SUNDAY: President Johnson withdrew from the race!

SUNDAY, JULY 21, 2024

As has President Biden: We had come to think more poorly of President Biden over the course of the past year.

The reasons can be listed at some later date. For today, his announcement that he will be stepping aside took us all the way back to our junior year in college.

On the evening of March 31, 1968, we sat in the Dunster House TV room, watching President Johnson's scheduled speech about Vietnam. As recalled in an NPR report (from 2018), here's what happened that night:

Remembering 1968: LBJ Surprises Nation With Announcement He Won't Seek Re-Election

[...]

He spoke of a pause in the massive bombing campaign that was devastating much of communist North Vietnam and portions of embattled South Vietnam, where the U.S. was defending an anti-communist regime.

Johnson's speech was his most earnest plea yet to be taken seriously as a peacemaker. He meant that plea to be validated by the closing statement he had chosen to include that night. Instead, that statement caught the nation by surprise, shattered the political landscape and utterly overshadowed the rest of the speech.

"With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office—the presidency of this country," Johnson intoned, looking earnestly into the camera lens.

Tens of millions of viewers suddenly came to full attention. What did he just say? What could that mean?

We recall coming to full attention. Here's what President Johnson said next:

"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

The announcement was a total surprise.  We believe a few cheers went up in the TV room. 

Four days later, Dr. King was shot and killed. Senator Kennedy was shot and killed two months and two days after that.

President Johnson's announcement that night was a complete surprise. Almost surely, cheers went up in the TV room. At that time, cheers would go up during the evening news any time Walter Cronkite announced that the Dow Jones average had gone down.

For ourselves, we recall feeling sorry for President Johnson that night. Despite the shrinking regard we'd come to have for President Biden and his family and his team, we also feel sorry for President Biden today. 

While we're at it, also this:

We recommend feeling sorry for the child who suffered the "childhood traumas" referred to by Usha Vance during Wednesday night's convention speech. 

Earlier today, we watched an hour-long, C-Span interview from September 2017. On that C-Span videotape, David Rubinstein interviews the author of Hillbilly Elegy about the contents of his widely acclaimed book, including the circumstances in which he grew up.

The author who spoke with Rubinstein that day was good-humored, smart and personable. As we watched that tape today, we wondered how the child who suffered those childhood traumas had become that apparently calm and balanced man. 

We also wondered how that apparently calm and balanced man had become the J. D. Vance of today. We aren't going to vote for Vance, but we do know how to feel sorry for the classic "motherless child."

In the past, we've even recommended pity for Donald J. Trump, who was born to a father who has been described, by one of his grandchildren, as a sociopath. 

We recommend pity for any child born to such a person. In the current circumstance, we also recommend political defeat for the disordered adult that unfortunate child became.

As of this morning, it seemed that our own Blue America hadn't found the way to defeat Candidate Trump. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens disagree with our assessment of that "disordered" man, as is their perfect right.

It also seemed that we Blues are incapable of imagining that some of the fault in our stunningly bad political performance could possibly lie with us.

The search for Candidate Biden's replacement starts right now. Needless to say, Candidate Trump may get him locked up.

Trying to get the guy locked up, while ignoring almost everything else!

We recommend C-Span's Hillbilly Elegy tape! We wouldn't vote for the current version of Vance, but we recommend pity for the traumatized child who arrived here before the grown man.