yeah! While reading about Johnson I saw the picture JMS was talking about. And as Santiago was a good president who wanted to to improve the relations to aliens, I saw parallels to JFKs mission to end "war itself". That's why I searched for more references, as I assumed that this was a political commentary and Johnson might have had a similar nimbus as Clark has. But when I couldn't find anything I was confused. SO the explanation about the pulling of the emotional strings seems to be all JMS was going for.
Thanks for the insights
