Under the British parliamentary system he would have faced the challenge of his peers, tough, sharp, examining, who feared neither him nor his office. But there was no comparable challenge at the White House, where no one really stands up to the President, where there is no equality, where no one tells the President he is wrong. For the Presidency is an awesome office, even with a mild inhabitant. It tends by its nature to inhibit dissent and opposition, and with a man like Johnson it was simply too much, too powerful an office occupied by too forceful a man (Johnson’s own style in the Senate
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