Different days/different Presidents

 

 

Back on November 9, 1968 a letter from out-going President Lyndon Johnson to Tom and Dick Smothers, the musicians and comedians who had made lots of fun of Johnson in their songs and jokes.

The Letter read: "It is part of the price of leadership of this great and free nation to be the target of clever satirists. You have given the gift of laughter to our people. May we never grow so somber or self-important that we fail to appreciate the humor in our lives."

Wow! A president thanking two men who satirized him!

Compare that to our current president's ire toward Jimmy Kimble and Stephen Colbert. And the lengths he has gone to silence them.

Wow! Some difference....

(Oh, by the way Richard Nixon saw to it that the Smothers brothers show was cancelled....)

{I got this from the Oct. 13, 2025 issue of THE NEW YORKER.}