Summer Potpourri

When Margaret Heckler (R., Mass.) called for a special prosecutor to probe the drug/buggery scandal on Capitol Hill, folksy Tip O’Neill said that if congressmen don’t trust the House to investigate itself, “then they ought to get the hell out.” Tip’s testiness is said to stem from the fact that his Speakership is doomed. He apparently has known about both sets of allegations for quite some time, and concluded that the best way to deal with them was by temporizing. Now a lot of his colleagues want him “to get the hell out,” and turn the Speaker’s chair over to Majority Leader Wright, or Majority Whip Foley, or Budget Chairman Jones, or Ways and Means Chairman Rostenkowski. The double scandal has probably moved up by two years the battle to succeed O’Neill. Every cloud has a silver lining.

The press has shown an unaccustomed and admirable restraint in withholding the names of the accused, but that restraint will shortly yield to intense pressure to make them public since, absent that publication, all incumbents are suspect, and thereby politically endangered in an election year.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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When Margaret Heckler (R., Mass.) called for a special prosecutor to probe the drug/buggery scandal on Capitol Hill, folksy Tip O’Neill said that if congressmen don’t trust the House to investigate itself, “then they ought to get the hell out.” Tip’s testiness is said to stem from the fact that his Speakership is doomed. He apparently has known about both sets of allegations for quite some time, and concluded that the best way to deal with them was by temporizing. Now a lot of his colleagues want him “to get the hell out,” and turn the Speaker’s chair over to Majority Leader Wright, or Majority Whip Foley, or Budget Chairman Jones, or Ways and Means Chairman Rostenkowski. The double scandal has probably moved up by two years the battle to succeed O’Neill. Every cloud has a silver lining.

The press has shown an unaccustomed and admirable restraint in withholding the names of the accused, but that restraint will shortly yield to intense pressure to make them public since, absent that publication, all incumbents are suspect, and thereby politically endangered in an election year.