Nothing is certain in life except death, taxes and Rep. Eliot Engel, the Zelig of the U.S. Congress, showing up hours early to get face time at a de facto State of the Union address.
Little boys want Dad to get them to a ballpark early to watch batting practice, maybe procure autographs of star players. The New York City Democrat surfaces early so he can plop down by the center aisle, just inside the doorway of the House of Representatives and bask in the reflected glory of a Grand Personage.
His overwhelming desire appears to be proximity to the President of the United States, whether Democrat, Republican, Green or Communist Workers. And, last Tuesday evening, Engel showed why he’s unrivaled in sidling up to him and onto the television screens of millions of Americans.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s a speech to a joint session of Congress or White House social events, where he has been known to slither his way like an eel through schools of politicos to get up-close and personal with the Big Guy. His is a special gift, a mix of desire and tactical ingenuity that might impress Napoleon.
So when President Bush entered shortly after 9 p.m., guess whose hand was instantly jutting out toward him? Guess whose beaming, bearded face appeared in scads of photos the next day, including the Page 1 shot gracing the top of The Washington Post?
Admittedly, the Bronx native is not alone in seizing what amounts to a prestigious box seat. The annual rail birds include Democratic chums Reps. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago, who beat the rush once again and got in lots of schmoozing and handshakes with A-list arrivals.
“You all right?” Jackson appeared to be saying, at least from my cheap seat in the gallery, after bidding hello to and embracing beleaguered Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as she sauntered down the center aisle, just behind rotund Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she appeared to respond.
There is a body of media opinion that an address like this is best covered by watching TV in the sanctity of one’s office. That’s surely more efficient, especially because copies of the speech are distributed beforehand. Moreover, TV is how a president’s real audience, the nation, sees the event.
But there is the glorious spectacle of the spectators in the House chamber. Yes, if you actually sit in the gallery, you may be staring at the back of the president’s head. But you do get a dandy view, nonetheless, and are able to study and be close to the madding crowd.
By 8:40 p.m. the chamber had the aura of a frat party on the first weekend of the new school year. The chumminess was redolent.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) made his way down the center aisle, giving brief waves to friends, slapping a few backs, shaking a couple of hands, all in the mode of bouncy mayor at a 4th of July town picnic.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who could list 3,265 things he would rather do than listen to Bush speak, soon followed, looking decidedly tame in this sea of humanity. But he does have an aura, and I wondered whether he might turn on a dime and slug someone, then hold a press conference to disclose the names of five colleagues on the take from Fortune 500 firms.
A short distance away, Peoria’s gifts to the legislative process, former House Republican Leader Bob Michel and dutiful-assistant-turned-successor Rep. Ray LaHood sat and chatted. Next to them on the GOP side Indiana firebrand Steve Buyer was relegated to atypical passivity, reading a newspaper.
Up in the first lady’s box, Laura Bush was surrounded by the evening’s props. They included a “real American” couple from Pennsylvania, according to the White House, who would be cited as beneficiaries of the president’s tax plan.
There was also Philadelphia’s radical-turned-Mayor John Street and Washington’s accountant-turned-Mayor Anthony Williams, both Democrats and African-Americans. They were among the precious few blacks on the GOP side of the chamber and in the gallery. The lack of diversity was, well, downright Republican.
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The Business Roundtable, apparently on leave to serve as the Bush Cabinet, was next to saunter in, taking their spots up front and center. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, left hand informally in his left pants pocket, exuded prosperity laced with a touch of whimsy as he took his place next to white-haired Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and powerfully poised Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Need a loan? Rumsfeld’s financial disclosure statement pegs his worth at upward of $200 million. O’Neill took home nearly $60 million last year alone from Alcoa as its boss. Powell, the pauper, was raking in $60,000 a speech in 2000 and has efficiently exploited his Pentagon past to amass about $30 million.
Ah, to be their progeny, hoping the estate tax will be killed! I looked down at these personifications of the bountiful life, fingered my subway fare card, saw that it had $7.10 left and fought a fleeting seizure of melancholia.
At that moment, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, a recently departed member of Club Senate, made his way down the center and headed right to Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who looked absolutely awful and may not be long for the club. They shook hands and smiled broadly.
There was a lot of that on the Republican side, because their eight-year wait was now over. The Constitution, if not the GOP, had finally rid them of the dexterous President Bill Clinton.
House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Texas Republicans who detest Clinton, turned on this night from being their taciturn Grouch Brothers selves to veritable Lithium Twins. They just could not stop beaming.
On the other side, Rep. Barney Frank, whom the magnanimous Armey once called “Barney Fag,” was slumped in his seat, looking world-weary, even funereal. Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel was resplendent in dark suit, sharp red necktie and matching handkerchief, but he was positively sardonic during Bush’s address. And, to make matters worse, Clinton’s office is now in his district.
Throughout the address, the GOP members were up and down like jack-in-the-boxes, especially when tax cuts were broached. Only a handful of conservative Democrats joined those accolades, eliciting mild sneers from their surrounding party colleagues.
Indeed, when Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) had the temerity to stand and applaud Bush’s straw-man choice for the nation–out-of-control spending or tax cuts–Sen. Paul Wellstone (R-Minn.) pointed at her with cheery derision.
“Mary!!!!” the squat former college wrestler appeared to be declaring, with grade-school theatrics, at her bucking of the party line.
Clinton was dining with Chelsea, who turned 21 this day, in a Greenwich Village restaurant just as Bush was again vaulting past the low expectations he adroitly sets. He did not drool. He read his lines well. He did not try Clintonian freelancing. He did not attempt to pronounce any foreign leader’s name. He projected personal modesty.
And his party’s slim majority ate it all up.
“Lord, they looked like the proud owners of a puppy graduating from obedience school,” said USA Today reporter Kathy Kiely.
If Clinton was eating, it was safe to assume Al Gore was twisting, having let this moment slip from his grasp. But there was a smidgen of solace.
Sitting at the front of the chamber, where Supreme Court justices are usually parked, was just a single member, Stephen Breyer, in his black robe. He seemed a bit at sea. He was dwarfed by his seatmate, the bemedaled chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and looked awkward as he politely clapped after Bush calls for more civility, better schools, less crime and other platitudes.
But at least he was there.
By a seeming vote of 8-1, the court had declined to attend Bush’s first sort-of State of the Union. Perhaps the wounded Gore found it a belated, if fleeting, victory.
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Tribune Washington bureau chief James Warren co-hosts “Unconventional Wisdom” with Michael Tackett of U.S. News & World Report at 7:05 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.