The Presidency: The Look of Leadership

For months his critics had grown ever more vocal—and more violent. His popularity rating had plummeted so steadily that he remarked to an aide:

"I may wind up with 1% before it's over with." Yet, whether from hurt feelings or because of his old hankering for consensus politics, the President remained curiously subdued and remote from the fray.

Last week saw the emergence of "the real Johnson" — as his friends put it.

Shedding the never-too-convincing guise of folksy preacher and avuncular counselor, he appeared before the TV cameras in the role he...