Posts Tagged ‘Robert Byrd’

No Need To Respond

September 7th, 2011 by John Feehery

Ev and Gerry started the whole response thing.

Everett Dirksen and Gerry Ford, the former Senate Republican leader from Illinois and the former House Minority Leader (and later President) from Michigan used to have a radio show broadcast from the Capitol.

They turned that radio show into a televised rebuttal to President Johnson’s 1966 State of the Union Address.

Dirksen, with his mop of white hair, and Ford, with his bald pate, must have been quite a sight in the years leading up to the Age of Aquarius. Dirksen was the one who famously said, “a billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.”

I could understand the frustration of the two Republican (and minority) leaders. Lyndon Johnson wasn’t much to tell the truth, and Republicans at the start of 1966 didn’t have any legislative power. Dirksen, a genius when it came to the political communication innovation, probably dreamed up the idea of a joint response, and a new idea was born: Let’s tell our side of the story.  Read more...

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Posted in Economy, Financial Crisis, GOP, Government, History, Politics, Theory, election, speeches | No Comments »

Old School is Out Forever

August 13th, 2010 by John Feehery

Dan Rostenkowski, former Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee

This has been a bad year for old school politicians.

This week, in particular, has been devastating for those of us who have great affection for the political professionals of the past.

Ted Stevens died in a plane crash and a day later, Dan Rostenkowski, the former Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, died of natural causes.

Stevens and Rostenkowski were mirror images of one another.  Both were gruff, both were powerful, both were effective advocates for their constituents, and both counted close friends on either side of the political chasm.

And, of course, both ran afoul of a changing ethics landscape.

Stevens and Rostenkowski are only the latest of the old guard to die this year.  Robert Byrd, Jack Murtha, and Ted Kennedy, all legendary figures of the Congress also passed on to their greater reward.

These old school politicians not only represented a different era in the Congress.  They represented a different era of the country.  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Politics, Theory | No Comments »

The Corrupt Bargain

March 16th, 2010 by John Feehery

In 1824, the House of Representatives awarded the Presidency to John Quincy Adams after Henry Clay, who was then the House Speaker, concluded that he wouldn’t be President and cut a deal that landed him the job of Secretary of State.

It seemed like a good deal for Adams and a good deal for Clay.  But to supporters of Andrew Jackson, America’s first true populist leader, this was a “corrupt bargain”, a sign of a decadent and untrustworthy political process, and a rallying cry for a new class of American voters.

The “corrupt bargain” would haunt both Adams and Clay for the rest of their careers.  Adams became only the second one-term President (the first was his father), losing easily to Jackson in 1828.  Clay, although he would prove to be the most powerful Speaker in history, would never become President.

Congressional Democrats are now embarking on their own version of the “corrupt bargain”.   House Democrats have dreamed up a parliamentary device to vote on a health care bill that will become the law of the land (for how long, nobody really knows), without actually ever voting on it.  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Theory, corruption | 2 Comments »