LANDSLIDE LYNDON
Things heat up in the oval office as Johnson considers the worsening situation in Vietnam, the related the attacks from disappointed civil rights leaders over his ongoing determination to fight the war and the threat from the left from RFK junior. He has been given two choices: The blue folder contains the plans for a peaceful retreat from Vietnam, putting an end to the daily parade of deaths, but forcing him to admit defeat. The memo in the red folder describes a strategy of fierce carpet bombing that could lead him to victory, but at what cost?
LYRICS​
THE OVAL OFFICE. MARCH 30, 1968
​
RFK is lit in a side light, staring at LBJ
WALTER CRONKITE (TV) Senator Robert Kennedy spoke before an adoring crowd of 13,000 today, following his recent announcement that he will enter the Democratic primary for president. Meanwhile, Eugene McCarthy scored an upset in New Hampshire, taking home 48 delegates to President Johnson’s 42.
LBJ Goddammit!
​
Why is Bobby Kennedy
Always ahead of me?
He gets loving crowds
I get obscenities
Hurled from across the White House gates
I got to make a change...
(contemplatively)
Or should I wait?
Martin Luther King won't return my calls
And Ho Chi Minh - he's got me by the balls
Eugene McCarthy's got more delegates
In New Hampshire. What the hell it's
All a freaking mess
I'm losing now I guess
They called me "Landslide Lyndon"
I'm thick-skinned and
I only know victory
But now it seems I got my hands tied
And the landslide
Is gonna land on me.
​
WALTER CRONKITE (TV)
Meanwhile, protesters continue to throng the White House.
LBJ
Grr. Cronkite!
​
(to the audience)
I tell ya - if he swallowed a nail, he'd spit out a corkscrew
Moyers enters
LBJ
Bird, I can't take it anymore. Zephyr! Bring me a Fresca, will ya? And Moyers! A man's ass is like a Texas cottonfield - you need to care for it with the finest tools, or it dries up like a no-humped camel in the deep Sahara.
BILL MOYERS
How can I help your, um, ass, sir?
LBJ pulls out a roll of toilet paper from the desk
​
LBJ
The Oval Office needs softer toilet paper. This stuff is like sandpaper! And take this down: Vietnam. I will not be the first US president to lose a war!
LBJ
These two folders on my desk
Like two boulders on my chest
One of them a plan from McNamara
​
LBJ holds up the red folder
​
Designed to kill, to really scare the
Shit out of every commie in Nam
Operation "Red Carpet Bomb"
Every tunnel, every tree, every town -
We kinda just burn the whole place down
We'll leave a freaking mess
But we'll win the war I guess.
Then there's Operation Bright Blue Door
​
LBJ holds up the blue folder
​
We bring our boys safely ashore
We leave Vietnam forevermore
And I'm the first president to lose a war.
I should be Landslide Lyndon,
But the Hindenburg is what I see.
'Cause now it seems I got my hands tied
And the landslide
Is gonna land on me.