Johnson's White House aide John P. Roche wrote years after LBJ died that he could not make Johnson understand that Ho Chi Minh was a dedicated Leninist. Johnson, Roche recalls, kept asking, "'What does Ho want?' as if Ho were a mayor of Chicago holding out for five new post offices." Such a question could only come from a man for whom politics is merely a nihilistic series of deals, utterly without any principled ground.
Fascinating. The one thing that completely befuddled Johnson was a man who wanted power for the sake of a deeply held principle, even if that principle was an evil ones. In the end politics is about principles. Johnson's number one principle was self-advancement at all cost, and feeding his own perverse carnal desires for sex and power.