yfiles:

Interesting point from Robert Caro on why a president can’t just take judgments of what is and isn’t “politically feasible” to be value-neutral:

Considerations of policy may also have played a role. “If Kennedy had allowed Johnson to conduct his congressional relations, he would in effect have made the Vice President the judge of what was legislatively feasible and therefore lost control over his own program,” Arthur Schlesinger wrote. “This was something no sensible President would do. Kennedy therefore relied on his own congressional liaison staff under Lawrence O’Brien, calling on the Vice President only on particular occasions.”

Equally interesting:

I am the twenty-seventh richest personal man in the nation. I got the biggest wazoo in Washington and the wife with the prettiest name. So I don’t care who your wife’s Daddy knows—don’t you slouch at this Senator, boy.