Windbag Sen. Joseph Biden was doing a slow whine Thursday afternoon.
The Delaware Democrat had sat through two hours of Senate Judiciary Committee questioning of Chicago attorney John Schmidt, a former top aide to Mayor Richard Daley and now No. 3 official in the Justice Department.
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The arcane, yet intriguing, topic was takings, a concept behind a superficially appealing, ultimately nutty bill sponsored by dueling GOP presidential aspirants Bob Dole and Phil Gramm that would require federal compensation anytime a federal action reduces the value of any private property by even one-third.
Schmidt had testified for over two hours, and more folks were scheduled to come. Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) mercifully wanted to move on, but Biden, who fancies himself (erroneously) a legal intellectual, wanted to ask more questions.
When Hatch initially said no, Biden’s slow whine became a big whine. This sort of high-handed action never happened when he was chairman of the panel, he harrumphed! Woe is Joe. Democracy was being rent asunder was the implication.
Hatch, a decorous fellow, articulated his disagreement but ultimately relented (needlessly), allowing Biden the chance to hear himself drone on. But, still, the little episode was a reminder of dramatic change in Congress, and how many Democrats fumble with their new minority status.
As your elected representatives split town for a three-week recess the next day, it seemed appropriate to seek professional counsel on the fragile collective psyche of many, especially the Democrats, and nobody better to get it from than the House’s only shrink, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).
What happened to the Democrats, he said, has been compounded by an unprecedented three months driven by Speaker Newt Gingrich’s exhausting political agenda. People, said McDermott, have been running at 100 miles per hour “with no time to cope fully with their loss” until now.
“A British psychoanalyst set out the classic stages of working through grief,” McDermott said. “Denial, apathy, anger and adjustment.”
McDermott, 58, is a Downers Grove native, the son of an insurance bond underwriter and a mother who worked for Illinois Bell. He attended medical school at the University of Illinois, left to be a substitute teacher in the suburbs, finished medical school, interned for a year in Buffalo, then returned for two years of research at Chicago’s Institute for Juvenile Research.
He worked at Cook County Hospital, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, the Woodlawn Mental Health Center and Columbus Hospital in the Lincoln Park area. Then he headed to the Pacific Northwest for his residency, got into politics, was elected to the state Legislature and is now in his fourth term in Congress.
McDermott’s training as a pediatric psychiatrist is surely of assistance in viewing fragile egos like that of Biden, as well as a changing scene in which the haves are now have-nots in the House after 40 years of Democratic hegemony.
McDermott knew what clout meant, especially as part of the tight group of Dan Rostenkowski allies on the Ways and Means Committee. In a world where knowledge is power, the Democrats on the committee had power and an army of lieutenants via 100 staffers on their side, now chopped to 16.
The change came with November’s Republican victories.
“It was a major loss to many people,” said McDermott. “Whether your mother dies, you’re called in unexpectedly and fired on a Friday, or a good friend is killed in an auto accident, the shock is the same. This (the House) is a body of 435 people, and suddenly, certain people were no longer there.”
The changeover, and simultaneous mandates to reduce all staff, meant senior members of committees had to lay off staff at Christmas time.
“It was all a tremendous shock. You knew these people, trusted them, knew when their babies were sick.”
Democrats now faced the reality of irrelevance, and many struggled.
“We no longer had the staffers to help us. We couldn’t get certain information. We lost all our support mechanisms. The Republicans did an effective job in gutting our ability to react. We spent a lot of time getting run over. We didn’t have a single amendment of any importance passed. That takes a toll on people.”
He’s watched some colleagues working through the classic stages of grief more quickly than others. “If you take 100 people whose mother died, some get over it quickly, some not. They may still talk of her in the present tense, or as if she were in the next room.”
Inevitably, McDermott offered advice. “I did tell them (fellow Democrats) what was going to happen. I predicted and made suggestions about how the other side would act.”
“In coping with certain things, some people wanted to craft perfect legislation, as if it had a chance of becoming law,” he recalled. “I said I thought they were wasting their time. The Republicans wouldn’t adopt our legislation, so I tried to get them to focus on being in a minority.”
He knows about losing, having lost three races for governor of Washington. That partly explains why he suspected that the Easter recess would be cathartic for many Democratic colleagues. With little time to cope previously with their loss of power and esteem, given the Gingrich juggernaut, many may arrive home “absolutely spent and deal, finally, with what occurred. Their work has consumed many of them. They have had no real time to grieve.”
Cokie (et al.) watch
Now, just imagine if Cokie Roberts and other journalists who rake in huge bucks with outside gigs followed the lead of ABC’s John Stossel.
Wilmette-reared Stossel is a celebrated consumer reporter who has become a born-again free-market proponent. His recent prime-time specials have revealed an unabashed disdain of much government regulation and made him quite the media favorite of business groups.
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Speaking to an inherently suspicious audience of consumer activists last month, he conceded that he has taken “some absurd fees speaking to business” and said he’d be happy to disclose them.
When a small newsletter, Corporate Crime Reporter, requested same, it was spurned by ABC News, which didn’t think it was a legitimate enough group. There was no such problem when I requested the information from Stossel and ABC.
Stossel’s paid speeches last year and to date have brought him $160,430. Of that he’s given fees from the following groups-a total of $135,280-to charity and not taken a tax deduction:
Agrevo, $7,500; Center for Market Processes, $4,875; California Agricultural Production Consultants Association, $9,000; Basin Electric Power Cooperative, $13,850; 4H and Future Farmers of America, $18,000; Porter/Novelli (a public relations firm), $4,200; Chemical Industry Council of New Jersey, $7,500; American Veterinary Medical Association, $9,555; American Feed Industry Association, $9,000; Golf Course Superintendents Association, $15,000; American Farm Bureau, $6,000; Southeastern Poultry and Egg Association, $13,300; and Soap and Detergent Association, $8,000.
He kept $25,150 from the following groups: Legislative Exchange Council, $4,850; Society of Environmental Toxicologists, $14,000; Palm Beach Roundtable, $1,800; Council for Capital Formation, $2,000; and Acton Institute, $2,500.
Just imagine if other journalists were forced into the full financial disclosure that Stossel voluntarily agreed to. It’s the same sort of disclosure reporters demand of public officials, but vigorously resist, protesting: “Well, I’m not a public official! My potentially grotesque conflicts are none of your business.”
What might the public really think if it knew more?