Politics & Power Quote by Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson’s line is a velvet glove over a hard-knuckled view of power: start by granting your opponents moral intent, then clear the table for the real argument, which is competence, leverage, and results. “Every President wants to do right” sounds almost soothing, like a civics textbook. Coming from LBJ, it’s also a tactical move. He’s flattering the office while quietly separating “wanting” from “doing,” intention from impact.

The subtext is classic Johnsonian realism. Presidents aren’t saints; they’re operators pinned between Congress, courts, wars, budgets, and the daily hunger of public opinion. By insisting that even flawed administrations “want” righteousness, Johnson reframes failure as structural rather than purely personal. It’s a way of deflecting cheap moralism and, not incidentally, of asking for sympathy: if everyone wants to do right, then the mess is the job, not the man.

Context matters. Johnson governed at the height of American contradiction: landmark civil rights legislation and the Great Society on one side, Vietnam escalation on the other. Few leaders embodied the gap between intention and consequence so painfully. The quote reads like an exhale from someone who learned that earnest goals don’t immunize you from catastrophe, and that moral certainty can be a liability when the machinery of state grinds.

It also functions as institutional propaganda in miniature. The office needs legitimacy to operate; cynicism is corrosive. Johnson offers a baseline of good faith, not to absolve presidents, but to keep the audience invested in the idea that the presidency is still a venue for “right” rather than merely a contest of appetites.