Wednesday
Here I am in Washington, D.C., your nation’s capital. I flew in
last night with wifey on the Alaska Airlines super flight into
Reagan Airport. We went to our apartment and I went right to sleep
because I had to get up at 7:30 this morning That’s 4:30 Pacific
Time, which is pretty early for little me.
I dragged myself out of bed, met my pal Mark Markey from the
National Association of Variable Annuities, and went up to Capitol
Hill. I was there to testify about retirement planning and the
value of annuities before the Senate Select Committee on Aging. I
had been told that Hillary Clinton was going to be there and I had
something to say to her.
However, she was apparently at another function and did not show
up. Several other very kind and attentive Solons were there and I
think the hearing was useful. Many, many interns asked for
autographs and photos. (I was an intern there in 1963 for Joseph D.
Tydings of Maryland, who has a beautiful daughter.) I was sorry
Mrs. Clinton was not there because this is what I was going to say
to her:
“Senator Clinton, my father was a well-known and well-respected
economist and commentator on fiscal policy and public policy
generally for sixty years in the Nation’s Capital. He, like me,
voted for Republicans and worked for Republicans in the White
House. When he died on September 8, 1999, his funeral was the very
next day.
“Your husband, President Clinton, sent his Treasury Secretary,
Larry Summers, and a major White House figure in economic policy, a
fine man named Gene Sperling, to the funeral. They also delivered
to me and my sister a letter from Mr. Clinton and you, Mrs.
Clinton, praising my father for his integrity and his commitment to
the public welfare. It was probably the kindest letter any high
official sent me. For you and Mr. Clinton to have sent that to my
sister and me under the circumstances was an astonishingly kind and
elevated act. I humbly thank you.”
However, she was not there, so after the hearing, my friend from
junior high school (the loathsome Montgomery Hills in wonderful
Silver Spring) Nolan Rappaport, a Democrat, took me over to meet
someone I had wanted to meet for a long time, Rep. Sheila Jackson
Lee of Houston. She is a feisty character and a frequent critic of
Mr. Bush. But she was super friendly to me. She noted that she had
been at Yale College when I was at the Yale Law School, and we both
smiled at how much time had passed. She gave me a big hug and I
went on my way.
Lunch at the restaurant at the Watergate Hotel with my wifey and
Mark Mackey, and a fine meal it was too. Then a long nap, and a
trip up to the Federal Trade Commission for a speech about
economics and the FTC. My host was a major smart guy named Michael
Salinger, a professor of economics at Boston University, who is an
expert in anti-trust and is now director of the Bureau of Economics
of the FTC. Big, big, big job. Major responsibility.
I spoke to maybe 200 lawyers and economists in a room on New
Jersey Avenue near Georgetown University Law School. A number of
the economists had worked with my father and had kind words to say
about him, which made me ultra-happy. The questions were uniformly
intelligent and thoughtful. I really hated to leave. Then it turned
out that my driver had been working at the FTC back in ‘72-3 when I
worked there and we remembered each other. Brought tears to my old
eyes.
I really hate the way conservatives trash bureaucrats. Most
bureaucrats that I know work hard, don’t get paid a lot, and try to
do their jobs as well as they can.
Anyway, then another short nap, and then off to dinner with Karl
Rove. At his home. With his wife Darby, and his sister-in-law
cooking and his son Andrew setting the table. Naturally, the
conversation was off the record, but I can say a few things:
First, Karl Rove has lost weight, although he was never fat to
start with. He’s amazingly fit and trim now. Rep. Murtha, who
commented on Karl’s posterior as large, has obviously never met
Karl.
Second, Karl is probably as important as any human being on this
planet except Mr. Bush. He is a world-class political figure. Yet
he helps wash the dishes. He helps keep the house clean. He walks
the dogs. I have never heard him say one mean word about anyone on
the other side. Not once. He is probably the most humble human in a
position of high authority I have ever met.
Third when dinner was over, I told Karl I knew he has a lot of
work to do and we would call a cab. “Nonsense,” he said, “I’ll
drive you home.” And with that, he got into his modest car and
drove Alex and me home. (We actually had him drop us at the Barnes
& Noble on M Street.)
Now, this is a great man. A great and well-grounded man.
At this point, I question a great deal of Bush administration
policy, especially on taxes. But Karl Rove is why I am a
Republican. He is how Republicans are. Richard Nixon was not
kidding fifty-four years ago when he talked about his wife, Pat,
not having a fur coat, but instead happily owned “…a good
Republican cloth coat…”
The real Republicans are the hardware store owners in Little
Rock, the factory workers in Kentucky who believe in life, the
retired aerospace workers in Palm Desert who are concerned about
the moral decay of the culture. The wearers of cloth coats. Those
are Republicans, to me. The Republican Party is not really about
ending the inheritance tax for billionaires. The real Republicans
don’t even know billionaires. (Most billionaires are Democrats,
anyway.) The real Republicans are not about Iraq or the ABM. They
are about loving their neighbors and wanting to pass on the same
great America they knew as children to their grandchildren.
Real Republicans are not haters. Not ever. It’s just not in them
to hate, just as it’s not in any real American to hate any other
American who lives within the law.
Anyway, I left the evening just in a state of amazement about
Karl. This is the assassin? This is the thug? Wow, do his critics
not know him. But you know what? They wouldn’t stop hating him even
if they did know him, because that’s who they are, no matter who he
is.
I don’t agree with the President about fiscal policy. I don’t
agree with him about a happy ending in Iraq. But I sure like being
in the same party as Karl Rove, and Julie Eisenhower, and Andy
Card, and Senator McCain and Justice Scalia. The party that does
not hate.
