A horrible historical memo
by digby
Michael Beschloss tweeted this LBJ memo earlier today. It really brings home the horror of political assassination, doesn’t it?
That transition went pretty smoothly. But according to this article, they don’t always go that way. This one in particular:
The only vice president who thoroughly overshadowed his predecessor was Theodore Roosevelt, governor of New York and a fiery reformer who so frightened the state’s party machine officials that they engineered his selection in 1900 as incumbent William McKinley’s running mate.
When McKinley was shot in September 1901 and died a week later, GOP boss Mark Hanna lamented over the “damned cowboy” now in charge. Roosevelt, who became synonymous with the Progressive era of the early 20th century, initially promised to continue McKinley’s more conservative policies “absolutely unbroken.” He confided his real intentions to a gathering of journalists at the White House.
“I am president,” he told his visitors, “and shall act in every word and deed precisely as if I and not McKinley had been the candidate for whom the electors cast the vote for president.”
Sounds a little like George W. Bush in 2000 …
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