on the bogus missile gap, and if I have my facts correct, he knew it was BS. Then he was instrumental in bringing this country to the brink of a nuclear exchange. Yeah, he fortunately managed to pull us back from it, but that doesn’t absolve him from actions that got us to that point.
The US Jewish vote in 1968 was far too small and not powerful for that to have been even a minor consideration for covering up the facts wrt the USS Liberty. Recall that the fundie Christian vote had yet to be politicized, and they along with the racist southern bloc were very anti-Semitic. Domestically, little had changed since the Suez Crisis when Ike didn’t rush in to support Israel, UK, and France. The perceptual change that Israelis are tough warriors like Americans based on their success in the Six Day War had yet to impinge on the brains of US anti-Semites. They flipped to “Israel can do no wrong” later. The USS Liberty cover-up, and yes, it was a cover-up, avoided potential anti-Semitic calls for war in the midst of LBJ recognizing that we were screwed in Vietnam and he didn’t know how to get out of it. In real time, it was one of the damned if we do and damned if we don’t moments. Israel had the US by the short hairs just as the Zionist terrorists had the UK in the same position two decades earlier.
Yes we’re sharply at odds about Lyndon, his actions, his true character. I’m at least in accord w Bobby who, I think seconding a view held by JFK, once stated that Lyndon not only lied all the time, he lied even when he didn’t have to. Paranoid too, to the point of becoming mentally unstable (per aides Richard Goodwin and Bill Moyers in separate, independent evaluations). A man who seemed to brag to a reporter in the WH about stealing the 1948 senate election and getting away with it. That kind of character.
Just a sampling. As to Dallas, I’ve long suspected he was in the know prior to the assassination. Whether he was involved in the planning, that’s possible but not yet provable. Note here this view is becoming slightly more widely held in the research community, as I detect things over the past 25 yrs; at least no longer a “way out there” wacko notion. The list of those expressing a belief in his foreknowledge includes established well-respected authors like James Douglass (“JFK and the Unspeakable”) and Joseph McBride. But as yet no good book has emerged laying out this case.
And I’ll have to wait to comment further on the book about LBJ and the Liberty, but that author is known for being a diligent researcher. And hardly an apologist for the Kennedys nor a proponent (up to now) of the foreknowledge theory. So she’s highly credible, and a somewhat rare academic weighing in to boot.
LBJ was a means to JFK’s aspirations. He, his brother, and most of his team treated LBJ like shit after the election. They were east coast snobs (pretensions to being an intellectual on Bobby’s part) and didn’t even have as much class as Jackie to respect him and treat him accordingly.
Not being a gambler, I’d still wager that LBJ didn’t even have any foreknowledge of a plot to assassinate JFK. Patriotism was too strong in the marrow of his bones to go there. The list of dodgy characters and characters that may have had motivation to bump him off that swirled around that assassination is too long and unconnected to point in any clear direction. If forced to speculate wrt connected individuals that did profit from that dastardly deed, I’m closer to Russ Baker’s take than others. The CIA underbelly and GHWB. Then again, I’m probably over reading the attempted assassination of Reagan by a disturbed young man with connection to the Bush family.
wrt stealing elections. During one of FDR’s gubernatorial elections, Eleanor returned aghast from observing the voting to report that ballot box stuffing was going on. Franklin chuckled and explained to her that they have their ballot box stuffers and we have ours. It’s how things were done — and nobody ever really knew who had the most cheaters or if it made a difference in the outcome. Many today still believe that Joe Kennedy bought JFK’s win in Illinois. And they may not be wrong.
Marie, I think you need to read up a bit more on this period in history and these relationships in particular (granted, there’s much out there to read, much of it nonsense; the real stuff is not always in the popular accounts). LBJ forced himself onto the 1960 ticket. Bobby has the story in his oral history interviews. And once elected, well, are you aware of what Lyndon quickly tried to do — both wrt trying to grab powers normally given to the president (JFK quietly filed that “request” away, smartly) and wrt keeping power as majority leader?
Given that, wouldn’t JFK have been wise to keep an eye out at the very least re his VP?
JFK also found Johnson’s personality exceedingly annoying and overbearing. Overly sensitive too, almost childlike, making it difficult to avoid saying or suggesting things in his presence that might offend him. But JFK tried to make him useful, and by most accounts early on at least, sought his advice. However LBJ was often reluctant to either give advice or, more importantly, to help Kennedy in getting legislation passed. His post-Cuban Missile Crisis comments also got back to Kennedy, and were not appreciated (nor was his unhelpful advice during the crisis discussions). So, JFK tried to make the relationship work early on. But by 1963, a different story — I think Kennedy, by now fed up w dealing with the prickly and not always loyal VP, was looking to dump him from the ticket.
Btw, Johnson told aides he was always treated respectfully by JFK.
Bobby however — he and LBJ had a bit of a history, going back apparently to when a younger Bobby failed to stand to properly greet the Majority Leader back in the 50s. Lyndon took great offense of course. Bobby also didn’t like the way Lyndon and John Connally spread rumors about Jack’s health and Joe Kennedy during the convention.
As for LBJ and (ahem, cough cough) “patriotism … too strong in the marrow of his bones to go there” , OMG. Johnson was a hardcore power-hungry pol — of the Do Whatever It Takes I Don’t Care What But Get It Done category. Your rather fanciful notion about a high-minded Lyndon reminds me of that once-celebrated American biographer of Thomas Jefferson, the leading Jeffersonian scholar of his time (Dumas Malone), who insisted that the rumors about TJ having children w his slave Sally couldn’t possibly be true as, first, he found such an idea absolutely repugnant, and second, Jefferson was too busy thinking lofty thoughts about the type of govt for the new country.
Finally, Jackie herself seconded her husband’s private opinion of Lyndon — that he never should have been allowed near the Oval Office. She had to correct Ted Sorensen years later when that nice gentleman, not always in the loop, wanted to publish some nice American Heritage School of History things about the JFK-LBJ relationship. Jackie set him straight.
Jackie kept her opinions to herself and was gracious towards LBJ when they met. (Jackie had class but she was hardly forward thinking and astute. At that time she reveled in being subservient to her husband and wasn’t shy or reluctant to say so publicly. She tolerated his infidelities as a price for her status.)
A lot of what you read are historical revisions. What was Bobby doing in the 1950s? How can you possibly dismiss that? And exactly why didn’t Bobby properly greet LBJ in the 1950s? What a twit! Most people learn good manners by the age of sixteen. (And yes, having grown up in a hard scrabble environment and with no choice but to make their own way in life never lose that experience and subconsciously it leaks out in being prickly and thin-skinned. Like Bill Clinton. Although the same can be said for the silver spooned GWB, but in his case, it’s because he was both pampered and dismissed because he was too ordinary and lazy to achieve anything on his own.)
GMAFB. All’s fair if true in seeking the nomination. Bobby was a jerk not to let that go after the nomination. Doubt LBJ and Connolly knew how unhealthy JFK was and the extent of his drug usage. (Johnson was also aware of his own weakened heart.) Lucky for those two that LBJ wasn’t also exposing their infidelities not that LBJ didn’t have some of his own.
LBJ “forced” himself onto the 1960 ticket? Oh, lord. I’ll go with Caro on this point:
Asking that JFK delegate some powers to him as VP, demonstrates that LBJ was more progressive thinking than JFK. It may not have been until 1992 when Al Gore made a similar request before accepting the VP nomination, but we’re now accustomed to the VP slot as being more than a means to picking up a state that may be out of reach for POTUS nominee and the job itself not being worth more than a bucket of warm spit. Informally, GHWB may have exercised more power as VP than it known. OTOH, Clinton mostly reneged on his commitment to Gore. OTOH, Cheney was the most powerful VP ever.
All the solid evidence is that JFK had zero intention of dumping LBJ in ’64.
One doesn’t have to be high minded to be patriotic enough not to consider bumping off an elected US President. JFK was low minded enough to at a minimum look the other way in the CIA backed coup that included bumping off Diem and his brother who had come to power in a rigged (no US objection) election and by 1963 was inconvenient for the JFK administration. Also, it’s highly unlikely that JFK was unaware of all the CIA attempts to assassinate Castro.
In 1961 LBJ was a more experienced legislator and politician than JFK and Bobby had no political experience and acted like his brother’s henchman. (A role at some point he came to resent.) JFK was also not politically mature — a function of age and experience — the downside of electing forty odd year old individuals as President. The sweet spot for age and experience is what we got with Lincoln and FDR. Same is true in business for managers. People skills are a later stage human development.
Texas doesn’t play well on the east or west coast. As a west coaster, it required my best to make it work. To remember that the disconnects were style and not substance. Not to get upset when the Texas regional manager that I reported to cost me and the CA office a good account. The payoff for my efforts is that that manager went from being someone that would have liked to get rid of me (a bit of sexism was involved) to someone that made a case for giving me a huge bonus. If you’ve once experienced some version of that, the dynamic between JFK/Bobby and LBJ is a lot clearer. JFK and to a greater extent Bobby were boneheaded in working with LBJ.
So Bobby just made up a rather elaborate story about that convention drama, and arranged to have Kennedy’s secretary go along with that version and stick with it once Bobby and JFK were gone? Then have Sen Symington too as well as his aide Clark Clifford go along with that story?
Sorry. Makes no sense. Clifford confirms Kennedy had offered VP to his guy, then the next morning had to withdraw it after LBJ made his brutal move onto the ticket. Caro — about your only source for knowledge on Lyndon it would seem — is just simply wrong. Hate to break it to you, but biographers can get it wrong. Just as he did, glaringly, in discussing the assassination in Dallas.
As for LBJ requesting significant powers as VP: the list was extensive of things he wanted control of, far in excess of what Gore and Clinton agreed to. Lyndon essentially wanted to become co-president with Kennedy. Dallek and Caro both cover this.
Dumping Lyndon in ’64: this was in the works, as I look at circumstantial evidence including a senate investigation ongoing at the time of Dallas re investigating one or two suspected Johnson cronies for financial wrongdoing, as well as, again just before the TX trip, a number of media people suddenly going around the state looking into past Johnson shenanigans/crimes. Then the testimony later of secretary Evelyn Lincoln. Plus political sense: JFK no longer needed LBJ as CA was now his, and more states with Goldwater as the likely nominee.
What did LBJ think you might ask? All indications are that by the fall of 1963 he believed he was about to be dumped. The word he got, while in Brussels, that media were suddenly swarming all over the state digging up dirt on him. The senate investigation, seeming to get closer to him. The fact that JFK was seeing him less and less in the previous year or two.
Johnson apparently believed he was done — maybe not just politically but also with criminal legal issues to fight.
As for political maturity, for a 42 y.o. Kennedy was far smarter and wiser than his years would indicate — and smarter than Lyndon when it counted, as in outsmarting him for the 1960 nom. Even the 70% Lyndon apologist Rbt Caro acknowledges JFK’s political brilliance, and said in one radio interview it often eclipsed Johnson’s political know-how.
Johnson loyalist Horace Busby, who went with LBJ to briefly stay at the Kennedy compound post-convention, seconds this view, as he noted the times JFK would explain strategy to Lyndon, then later as Lyndon would begin talking and rambling, Kennedy would have to remind him they’d already covered that ground and the matter was settled, Johnson coming off as a bit slow. Busby was dazzled.
Final post here, must go.
Marie2, you misinterpret Representative Lewis’s statement here. He is correct, and is not involved in revisionism at all.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-lewis-selma-movie-20150119-story.html
He is not writing about critical responses to the movie “Lincoln”. John correctly points out that “Lincoln” did not mention Douglass and barely mentions the effective pressure of the abolitionists outside Congress. “We do not demand completeness of other historical dramas, so why is it required of this film?”, Lewis asks. So do I, and I come up with a similar conclusion to “Selma” director Ava DuVernay. “I wasn’t interested in making a white-savior movie.”
Throwing the unequivocal charge that “Selma” presents a “…highly inaccurate portrayal of the relationship between King and LBJ” WITHOUT HAVING SEEN THE MOVIE, thus walking away from the need to consider the representation of the King/Johnson relationship within the artistic context of the story, is a ducking of personal responsibility.
If you want to claim that Johnson and King always saw eye to eye, history disagrees quite vehemently. And what can be said about the laughable claim that “Lincoln” can’t be considered “a masterpiece (because) it didn’t win the Best Picture of Director Oscars”? Winning Oscars is not a real signifier of magnificent artistic successes; again, history disagrees with such a claim.
Please don’t ascribe thoughts in my head or words in my comments that aren’t there.
I don’t like “white savior” books or movies. Not doing that is not my criticism of Duvarnay’s cinematic choices. And would criticize including a fake white savior in the movie had she done that.
Consider if someone had made a movie titled Douglass that depicted the same time frame as Lincoln did. Douglass is the lead character and Lincoln is a minor character. No mention is made of the Emancipation Proclamation. Support of the 13th Amendment is limited to the radical Republicans in Congress and the country. Lincoln opposes or obstructs it at that point in time. Then Douglass and other African-Americans work over and persuade enough additional white males in Congress to pass the damn thing and Lincoln goes along with the majority in Congress. That would be laughable.
Who managed getting the Civil Rights Act of 1957″ (mostly a voting rights act) through the Senate? Overcame Thurmond’s filibuster and opposition from racist southern Democrats? Ike signed that one but wasn’t a leader on it. LBJ was still majority leader in 1960 but Ike participated in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. They weren’t white saviors, but without enough good white men of conscience in Congress and the WH, MLK, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, that did include a lot of white people of conscience, nothing would have been accomplished. Dare we ask why mass public demonstrations were so effective in moving Congress in the late 1950s through 1965 and have been almost wholly ineffective since then?
JFK called for what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But who got it done? Yeah, LBJ and some other white men. And they had to defeat a filibuster by Democratic Senators including Senators Albert Gore, Sr. (D-TN) and J. William Fulbright (D-AR), as well as Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia,….
Yet, according to Selma, in 1965 LBJ was an opponent of MLK, Jr. He wasn’t. That’s not a trivial nor disputable point. Regardless of how much Duvarnay wants to rewrite history. (Although within the movie it may come off as seemingly minor and trivial.) Because LBJ had the Great Society at the top of his “to do list” and the voting act below that, and MLK, Jr. had the order reversed doesn’t make them opponents. And who is to say which of them had their priorities in the right order? Considering that both got done.
Historical revisionism from black, brown, or white, right, left, or center is trafficking in falsehoods by people that can’t handle the truth or the messiness of the truth.
You haven’t seen the movie, yet you claim this:
“…according to Selma, in 1965 LBJ was an opponent of MLK, Jr. He wasn’t.”
I gently suggest that there’s a ton of conflation going on in this claim. LBJ was neither an opponent nor a supporter of MLK, in 1965 or at any other time. If Johnson were a supporter, he would have, among other things, required Hoover to terminate the FBI’s wiretaps and other secret file-gatherings on King and many, many others in the civil rights movement.
You even admit in this very post that King and the civil rights movement were impatient with President Johnson and Congress in the progress of the VRA. This tension existed both in the timing of the VRA’s passage and its policy details. Couldn’t this impatience with the President’s policy preferences be represented fairly in a scene which showed President Johnson as an opponent of what King wanted? That was quite literally true.
It is simple for us to contemplate dramatic representations of the relationship of these important leaders which represent that impatience in a way that is relatively fair to history while avoiding the White Man Savior narrative.
We would be more just to the director and her production if we were to have this discussion after we had each seen the movie. I’ll note in the meantime that it’s hard for me to stomach the claim that “LBJ and some other white men” got the CRA and VRA done. This infers the President and Congressmembers became moral icons all by themselves, ones who were not responding to the pressure and demands of the Movement.
Did I have to repeat, if the reports about Selma are correct? Didn’t feel that was necessary or given the response from the director that the reports were false. Plus I also stipulated that the point as presented in the movie may seem minor in viewing it. I’m merely speaking about why such a false depiction about a man that did advance the legal rights for African-Americans was chosen by the filmmaker.
Excuse me, and even if it makes you ill, legislatively “LBJ and some other white men” got the CRA and VRA done. is true. Just as it was white men in Congress that passed the 19th Amendment and white men in state legislatures that ratified it. Same with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. But few of them got to an enlightened position on their own. They lived within families, communities, and faith and educational systems with people that led and advocated for changes.
We may never have seen an Emancipation Proclamation if there had been no relationship between Lincoln and Douglass. Just as LBJ may not have advanced the CRAs and VRA — or done so as quickly — had there been no King. Not to overlook his respect for and support of other Black leaders such as Roy Wilkins and Thurgood Marshall. He wanted and got Marshall on the SCOTUS. No trivial accomplishment at that time.
The falling out between LBJ and King came later. He should have listened to and responded appropriately to King, and I’m not going to rationalize LBJ’s failure at that point.
You’ve already admitted that there were real disagreements between Johnson and King in 1965, a tension that predates their more major disagreements over Vietnam and the successful implementation of the Great Society programs. Just because there was more agreement between them in ’65 doesn’t mean that dramatically depicting a real disagreement between them in that year would be historically inaccurate.
It’s advisable for each of us to hold back on further discussion of this until we have seen the movie ourselves, at which point our agreements, disagreements and other viewpoints will be better informed.
Fair enough. At this point in our intellectual arguments. A worthy exercise and thanks for engaging with me in it.
btw, I try to wait for general release movies to make it to the $3.50/ticket price theater. Most do. Twelve Years a Slave was a rare exception which is why I missed it. Some get there faster than others. And it seems impossible to predict how soon or if at all they’ll make it there. Wouldn’t have expected The Grand Budapest Hotel but it did some time after I’d already plunked down $8 for it.
A review by James DiEugenio.
○ A Disappointing ‘Selma’ Film
Haven’t seen the film yet, so at a disadvantage here. But Jim D is almost alone among reviewers I’ve read in disparaging the acting and directing of this movie. Most have thought both the main actors and the director deserved Oscar noms.
But he and I might agree that a film that would be mighty interesting — and hugely controversial — would be one that covers King’s last year, the period from King’s antiwar speech in NYC in Apr 67 to his call for a Poor People’s March on D.C for the summer of 1968 that greatly upset Lyndon, then to the assassination. Controversial in how it would treat not only the badly deteriorated King-Johnson relationship, but also how it would handle the who’s and why’s of the assassination.
A few years ago, O Stone was planning a film that would have treated this area, iirc, but couldn’t get the right clearances/cooperation from the King family, and the project was put aside.
1 review our of 100, 99 of which was positive. So the 99 others that praised the film were what dupes?
I saw the film and thought it was outstanding.
After this week, I’m done defending Selma who are not gonna see it anyway and who probably never plan to see it.
The convenience of the smear campaign against the film is that it gives these people just the right backup excuse to use for flaming a film they never planned to see.
○ High Court Voids Key Part of Voting Rights Act | June 25, 2013 |
○ Democracy Shows Its Ugly Face in America | Nov. 6, 2012 |
I’m not sure Europeans can quite believe that Fox News actually exists.
What a great link. It is unbelievable that a major public broadcasting network in the United States is allowed to air demonstrably false propaganda parading as fact again, and again, and again.
I heard that Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the Fox News anchorwoman featured in one of your links Booman, had a bit of an emergency that got really out of hand. She reached for the phone to dial 9-11, but she couldn’t find the eleven button on the phone.
I just watched a newsbit on NBC news last night about the parents who “allowed” their ten year old son and six year old daughter to walk as much as a mile (!) through their own neighborhood without an adult.
And they’ve been criticized rather shrilly for it.
Jiminy crickets, not to go all “back in my day” on it, but seriously, WTF? I grew up in the sixties and seventies and I walked to school every day, rain, sun, snow or ice and it was easily a mile each way. (But not uphill both ways, haha). Once I drove my own kids along the route I had to walk every day, they were astonished. Yeah, and all of the kids did it, too. Nobody got a ride to school.
I hate living in a society where everyone is paranoid, hiding behind locked doors with a full arsenal of weapons. It’s detrimental to raise children to be afraid and it’s sad.
Yeah it is beyond pathetic, and a little scary. I mean, who actually CALLED for help? If they were at all concerned, had they considered asking the children first?
I’ve been a free range parent for a long time. Really, that merely amounts to how I was brought up. I really don’t think as a society we are doing any favors to children by constantly micromanaging all their time. That, and while the places we live are hardly paradise, they’re safe enough for unsupervised play time, for walking to and from school, etc. Besides, with mobile phones so readily available, if I really want to keep tabs, I can always have them check in from time to time quite conveniently. Works remarkably well.
Depends on the neighborhood. There are neighborhoods in Chicago where children should be transported by Armored Personnel Carriers. Neighborhoods where children are killed by stray bullets coming through the walls at their birthday party.
Idiot wind blowing every time your move your mouth
Blowing down the backroads heading south
Idiot wind blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe
– B. Dylan
I saw the film and thought it was outstanding.
After this week, I’m done defending Selma who are not gonna see it anyway and who probably never plan to see it.
The convenience of the smear campaign against the film is that it gives these people just the right backup excuse to use for flaming a film they never planned to see.
I encourage people to see the film for themselves.
Trying to imagine a movie about Lincoln in which he gives the Gettysburg Address but the text of the speech can’t be used. Artistically, the worst option is to write and present the actor reading a speech similar to the original.
Bollocks. May not be at the top of their want to see list, but people interested enough in commenting about movies mostly plan to see all the higher rated movies every year.
Thx to King children giving rights away already, Selma couldn’t use Kings actual words, Duvernay wrote those herself and yet they did resonate among movie goers.
People who have watched all movies have all had Selma in their top lists and even with the LBJ stuff regard it as a one of the beat films of the year.
The people who I have interacted the most about the film not only haven’t seen it yet use almost verbatim the criticism from the historical inaccuracies to justify saying the movie is not worthy.
But whatever…again I really am dine defending Selma. The movie deserves to be seen before judgment
Don’t you mean “sold?” Regardless, if the rights to any work are unavailable, find another way to tell the story without the need of that source material. You’re fine with an actor in the role of MLK, Jr giving speeches written by Duvarnay. I’m less fine with that, but perhaps because I watched the live broadcast of MLK, Jr. speaking at the March on Washington and was profoundly moved by his words and delivery. I’ll cut Duvarnay some slack on not delivering the real thing when I see and evaluate the movie, and may even end up agreeing that the vision and construction of the movie are too first rate to allow that shortcoming to stand in the way of having made it.
Last year, within the first few weeks of the movie release dates, critics were very high on Lee Daniels’ The Butler, American Hustle, and Wolf of Wall Street. Those opinions faded quickly and not because of historical inaccuracies. I loathed one and didn’t much like the other two. As I would have been hard pressed to choose Best Actor between Matthew McCaughney and Forest Whitaker (had him in the wrong year in my earlier comment), Academy members didn’t see fit to nominate Whitaker. They also almost totally ignored what I thought were the three best movies: Inside Llewyn Davis, Rush, and Blue Jasmine. Mature works by mature filmmakers who have had a fair share of Oscars for previous works. Their wins also came after they had completed a substantial body of work.
Apparently, the King Estate (Dexter and MLK III) own the rights to his speeches and decided to sell/assign them to Spielberg for his upcoming biopic production. According to the Selma director, it’s supposed to be a cradle-to-grave depiction.
I’m not exactly confident that a Spielberg will be tackling some of the major issues re King and LBJ I mentioned here elsewhere.
MLK, Jr. had the foresight to copyright his speeches and the family owns those rights and are free to handle them any way they choose. As the entertainment industry is first about earning a profit, didn’t mean to suggest any criticism of the King family for choosing not to sell those rights to the producers of Selma.
Technically Speilberg is first rate. What mars his movies for me are his own stuff that he seems to have a difficult time setting aside and his screenplay/writers choices. His stuff tends to make its way into the screenplays and/or writers he chooses. Added to that is that he’s not an actor’s director — good performances in his films are the work of the actors but he does give actors the freedom to do it. Apparently, it was Daniel Day Lewis that did the mega-research on Lincoln and then wrote or rewrote most of his lines. Given the right screenplay, writers, and actors, Speilberg could pull it off. But maybe instead he should hire Ang Lee.
As I understand it, from a mere glance at the situation yesterday, the words and presumably material effects of Dr King belong to the King Estate which is run by his two sons Dexter and MLK III as trustees. Bernice runs the King Center in Atlanta. I gather there’s been friction because the sons want to be able to control all these assets per the terms of the trust, while Bernice needs to use them for the cash-strapped Center without having to pay compensation. Or at least this is my impression of what’s been going on.
As for Spielberg, he’s just about the last director I’d want to cover the life of someone who was so involved, especially in his later years, in highly controversial issues, as I’ve mentioned previously, issues pitting him directly against a sitting Democratic president. On the contrary, Spielberg is more likely to gloss over or omit the controversies — unlikely to want to rock the establishment boat because clearly the media establishment is likely to carefully scrutinize any depiction less than flattering to Johnson, as the Selma films attests.
Let’s unpack that. It appears that you and I agree that a great MLK, Jr. biopic would be one that honestly depicts his foresight and vision that was radical in his day and most of which remains radical today. While I could be wrong, I don’t think that is beyond Speilberg’s technical skills. However, he’s not likely to hire the writers and actors necessary for him to pull it off. (Note: Daniel Day Lewis wasn’t his first choice to play Lincoln. Then there was his dreadful choice of Sally Fields for Mary Todd Lincoln. Opposite Day Lewis, Fields is a “B” actor; therefore, an “A” actor, such as Emily Watson, was required.)
Neither of us know what the King family would prefer in a movie about their father. They may want his visionary and radical positions airbrushed out. Or perhaps their agenda is to get the largest possible paycheck from the biggest name studio and director that will depict MLK, Jr. in strictly positive and grand terms. If so, Speilberg is an excellent choice. Such a movie would be lauded upon release, but wouldn’t stand the test of time.
Boy, in major disagreement with you about “Lincoln.” And, in this case, we’ve both seen it! 😉
Tony Kushner’s screenplay was extremely fine, in my view. I liked that he chose to concentrate on a very specific, relatively short span of time and set of actions. This prevented the story from losing its impact by becoming too sprawling while revealing a lot about both Lincoln’s character and the varied characters of the others who were involved in the story.
And, for me, the choice of Field was inspired. Like Mary Todd Lincoln herself, she lacked the perspective, gravitas or stability of her husband’s character. Trying to present an actress who matched the gravitas of the Lincoln character would have been odd indeed. It would have been off dramatically and historically.
(BTW, let’s not diss Sally too much. This was exactly the type of role that she can be counted on to deliver. She’s a limited actress, but a very good one.)
I don’t know where you got your claims about Day-Lewis and Spielberg. In fact, Daniel was an early choice of Steven, a choice Spielberg was so proud of that he publicly shared Day-Lewis’ letter which gracefully rejected Steven’s first offer of the role.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steven-spielberg-reveals-daniel-day-409709
In fact, Daniel, according to this telling, rejected Spielberg twice and only signed on after reading a new conceptualization of the screenplay which the director commissioned from the newly hired Kushner.
Agree about the fine Lincoln movie, the screenplay I had no problem with, and especially can’t find fault with Sally Field as Mrs Lincoln, a wonderful depiction of a rather difficult, high-strung character.
On who was to play Abe, I read that originally it was to go to the actor Liam Neeson whose wife Natasha Richardson had recently died suddenly. But after a while, perhaps because of his personal loss, he found he couldn’t get into the character and asked out of the production.
As for Daniel Day Lewis, I think he read a lot about Lincoln because like a lot of good actors he wanted to absolutely get inside the guy’s skin, as much as possible. Nothing to do with an inadequate screenplay.
One of Spielberg’s better movies. But I still don’t count on him adequately handling the King controversies. Will be happy to be proved wrong of course …