Master of the Senate

Great great great book. I find Lyndon Johnson to be a fascinating character. I love his intellect, cringe at his cruelty, and am awed with his political skills.

The second part of this book focuses on the history of the US Senate. This is just as and if not more interesting! Caro first takes you through the creation of the Senate and the Founder's ideal of an institution to act as the "cool" to the "heat" of democracy; the Senate's founding principles were firmness & independence. Caro then shows how the Senate has evolved over its lifetime. He documents how the Senate became more dysfunctional and lost some of its power. It's amazing how relevant the Senate's story still is today!

Anyways, I need to read the rest of Caro's series on Johnson. Absolutely fascinating.

You gotta hand it to Caro; as a researcher, he is as thorough as can be, and he brings impressive detail to his accounts of LBJ. Unfortunately, his writing gets in the way, and is quite annoying after a while. At times, his storytelling has something of a sportscaster's cadence, which is totally incongruous with the subject. A minor quibble, but I can't stand Caro's overuse of the "for" construction, i.e., "But that was not to happen today, for fate willed it otherwise..." (That's not an actual quote, but it exemplifies the construction he uses ad nauseum). Still, this is a compelling portrait of LBJ, albeit a limited one. I wanted to read more commentary on how LBJ, evidently a lewd, racist, sexist and coarse bully for much of his life, came to stand behind some surprisingly progressive legislation in his later years. This transformation is given short shrift, which is too bad, because to me, that is the most interesting thing about LBJ.