19. Lyndon Johnson and Him and Her
Lyndon Johnson was not a man who was easily embarrassed. He was famous for carrying on conversations through an open door while relieving himself, in either manner, with no doubt cringing aides and secretaries. During meals, when he noticed his wife Lady Bird looking the other way, he would reach with his fork or spoon to a nearby plate before another diner and help himself to whatever took his fancy. His language was pithy, even coarse, and his opinions shared in private with aids and friends were often blunt.”Jerry Ford is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time”, he once said of the man he asked to serve on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. He also said, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac, the headline that afternoon would read: The President Can’t Swim.”
Johnson owned a pair of beagles, from the same litter, one male and one female. With impressive creativeness, he named them Him and Her. Johnson liked to walk the dogs himself, and during one such walk, while accompanied by photographers, Johnson picked up one of the dogs by the ears. When the photos appeared in newspapers animal lovers excoriated him for his cruelty. Thousands of letters to the editor and telegrams complained about the president’s indifference to his pets (in fact he was devoted to both). Johnson was forced to take extraordinary steps throughout 1964 to improve his public image to pet owners, including allowing photographers to take pictures of his dogs for a spread in Life Magazine. But privately, in response to the continuing controversy in the newspapers, Johnson remarked, “The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw of character”.