Walter Lippmann and the American Century — 45 The Wbrst of Times

1. 1. Lippmann argued that the Vietnam War was degenerating into savagery because it was waged without hope of military decision.
2. 2. Lippmann predicted that Robert Kennedy would not challenge Lyndon Johnson in 1968 because it was a losing gamble, and instead would aim for 1972.
3. 3. Lippmann praised Eugene McCarthy as the defender of the American faith for challenging Johnson on an antiwar platform.
4. 4. Lippmann advised Robert Kennedy that if Johnson's re-election would be a catastrophe, Kennedy must ask himself whether he did everything to avert it.
5. 5. After Robert Kennedy's assassination, Lippmann urged McCarthy and Rockefeller to persevere in their bids to preserve democratic choice.
6. 6. Lippmann endorsed Nixon over Humphrey because he believed Nixon could end the war and blame Democrats, while Humphrey was Lyndon Johnson's creature.
7. 7. Lippmann argued that liberals should not shirk the restoration of security and discipline, even if it meant supporting repression, to preserve democracy.
8. 8. Lippmann saw a 'new Nixon' who was mature and mellower, and thought a Republican victory was tolerable to oust the party that had cost the country so much.
9. 9. At a London dinner, Lippmann dismissed Ambassador Walter Annenberg's defense of De Gaulle as 'drivel' and later remarked that Annenberg needed someone to take his foot out of his mouth.
10. 10. Lippmann confessed to a friend that he had relapsed from the American faith in the capacity for the good life, seeing an endless war between good and evil.
11. 11. Lippmann called the present age a 'minor Dark Age' but also the most revolutionary due to the invention of invention itself.
12. 12. Lippmann believed in an inherited code of civility that prevents absolute power and allows democracy to survive upheaval.
13. 13. Lippmann maintained that man, even when relapsing into barbarism, recreates civilization because the need and capacity to be civilized are inherent.
14. 14. In his final months, Lippmann made sharp judgments about acquaintances, such as calling a woman's revenge breeding unhappiness and questioning a man's long friendship with his wife's lover.
15. 15. Lippmann faced death without fear or religious consolation, embodying the mature man who takes the world as it comes and remains unperturbed.