New Lyndon B Johnson tapes released on CNN.

[NJSecularist]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/05/04/todd.lbj.tapes.cnn

Pretty revealing tapes, although the segments are very short. It appears that just a week before his announcement that he wouldn't run for another term, he had talked to one of his closest advisors and made it clear that he wanted to run for re-election.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. He did

He did want to run for reelection. He got talked out of it by his advisers. I know this because I worked for a man named Charles S. Murphy, who worked for LBJ. Charlie had his ear, but Charlie was on vacation when this happened. He remained angry about it until the day he died.

[still_one]

2. too bad we still didn't learn from lies Johnson made which got us into Viet Nam full bore /nt

[pacalo]

3. This made me think about a scene from Oliver Stone's "Nixon"...

when Nixon visited a Texas ranch to confer with a group of oil men about their grievances about the Vietnam war, oil prices, etc. They were trying to dictate to Nixon how they wanted him to run things, but Nixon didn't allow himself to be pushed around. Somehow I think Watergate wouldn't have seen the light of day if he had kissed up to those Texans.

I believe the same forces, or some of the guys who were at that Texas ranch, were behind LBJ's sudden decision.

[NashVegas]

6. Yeah, The Old Bill Hicks Joke

You're elected president, and you go to a room where you meet a group of gentlemen who show you a clip of the Kennedy assassination that's filmed from an angle no one's ever seen before. They say, "any questions?" "Yeah - what's my agenda?"

[seemslikeadream]

4. ass-kicking in New Hampshire

fixed that

[NJSecularist]

5. Didn't he win by 7 points there? n/t

[AZ Criminal JD]

7. He did and he wasn't even on the ballot. He was a write-in.

Not much of a "ass kicking".