Existing comment:
President Johnson as King Lear
Named Time's 1964 "Man of the Year" because of his remarkable presidential successes, Lyndon Johnson (1908–1973) received that distinction again in 1967 for his perceived failures. Violently scorned for escalating the Vietnam War, chastised by African Americans for moving too slowly on civil rights, and hounded in Congress for the costliness of his ambitious domestic programs, Johnson had even been deserted by much of his own Democratic Party. By the first week of 1968, when this caricature appeared on Time's cover, his approval rating had plummeted from a peak of 80 percent to 38 percent.
Artist David Levine (1926–2009) took his inspira- tion from Shakespeare's play King Lear (c. 1606), which centers on a man who runs afoul of his children and his own good intentions. Fellow Democrats Senator Robert Kennedy (1925–1968) and Representative Wilbur Mills (1909–1992) belea- guered the president; only one member of Johnson's political "family" remained loyal: Vice President Hubert Humphrey (1911–1978).
David Levine, 1967
Time cover, January 5, 1968 |