New York Times: “For better or worse, Lyndon Johnson represented the high-water mark for American presidents pushing through sweeping legislation — not just the Civil Rights Act, but the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, the Fair Housing Act and major measures on immigration, education, gun control and clean air and water. No president since has approached that level of legislative success, although there are people who argue that is a good thing because government should not be so intrusive.”

“But Mr. Obama and many Democrats are not among them. At this stage of his presidency, Mr. Obama has become a symbol of liberal frustration over his inability to use government to bring about change. Republicans publicly, and some Democrats privately, blame Mr. Obama for not doing more to work across the aisle. The White House and many Democrats scoff at that, laying stalemate at the feet of what they call an obstructionist Republican Party.”

Washington Post: “It’s the political equivalent of shaking hands at the end of the big game. But the concession call may be falling out of vogue more and more. Just ask D.C. Councilmember Muriel Bowser, who just won the Democratic nomination for mayor.”

“Briefing reporters Wednesday, Bowser said she still had not spoken with Mayor Vincent C. Gray, whom she defeated in Tuesday’s primary. It’s not the first time a runner-up has declined to make the congratulatory call to the winning candidate that has long been customary. You don’t have to reach back far into history to find at least a pair of other high-profile candidates who refused to pick up the phone.”

Former President George H.W. Bush is set to receive the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s prestigious Profile in Courage Award for breaking his “read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes — and for being “pilloried by conservatives for doing so,” The Week reports.

New York Times: “When Robert S. Strauss headed the Democratic Party in the early 1970s, he was a man of unusual sway. A phone call could change a presidential campaign, or at times, even the presidency itself. He held the exalted status of wise man in the capital, a kingmaker who helped bring Jimmy Carter to power and Ronald Reagan to recognize the damage from Iran-contra, a man with such inside knowledge of power, politics and relationships that he could make all manner of problems go away.”

“His death on Wednesday, and the memories it evoked — with praise from voices ranging from President Obama to Nancy Reagan — signaled another marker in the long road to decline of the authority of the nation’s two political parties.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) said the U.S. Constitution is 400 years old, TPM reports.

Said Lee: “Frankly, maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority, the Republicans, my chairman, and others for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a Constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not.”

Damon Linker: “The competition for worst president since the early 1930s is pretty fierce. But for my money, Lyndon B. Johnson comes in first, winning the contest of awfulness over George W. Bush by a hair.”

Politico: “Historians who try to rank the 44th president in our national pantheon are surely going to ask why he has not made better use of his ‘bully pulpit.’ It’s become common to ask where Barack Obama the electrifying speechmaker has gone. But if we compare him with other presidents who managed economic crises or the aftermath of major wars, the mystery starts to clear up. Neither Eisenhower nor Nixon was, to say the very least, considered a great communicator. Add Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush to the group, and the pattern is hard to miss. When America’s national fortunes turn downward, our presidents usually seem pretty inarticulate.”

Lyndon Johnson’s family and friends “have commenced one last campaign” in rebuilding the late president’s image, the New York Times reports.

“They are seeking a reconsideration of Johnson’s legacy as president, arguing that it has been overwhelmed by the tragedy of the Vietnam War, and has failed to take into account the blizzard of domestic legislation enacted in the five years Johnson was in the White House.”

“The campaign comes at the end of a long period in which aides and advisers to Johnson, who died at age 64 in 1973, have largely stayed in the shadows, quieted by the memory of a war that still prompts anguished debate and condemnation. They have patiently watched the adulation of John F. Kennedy — whom Johnson succeeded and with whom he had a decidedly competitive relationship — that accompanied the commemoration of another 50th anniversary: the Kennedy assassination.”

According to a press release, Groupon apparently thinks Alexander Hamilton was President of the United States.

“Starting tomorrow, Groupon will be kicking off Presidents Day weekend by giving customers 10 dollars off 40 dollars when they purchase a deal for any local business. The $10 bill, as everyone knows, features President Alexander Hamilton — undeniably one of our greatest presidents and most widely recognized for establishing the country’s financial system.”

“Shortly before Hillary Clinton’s effort to pass health care reform died in the summer of 1994, the first lady asked a close friend and confidant for advice on “how best to preserve her general memories of the administration and of health care in particular,” CNN reports.

“When asked why, according to the friend’s June 20, 1994, diary entry, Clinton said, ‘Revenge.’

“That exchange is among thousands of pages of notes, letters, and diary entries penned by Diane Blair, a political science professor and longtime Clinton friend whose papers were donated to the University of Arkansas after her death in 2000.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) talked to Right Wing News about voting for Ronald Reagan:

“I remember, I was a teenager, had just become a teenager and voted for Ronald Reagan — limited government, you know, smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense. You knew what you were getting. You knew how a Reagan administration, a Reagan presidency was going to be better for you.”

One problem: Blogging Blue notes Walker wasn’t old enough to vote in either 1980 or 1984 when Reagan ran for president.

Update: Right Wing News posts the audio of the interview and apologizes for misquoting Walker.

The Washington Free Beacon uncovers a 1992 memo written by pollsters Stan Greenberg and Celinda Lake which concludes: “What voters find slick in Bill Clinton, they find ruthless in Hillary.”

“The full memo is one of many previously unpublished documents contained in the archive of one of Hillary Clinton’s best friends and advisers, documents that portray the former first lady, secretary of State, and potential 2016 presidential candidate as a strong, ambitious, and ruthless Democratic operative.”

The Washington Examiner looks at other interesting tidbits from the files.

“In Chris Christie’s first successful campaign for public office, he sat down next to his wife and baby, looked into a camera and told voters something that wasn’t true,” the Washington Post reports.

“That 1994 race was New Jersey’s introduction to the brash and confident Christie, whose hardball tactics have repeatedly surprised people — even in a state that thinks it invented hardball. But in Morris County back then, people thought Christie had learned the downside of playing so rough: That ad helped get him into his first elected office but then helped get him out of it. He was sued for defamation, required to apologize and then defeated at the polls after just one term.”

Karen Tumulty: “The ambitious ‘Great Society’ agenda begun half a century ago continues to touch nearly every aspect of American life. But the deep philosophical divide it created has come to define the nation’s harsh politics, especially in the Obama era.”

“On the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of a War on Poverty, Republicans and Democrats are engaged in a battle over whether its 40 government programs have succeeded in lifting people from privation or worsened the situation by trapping the poor in dependency.”

FBI files show that between 1947 and 1956, the movie It’s a Wonderful Life was listed as “under the suspicion of being a
vehicle of Communist propaganda.”

“There’s no telling what might happen now that Barack Obama and George W. Bush find themselves taking a long Air Force One flight from Washington to Johannesburg to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela. But history suggests something will,” Time reports.

“When Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower shared a limo back from Arlington cemetery in November 1963, following the burial of John F. Kennedy, the two men, bitter enemies for more than a decade, finally found a way to set their animosity aside… The two men got to talking and all the years of difficulty and pain melted away as the hours ticked by and the cocktails were refilled.”

“Defenses came crashing down again in 1981, when Ronald Reagan sent Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter to Cairo to attend the funeral of Anwar Sadat…The ride over on the old Boeing 707 was long, crowded and awkward. But on the way home, Nixon peeled away on a different trip and Carter and Ford dropped a half decade of resentment and realized they had more in common than either imagined. They both hated raising money, they both dreaded 25 years of unexpected retirement; they both disliked Reagan. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship: over the next 25 years, Ford and Carter joined forces on two dozen projects.”

First Read: “But as universally praised and beloved as Mandela is now, anyone who was politically aware in the 1980s or 1990s knows that always wasn’t the case. After all, in 1986, President Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation — which Congress overrode — punishing South Africa for its racial apartheid. A lot of it had to do with Cold War mentality at the time; some viewed Mandela as on the wrong side of that fight. But it’s all a reminder how the passage of time and history can transform a one-time controversial figure into a political saint, and vice-versa. But it’s also a lesson that sometimes a policy of the moment will end up being embarrassing; politicians today ought to think about what a policy decision in the moment will look like a generation later.”

Steve Kornacki has a fascinating look back at the 1992 Democratic presidential primary in New York, which was a dramatic and chaotic do-or-die test for Bill Clinton after he lost the Connecticut primary unexpectedly to Jerry Brown.

“When the Connecticut result came in, the basic nature of the Democratic
race changed on the spot, transforming the next major contest on the
calendar into a make-or-break test for Bill Clinton. If he could win it,
his inevitability would be restored. But lose again, to Jerry Brown,
and all hell would break loose.”

“And here was the worst part for Clinton. Of all the venues for that that next major test, that do-or-die battle, it would be playing out in a state where they practiced a notoriously cutthroat brand of politics; a state where his southern accent marked him as a suspicious outsider, a used car salesman; where the media delighted in chewing up supposed front-runners; where an unusually powerful tabloid press would giddily plaster his personal baggage on its covers; where one major liberal columnist was already calling him “Slick Willie” while another simply branded him “a fraud”; where one of the biggest-name Democratic politicians was openly arguing that his “character problems” made him “unacceptable to the vast majority of Democrats”; a state whose Democratic governor had nearly launched a presidential campaign of his own, and who was now being touted as the white knight who could rescue the party if Clinton stumbled just once more – a governor, by the way, whom Clinton had personally insulted in secretly recorded conversations that had come to light months earlier.”