National Affairs: Tongue Out of Cheek

Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had suffered weeks of silence while being criticized by a handful of liberal Democrats who accused him, on one hand, of one-man rule, and, on another hand, of failing to organize his sprawling majority (64-34) for an across-the-board assault on the Republican Administration’s policies. Finally, last week, Johnson took his tongue out of the cheek he had been turning. “This one-man rule stuff is a myth,” cried he on the Senate floor. “It does not take much courage, I may say, to make the leadership a punching bag.”

No sooner said than answered. Up popped Wisconsin’s talky Senator William Proxmire, who has made a happy headline career out of baiting Leader Johnson (TIME, April 20) by demanding Democratic policy meetings. Said Proxmire: “I challenge Senators to tell us what our policy is on the budget, what our policy is on interest rates, what our policy is on taxation, or what our policy is on almost any issue. No one can tell me.” While Republican Leader Everett Dirksen gleefully yielded five minutes of his own allotted floor time so that the Democratic squabble could continue, Johnson scoffed at his critics. Asked he: “Do they expect a fairy godmother or a wet nurse to get a majority to deliver into their hands?”

By that time, brash Bill Proxmire had had about enough. He took his seat-while Johnson delivered a devastating last word. The best living example of a Senate leader’s problems, he said, had “just sat down.”