September 19

"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it."

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President, 1963-1969 From a September 22, 1966 talk given to Democratic congressional candidates..."He talked about the presidency as a kind of national lightning rod: "Someone asked me the other day-a reporter- do I consider myself a President in trouble?" And they're sadistic," he (Johnson)said. "They kind of hoped I was. And I said, 'Well, what do you think a President's for?' " He (Johnson) talked about all the commotion that just a handful of critics can make: He said that Huey Long used to refer to the old farmer down in Louisiana who couldn't sleep at night because of the noise the frogs were making. "He finally got mad and went down there and took his disc plow and just cut a hole in that dirt tank and emptied all the water out of it so he could get rid of those frogs." The President's voice went down almost to a whisper and he said, "And he found two." He paused to let it sink in. "Been keeping him awake all night." Remember this," he said, "Anybody who criticizes the President always gets attention.... The easiest thing for them to do to get into the newspapers is to say that something is wrong with their own President." He brought the audience to its feet when he said, "So I'm doing the best I can and it's almost like the old man in my county that said he felt like a jackass in a hail storm: He just has to hunker up and take it."from The LBJ the Nation Seldom Saw by Robert L. Hardesty President Southwest Texas State University