Capital Scene: All about Bob

Washington, D.C.

IN 1978 Bob Dole hired Bob Lighthizer as chief Republican counsel to the Senate Finance Committee. When the GOP won the Senate two years later, Lighthizer took over as the committee’s staff director and chief counsel, 33 years old and in a hurry. “When I first knew Bob he used to chew tobacco and had a spittoon under his desk,” says Claud Gingrich, then a Finance Committee colleague. “He’s a lot more mellow now. People can’t believe that.” In 1983 he became Deputy U.S. Trade Representative and brought his bare-knuckled negotiating skills to bear in getting foreign countries to agree to tough steel-import quotas meant to protect domestic producers. Soon, he had shot through the revolving door to become, in private practice, a top-notch lawyer for those same U.S. steel producers, an informal Dole advisor, and an all-around Washington Mr. Fix-It.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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Bob Dole

Presidential Election

Washington, D.C.

IN 1978 Bob Dole hired Bob Lighthizer as chief Republican counsel to the Senate Finance Committee. When the GOP won the Senate two years later, Lighthizer took over as the committee’s staff director and chief counsel, 33 years old and in a hurry. “When I first knew Bob he used to chew tobacco and had a spittoon under his desk,” says Claud Gingrich, then a Finance Committee colleague. “He’s a lot more mellow now. People can’t believe that.” In 1983 he became Deputy U.S. Trade Representative and brought his bare-knuckled negotiating skills to bear in getting foreign countries to agree to tough steel-import quotas meant to protect domestic producers. Soon, he had shot through the revolving door to become, in private practice, a top-notch lawyer for those same U.S. steel producers, an informal Dole advisor, and an all-around Washington Mr. Fix-It.