Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 23, 1992 TAG: 9203230148
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT RENO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But not long enough for the country to come - as in its maturity it some day surely must - to the conclusion that the Congress is pretty much what it's supposed to be, a representative body, not L'Academie Francaise, not an assembly of immortals, not the best and brightest of this nation, yet a place where it is still realistic to hope that the percentage of fanny-pinchers, bimbos, felons, windbags, posturers and twits is fairly constant and never quite as high as in the general population.
Who do we suppose now runs the executive branch if not a former Texas congressman who, campaigning on a record of marginal legislative distinction, got the stuffing beat out of him when he ran for the Senate but earned enough points with Richard Nixon to set him out on a job-hopping career as party chairman, ambassador to China and CIA director?
And who, if George Bush were to become demented and be put in a straitjacket, would succeed him but the one member of the Senate who, even when dusted off, handled by the best experts the party could find, surrounded by bodyguards, assigned a limousine and elevated to the vice leadership of the Free World, has yet to rise to a point where a majority of Americans, when polled, find him qualified to be president?
Taken as a body, the accomplishments of the last two Congresses may seem slight. But if you took all the mildly progressive legislation President Bush has vetoed or prevented by threat of veto, it makes quite a package. And let's face it, it's been ages since a Congress passed anything as stupid as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which helped cause the Great Depression, or as offensive as the Chinese Exclusion Act or the McCarran-Walter Act, which created immigration policies that stained the national honor.
Congressional inquisitions today are models of constitutional propriety compared with the excesses of the McCarthy era. And it's been a whole generation since a handful of Southern bigots could derail a decent piece of civil rights legislation. That, curiously enough, is now thought to be the function of the White House.
No, on the whole, I'd stack this present bunch of rascals in Congress up against their predecessors any day, far sooner than I'd suggest George Bush or Dan Quayle is fit to sit in succession to Washington or Jefferson or Franklin Roosevelt. Yet the nation has been seized by some kind of a moralistic fit about this cash club they had in the House. Sounds to me like a fine idea. A bunch of people get together, pool their paychecks and escape having to deal with the banks who treat you like dirt, kill you with service fees and charge you $20 for being overdrawn no matter how good your credit is.
The club isn't federally insured, wasn't run by Al D'Amato, is not financed by lobbyists and special interests like the campaigns of so many congressmen, involved no public funds, never hired Neil Bush or financed an insolvent shopping center, was not guilty of fraud or theft, did not represent the acceptance of special favors from the Mafia or the defense contractors, did not endanger the stability of the banking system and happened to be more convenient to some members than others. Good Lord, who in their right mind cares?
\ AUTHOR Robert Reno is a writer for Newsday.
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