He has shown a distinct turn to the left since releasing the first volume of his three-volume (maybe four eventually) bio .... he appears to admire LBJ in power, dispensing liberal laws and executive decrees left and right.
However, he told us what the man was really like in the first volume, when he told us how Congressman Johnson, while ruthlessly driving his own small staff (that included John Connally) to work all hours in satisfaction of his demands for political "responsiveness" to constituents (he had a one-day rule for replying to letter-writers), toadied relentlessly to more-powerful men. In particular, he sucked up to a senior senator from Virginia, who mentored LBJ extensively and gave him much valuable access to the wheelers and dealers of the day. LBJ's repayment to his own ego consisted of bagging the senator's wife every time the senator went out of town.
How can a man like that be "great" at anything? But liberals defend him to the last ditch (except on Vietnam, where he killed too many Communists), simply in order to defend their own lame nostrums.
Thanks, the more I hear about LBJ, the more I dislike him.