The Bricker Amendment and Stories of Migratory Birds | The Oval Office
Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia
Slate Podcasts
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2017
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Whistlestop is Slate's podcast about presidential history. Hosted by political correspondent and Political Gabfest panelist John Dickerson, each installment will revisit memorable (or even forgotten) moments from America's Presidential carnival.
Join Slate Plus for full, ad-free access to Whistlestop and your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Whistlestop show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/whistlestopplus to get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production and edit by Jocelyn Frank. Research by Brian Rosenwald.
Email: whistlestop@slate.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson of Faith the Nation. |
| 0:09.4 | It's February 27, 1954, and the long-eared Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson has the power of the Eisenhower presidency in his pocket. |
| 0:18.5 | And maybe the power for all future presidencies when it comes to acting in foreign affairs. |
| 0:25.3 | He had that power in the form of a tally sheet for a vote on a constitutional amendment that was limit presidential power in the sphere of foreign policy. |
| 0:36.1 | The amendment to the Constitution was being debated on the floor as were several other |
| 0:40.5 | substitutes, and it pitted the globalists against the isolationists. |
| 0:44.8 | It pitted the elites against the regular folk and drove a gleaming wedge into the |
| 0:48.0 | heart of the GOP between its conservative old guard still fighting a rearguard action against |
| 0:53.3 | Eisenhower and that damn victory in |
| 0:55.6 | 1952 over Robert Taft and Eisenhower, who was representative of the internationalists and whose |
| 1:02.3 | fortunes were in the hands of that famous democratic minority leader. It was the final scene in a |
| 1:10.4 | multi-act play that would have been panned by Restoration-era critics for having too many switchbacks and complexities as the votes came in and were counted on the constitutional amendment and its various substitutes. Johnson made check marks and then scratched them out as he checked in with senators and got words from his word from his aides about who was in and who was out and who was voting in what direction. |
| 1:30.5 | When the final vote was tallied on the key constitutional amendment, 60 voted for it and 30 against. |
| 1:36.9 | It had reached the two-thirds threshold. |
| 1:39.3 | And the famous senator, known for his cajoling and ability to manage things, had been |
| 1:43.2 | undone and so had a Republican |
| 1:45.0 | president delivered a rebuke by his party. Or was that the case? Lyndon Johnson had one more |
| 1:52.4 | card to play, but it depended on the footspeed and the hide-and-seek talents of Democratic |
| 1:57.5 | aides and ultimately the fortitude of a pie-eyed West Virginia senator. |
| 2:02.9 | Our story today about presidential power starts with some migratory birds. |
| 2:08.0 | It's 1913, long before our actual story commences. |
| 2:13.3 | Congress has passed a measure establishing federal regulations over the killing, capturing, |
... |
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