So it may be true that liberalism in LBJ's time was a more dangerous movement (because people could believe in it,) but liberalism in the Clintons' time has become a much clearly evil force. People who are both intelligent and honest can still be leftists, but I do not think that anyone who is both intelligent and honest can any longer support the palpably corrupt version of institutionalized liberalism that is Clintonism. I.e., you can tell whether a leftist is honest by whether he opposes Clintonism, even if only from the left.
I believe Caro's own politics are liberal, and the excerpts from the new volume that have so far appeared in the New Yorker suggest that the new volume may be more favorable to LBJ than its predecessors, perhaps because Caro is going to want to support the civil-rights and Great Society aspects of LBJ's presidency once he gets around to dealing with that.
Did Caro indicate whether his projected fourth volume will deal with both LBJ's vice presidency and presidency, or only with the vice presidency (or maybe the 1960-64 term, as another possible dividing line)?
Anyway, however favorably Caro may deal with the later stages of LBJ's political career, the man is irredeemably damned by the LBJ tapes that C-SPAN is running (at least on C-SPAN Radio -- I don't have cable, so I can't say whether they're also on one of C-SPAN's TV channels.) The sycophancy and duplicity on display in those tapes can never be erased.
I've listened to a lot of them while in the car on weekends. Don't know why but I always feel like I need a shower when I turn the ignition off.