Lyndon Johnson's potty training

Michael Perelman michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Mon Jun 1 13:22:11 PDT 1998


I also recall that he interviewed his Treasury Secretary -- Was it Douglas Dillon? -- while taking a crap -- perhaps confirming Norman O. Brown and Freud's ideas about feces and gold.

Jon Fine wrote:


> >Brad De Long wrote:
> >
> >>>The harsh response to Rorty may have something to do with his
> >>>penchant for gratuitous, con-baiting asides, such as the one in which he
> >>>absurdly states that "we caused the death of a million Vietnamese out of
> >>>sheer macho arrogance." In the course of the book, Rorty sets even
> >>>liberal teeth on edge with such outlandish statements
> >>
> >>But we did cause the death of a million Vietnamese out of sheer macho
> >>arrogance...
>
> and Doug responded:
>
> >
> >And it was done by "liberals." It was Johnson who pulled out his johnson at
> >a cabinet meeting to answer the question "why were we in Vietnam?"
>
> not to nit-pick, but the truth is even more ridiculous than that. Johnson
> was with a couple of (unnamed) _journalists_ who asked him that question,
> whereupon he displayed his etc. This anecdote was published in,
> uh...wholever just published that massive bio on JOhnson a few months back.
> Say what you will about journalism now (and there's plenty to say), but
> there's no way an incident like that would go unreported today. For what
> that's worth.
>
> jf

-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu



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