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Much of my criticism of Caro in his work on LBJ comes from a sense that he could have done better. Given The Power Broker is arguably in the pantheon of great non-fiction books of all time, so it's an unfair standard to hold him to. The Years of Lyndon Johnson series is brilliant, but I notice repeated tendencies to show LBJ's enemies in soft focus. He takes great care to puncture every myth ever told about LBJ, in minute detail; if LBJ lied about what he ate for breakfast Caro is there with the diner menu saying he couldn't possible have ordered eggs AND oatmeal. On the other hand, LBJ's rivals are often given maximum charity. Coke Stevenson was the first eye-roller for me, he gets this "honest country lawyer who studied by lamplight on the trail next to his ox-cart" thing, with not a scandal in sight. RFK is the next, with his "devotion to truth" or whatever it was. And I'd just love to see an author like Caro, who clearly has room to run in terms of pagecount, explore that kind of thing! I want to know LBJ's scandals, and ALSO the scandals of the men he ran against.
The Power Broker worked so well because it followed a track of "Robert Moses as Hero," "Robert Moses as God," "Robert Moses as the Devil" through the three volumes. His LBJ work, by contrast, seems to throw periodic episodes of heroism in among endless incidences of cupidity. So I get what you're saying that...
But I want to hear Robert Caro, brilliant writer, justify that philosophical choice! Because I think such an examination would be interesting and have a lot to say about the world, and I can't seem to find it anywhere. The coverage of the sainted martyr Kennedys run into either hagiography or hit piece, with little balanced intelligent effort to understand the fullness of their characters. Robert Caro may be one of the few writers who truly could explore that contrast between RFK, pious Catholic fighter for truth and the little guy and devoted family man, with RFK, philandering unserious dilletante scion of a corrupt political dynasty.
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