Run-of-the-Mill Piffle

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's valedictory press conference last week got most attention for his bizarre allegation that Rush Limbaugh's discussion of his legislative record had led to death threats. Less remarked on was the more run-of-the-mill piffle that he spouted throughout this "press-avail," as we used to call them (or "dugout," as they're called in the Washington slang of the moment). Worst was the old canard that, unlike the Republican Party, Democrats permit a multiplicity of voices. As a result, they lose more elections than they should, but they insist on pluralism because?well, because it's the right thing to do in a democracy. "I think that it's very, very difficult," said Daschle, "for a caucus with different views on high-profile issues like taxes or the economy to speak with one voice and to have that voice understood and heard across the country."

This is outright baloney, as you'll realize if you look for evidence of Democratic pluralism on, say, abortion or gay rights or impeaching President Clinton. All it is is a way of telling Republicans, "We're Athens and you're Sparta," or "We're the Prague Spring and you're the Soviet tanks."

It's hardly surprising that, the more lockstep the congressman or political hack, the greater the conviction with which he spouts this rigmarole that My House Caucus Has Many Mansions. What is surprising is to see even some of the country's smarter Democrats repeat it uncritically. Mark Shields, for instance, is one of those political geniuses who can tell you who finished third in the Republican primary in the 7th aldermanic district of Toledo in 1962. But even he swallows this Democratic diversity business whole. Shields was talking about the House, not the Senate, when he wrote in his electoral postmortem column, "To understand the remarkable job Gephardt has done as party leader, you must first grasp that in the House there is no one Democratic Party." Mara Liasson is one of the most independent-minded liberals on television. But, speaking on Fox News, even she used the Democratic-diversity line as an alibi for the party's economic ineptitude: "This is a caucus that is divided?," she said. "It's not easy to speak with one voice and that is one of the reasons that they didn't come up with a compelling alternative to the Bush economic policy."

Let's look at this diversity in action. Last week, South Carolina's Democratic chair, Dick Harpootlian, decided to protest the elevation of California leftist Nancy Pelosi to House minority leader. Harpootlian is a gifted operative. He has made an electoral silk purse out of a political sow's ear, consistently getting Democrats elected to the Senate and the governor's mansion and the statehouse in what may be the most conservative state in the country. He has done this, generally, by having his candidates pretend that they hate abortion and love to shoot guns. But Pelosi-style liberalism may blow his game. So Harpootlian complained: "Her face is one we don't want shown in South Carolina. She is far too liberal on issues, such as Second Amendment issues. People in South Carolina own guns. The death penalty?even African-Americans in South Carolina, the majority of them are in favor of the death penalty now. Gay marriages? I'm sorry. Now, that may be an issue that's hot in San Francisco, but not in the rest of the country."

Have the Democrats viewed this outburst as a healthy way to let a thousand flowers bloom? Have they taken it as an opportunity to restate their creed of Do Your Own Thing? No, they have not. The calls for Harpootlian's resignation were almost immediate, even within his state delegation, and as we go to press his job hangs in the balance.

Silver-Tongued

For most pundits, two-party gerrymandering?the conspiracy by which incumbents map out districts that consist only of their blood relatives plus several hundred thousand minors and illegal immigrants who aren't allowed to vote?is the Rosetta Stone of political apathy. Since only a few dozen of the 435 congressional seats are actually competitive, why should constituents of the hundreds of others go to the polls? Special-interest pandering comes close behind as an explanation. But by the end of a congressional session, most people who cover Washington would chalk up voter boredom to oratory fatigue. Politicians have simply lost the sense that they ever have to say anything interesting to anyone.

Let's take Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah. The man was elected to the Senate during the Ford administration and has been yapping ever since. And yet, leaving aside three words Hatch uttered during the Hill-Thomas hearings in 1991?those words being "Long" and "Dong" and "Silver"?I defy readers to call to mind anything he's ever said.

The typical Orrin Hatch speech is both grammatically elaborate and lexicologically impoverished, an interminable puka-string of monosyllables. It's the style Alexander Pope had in mind when he wrote, "?and 10 low words oft creep in one dull line." You can stick a microphone in Hatch's face and say, Senator, Strom Thurmond has alleged that a bug-sized nuclear warhead has been implanted in your ear by a mad gang of Belarusian call-girls who plan to use it to blow up Washington, and he'll reply:

"I gotta say, what he's saying is, he's, and this is common sense, he's saying let me tell ya. If one guy says, and people know this, because the American people are not stupid, if one guy says this plan is good?hey, now, wait a second, I didn't cut you off, so don't you cut me off?and the other guy says this plan is bad, then one of them is right and one of them is wrong. If the plan is good, then the guy who, I don't mind telling you, the guy who says the plan is bad is wrong and, hey, we don't always like to talk about this but we've got to admit it sometimes, if the plan is bad, then, and this goes especially for us in the Senate, if the plan is bad, then, I'm sorry but this is just the way I feel, the guy who says the plan is good is wrong."

Gore Gone

Last week, Al Gore entered the latest stage of a program, probably drafted out meticulously 18 months ago, to reintroduce himself to the American people. This stage involved cozy interviews in his wife's presence with a variety of news outlets?a dozen of them in the course of several days. By general agreement these interviews went badly. One of the myths of the last campaign is that Gore is really pleasant to be around, really funny. It was a shame, said his friends, that voters were too stupid and undiscerning to see that. This line left a couple of questions unanswered: First, why should citizens vote for a guy who saves his "best" personality for his famous and politically connected friends, but simply goes through the motions when he's addressing a gymnasiumful of proles? And second, if Gore really had this much private charm, why weren't we treated to more vivid descriptions of it? In fact, Gore annoyed most of the people who covered him. The reason you didn't hear that in 2000 is that, under the perversely counterintuitive rules of journalism, reporters are not supposed to write anything that can "affect the outcome of an election." But with that constraint removed, a remarkable number of reporters loosened up this week. Larry Eichel of the Philadelphia Inquirer owned that, yeah, sure, Gore was relaxed and funny?"relaxed and funny in a calculated and self-conscious way."

And Gore kept stumbling over himself, as if it were the first day of spring training. To Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times he said that his mistake in 2000 had been "holding back because of respect for the need to have a politically viable set of positions that could attract a majority." Is he saying Gore failed to get a majority because he was attempting to get a majority? Or is he pointing in a slyboots way to the fact that he got more votes than George W. Bush? Probably the latter, because, speaking to National Public Radio's Morning Edition, he asked to be patted on the back for not having spent the years since the 2000 elections trying to sabotage the country's political institutions. "I could have run a four-year rearguard guerrilla campaign to undermine his legitimacy," Gore boasted. "I personally came to the conclusion that, in accepting the rule of law, I also wanted to accept an obligation to withdraw from the public stage for a time."

"Accepting the rule of law?" Big of him. For a change. All in all, he said to Charlie Rose, "I'd like to be president again."