Focus on Washington

Returning from July Fourth holiday, the 90th ‘Congress. found a resurgent Lyndon Johnson, once again indulging his habit of flaunting self-promotional public opinion surveys at the drop of an issue. The question, “Do you really think Johnson will run again?”’—a party conversation opener (or stopper, depending on the party) last month—is no longer being heard in public here. What, indeed, has happened to deliver Johnson from his Gallup/Harris depths of only a month ago? Here, even seers falter. Whatever has happened is potent, certainly, but like Muhammad Ali’s “phantom” punch, better gauged than seen. Perhaps the best answer, the only answer, lies in a remark attributed to John F. Kennedy, when his Gallup rating shot up following the Bay of Pigs. “It’s just like Eisenhower. The worse I do, the more popular I get.”

Though not a rubber stamp like its predecessor, the 90th Congress has yet to develop a stamp of its own. The posting of Club rules in the Powell and Dodd cases is its most perceptible mark to date. Perhaps, as Senate Majority Leader Mansfield suggested last winter, no Congress succeeding the pell-mell 89th should be called on to do more than simply keep a tidy legislative chamber. But there is another diagnostic possibility, one involving the Majority Leader. It could be that what ails the 90th, apart from any historical attrition of the powers of the legislative branch, is an infectious lassitude caused by an enervating decay in leadership. Consider: the Long-suffering Majority Leader is himself said to be weary and contemplating retirement, while his Whip’s own crisis-in-direction is well known; the Senate Minority Leader has become more legend than leader, while his second-in-command remains, as always, a Whip without a snap. On the House side, the Speaker’s age, together with the Majority Leader’s illness of last year, bespeaks a caretaker operation at best, while the Minority’s collective leadership tends at critical times to be uncollected and noncohesive, a lingering aftereffect of the sharp family fight that brought it to power. Yet anticipation, the political realist’s substitute for hope, is not lost on Capitol Hill. Major legislative tests on both foreign and domestic fronts lie ahead. More vigorous spirits, already grown impatient with the generation that knew Lyndon during his Senate cloakroom days, may yet strike out to save the 90th.

Featured Tags

Returning from July Fourth holiday, the 90th ‘Congress. found a resurgent Lyndon Johnson, once again indulging his habit of flaunting self-promotional public opinion surveys at the drop of an issue. The question, “Do you really think Johnson will run again?”’—a party conversation opener (or stopper, depending on the party) last month—is no longer being heard in public here. What, indeed, has happened to deliver Johnson from his Gallup/Harris depths of only a month ago? Here, even seers falter. Whatever has happened is potent, certainly, but like Muhammad Ali’s “phantom” punch, better gauged than seen. Perhaps the best answer, the only answer, lies in a remark attributed to John F. Kennedy, when his Gallup rating shot up following the Bay of Pigs. “It’s just like Eisenhower. The worse I do, the more popular I get.”

Though not a rubber stamp like its predecessor, the 90th Congress has yet to develop a stamp of its own. The posting of Club rules in the Powell and Dodd cases is its most perceptible mark to date. Perhaps, as Senate Majority Leader Mansfield suggested last winter, no Congress succeeding the pell-mell 89th should be called on to do more than simply keep a tidy legislative chamber. But there is another diagnostic possibility, one involving the Majority Leader. It could be that what ails the 90th, apart from any historical attrition of the powers of the legislative branch, is an infectious lassitude caused by an enervating decay in leadership. Consider: the Long-suffering Majority Leader is himself said to be weary and contemplating retirement, while his Whip’s own crisis-in-direction is well known; the Senate Minority Leader has become more legend than leader, while his second-in-command remains, as always, a Whip without a snap. On the House side, the Speaker’s age, together with the Majority Leader’s illness of last year, bespeaks a caretaker operation at best, while the Minority’s collective leadership tends at critical times to be uncollected and noncohesive, a lingering aftereffect of the sharp family fight that brought it to power. Yet anticipation, the political realist’s substitute for hope, is not lost on Capitol Hill. Major legislative tests on both foreign and domestic fronts lie ahead. More vigorous spirits, already grown impatient with the generation that knew Lyndon during his Senate cloakroom days, may yet strike out to save the 90th.