"Happy President's Day..."

Today is Presidents' Day, the national holiday set aside to honor the men who have sacrificed so much to lead our nation... Originally conceived to combine the celebration of the birthdays of our first and sixteenth presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the holiday is now widely recognized to honor all the men (and perhaps soon, women) who have and will hold the highest elected office in the land.

In our short history as a nation, we've had some serious characters attain the office of president. Among them, LBJ is one of my favorites.  To my mind, Lyndon Johnson was one of the most enigmatic personalities to ever inhabit the White House.

Thrust into power at a time of crisis following the assassination of President John Kennedy, this plain speaking (as you'll read below) Southern Democrat not only held the country together through our deepening involvement in an unpopular war in Vietnam, the escalating cold war with the former USSR, but also the social upheaval here at home during the last half of the 1960's. And surprisingly and much to the chagrin of entrenched Southern segregationist in his own party, he was the president who shepherded the modern civil rights era's demands into concrete government actions and legislation.

Below, you'll celebrate President's Day with a smile as you read about "The President's Pants."  One of the funniest and perhaps most insightful stories to come out of the LBJ White House.  Be sure to click on the link at the bottom of the article to listen to actual White House tapes.

The President's Pants

From 1940 until 1973, the six men who held the office of President of the United States — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Richard Nixon — secretly recorded various telephone conversations and meetings they participated in.   The most famous of these recordings, the Watergate tapes, led to an end to the recordings and of Nixon’s presidency.  On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon would resign the office of the President in part due to the content of one of the tapes.

Ten years earlier, to the day, LBJ had made his own tape — much less controversial in content.  He was ordering pants.

LBJ took to the phone, calling Joe Haggar of the Haggar Clothing company.  Calling the pants he previously received from the company “the best that I’ve had anywhere in the United States,” the President ordered six more pairs, for summer wear.  The only problem, as the President noted on the call, is that his weight varied “10 to 15 pounds a month,” so the specifications and measurements of the old pairs were no longer appropriate.

The content of the call is not all that interesting — the President needs new pants, basically — but it is a rare glimpse into the personality of a president.  LBJ was, let’s say, informal and to the point, using terms such as “bunghole,” referring to his “crotch” as “down where your nuts hang,” and at one point, audibly burping into the phone.

One can listen to the recording here: LBJ Orders Some New Pants.

*******

"Fear Eats the Soul"