Lyndon Baines Johnson appears to be cast as a "might have been" President. To many of his enemies, even that is too much praise.

The revolting spectacle provided by of his critics, heaping abuse on him in a manner that recalls that McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950's, has sickened many erstwhile opponents. It also appears to have focused the resentment and harnessed the mob-fury of the American left. The liberals who suffered under McCerthyism are showing that they can be no less cruel, no less unreasoning, and just as unforgiving.

It would have been amusing, had it not been so unpleasant an exhibition of malignity, to have analysed the attitudes of such people as Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien and Mr. Felix Greene. O'Brien and Greene, two of Johnson's most incessant critics, were in New Zealand for the recent Peace, Power and Politics in Asia Conference, which they followed by a lecture tour in other main cities.

When the news came through, that ''I shall not seek—and will not accept—the nomination of my party as your President", many were stunned. Not so the critics.

In unison, they brayed their hymn of hate. "Liar" and "rat" were among the least of the epithets hurled at the President. Was it because he had cheated them of their prey?

L.B.J. was often heard to refer to "a consensus of opinion". How he must have Wished that he could have marshalled that consensus as swiftly as did the left. Once the leading critics had laid down the line to be followed, the rest added their shrill cries to the tumult.