For the Record

We’ve come a long way, baby. What’s the most damaging charge you can make about a liberal Democrat in the House these days? That he’s “soft on Communism.” In a startling turnabout, the House has in the last thirty days passed just about every defense and containment measure the Administration has favored (see “Letter from Washington”), because the country’s tired of being an international patsy. It was reflected in talk by House Armed Services chairman Rep. Les Aspin to Paul Kirk’s new Democratic Policy Commission. You needn’t endorse everything I favor (including MX, nerve gas), Aspin told the commission, but —in David Broder’s account—“please, please be for something more modern than the slingshot in the U.S. arsenal of weapons.” “We ought to distance [ourselves] from the Left,” Aspin said at an earlier meeting, “by voting for some weapons.” . . . Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R., Ill.) believes “Congress is beginning to reflect the mood of the country. More and more people are getting sick of being pushed around.”. . . The howls from the hard Left were immediate, and anguished. Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D., Colo.): “There’s just a panic, almost, about being a ‘wimp.’ Never have I seen such flaming rhetoric.” Rep. Pat Williams (D., Mont.): “This hot broth that we’re serving here [the recent House votes] hopefully will be cooled by the Senate.” Rep. Ronald Dellums (D., Calif.): “The way you lash out [at hijackers, Sandinistas] and feel strong is to vote for this madness.”

Everett Carll Ladd of Roper polls thinks Ronald Reagan played it exactly right in hijack crisis. Reagan’s ability to shift from his 1980-81 image of being quick on the trigger to today’s emerging profile of having more bark than bite without losing public support proves that this “Administration is not politically vulnerable to that kind of criticism.” . . . NBC News poll, taken at height of crisis, showed people against dealing with terrorists but also against reprisals: 57 per cent didn’t think U.S. should ask Israel to let the Shiites go; 54 per cent felt U.S. should not give in to demands even if it meant the hostages would be killed; but 62 per cent opposed a U.S. military strike against countries supporting the terrorists. . . . Other polls (Gallup, Harris, N. Y. Times/CBS, Washington Post/ABC) all showed Reagan’s approval ratings up from five to ten points over that period. . . . And new upswing is expected as result of sympathy over cancer operation. Crusty columnist Mary McGrory admitted that “Reagan has a lock on the affections of the American people” and observed, shrewdly, that “he is rather too jaunty and nonchalant” to be a “father figure. . . . He is more a jolly, reassuring uncle who comes to call amid much laughter and many stories. Never mind his views—wrong but strong, they are generally considered, and they add to the fondness.” … In a column that was mainly a warm tribute to Nancy Reagan, George F. Will commented that “Reagan is an astonishing political force because he, like his country, has a talent for happiness.” . . . He’s such an astonishing force that liberal cartoonist Pat Oliphant admits he voted for him last year. “It’s pure selfishness,” says Oliphant, “he’s a good subject. … I couldn’t see voting for Mondale. He bored me, more than anything.”

Featured Tags

Manage following

Ronald Reagan

Congress

House of Representatives

We’ve come a long way, baby. What’s the most damaging charge you can make about a liberal Democrat in the House these days? That he’s “soft on Communism.” In a startling turnabout, the House has in the last thirty days passed just about every defense and containment measure the Administration has favored (see “Letter from Washington”), because the country’s tired of being an international patsy. It was reflected in talk by House Armed Services chairman Rep. Les Aspin to Paul Kirk’s new Democratic Policy Commission. You needn’t endorse everything I favor (including MX, nerve gas), Aspin told the commission, but —in David Broder’s account—“please, please be for something more modern than the slingshot in the U.S. arsenal of weapons.” “We ought to distance [ourselves] from the Left,” Aspin said at an earlier meeting, “by voting for some weapons.” . . . Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R., Ill.) believes “Congress is beginning to reflect the mood of the country. More and more people are getting sick of being pushed around.”. . . The howls from the hard Left were immediate, and anguished. Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D., Colo.): “There’s just a panic, almost, about being a ‘wimp.’ Never have I seen such flaming rhetoric.” Rep. Pat Williams (D., Mont.): “This hot broth that we’re serving here [the recent House votes] hopefully will be cooled by the Senate.” Rep. Ronald Dellums (D., Calif.): “The way you lash out [at hijackers, Sandinistas] and feel strong is to vote for this madness.”

Everett Carll Ladd of Roper polls thinks Ronald Reagan played it exactly right in hijack crisis. Reagan’s ability to shift from his 1980-81 image of being quick on the trigger to today’s emerging profile of having more bark than bite without losing public support proves that this “Administration is not politically vulnerable to that kind of criticism.” . . . NBC News poll, taken at height of crisis, showed people against dealing with terrorists but also against reprisals: 57 per cent didn’t think U.S. should ask Israel to let the Shiites go; 54 per cent felt U.S. should not give in to demands even if it meant the hostages would be killed; but 62 per cent opposed a U.S. military strike against countries supporting the terrorists. . . . Other polls (Gallup, Harris, N. Y. Times/CBS, Washington Post/ABC) all showed Reagan’s approval ratings up from five to ten points over that period. . . . And new upswing is expected as result of sympathy over cancer operation. Crusty columnist Mary McGrory admitted that “Reagan has a lock on the affections of the American people” and observed, shrewdly, that “he is rather too jaunty and nonchalant” to be a “father figure. . . . He is more a jolly, reassuring uncle who comes to call amid much laughter and many stories. Never mind his views—wrong but strong, they are generally considered, and they add to the fondness.” … In a column that was mainly a warm tribute to Nancy Reagan, George F. Will commented that “Reagan is an astonishing political force because he, like his country, has a talent for happiness.” . . . He’s such an astonishing force that liberal cartoonist Pat Oliphant admits he voted for him last year. “It’s pure selfishness,” says Oliphant, “he’s a good subject. … I couldn’t see voting for Mondale. He bored me, more than anything.”