Posted on 11/04/2003 11:22:59 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
WASHINGTON -- Many young idealists - liberal and conservative - arrive in Washington "with a pocketful of dreams and good intentions," but soon are seduced by the "natural tendency of any person in a new venue" to want to be "accepted, and to be part of the action." That observation comes from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Tex. Now retired from Congress after 18 years, Armey defines Washington as "a city of young idealists and old cynics." That is one of "Armey's Axioms," one of the "40 hard-Earned Truths from Politics, Faith, and Life," outlined in a new book authored by the veteran lawmaker. In an interview with NewsMax.com, Armey - whose path to politics ran through academia where he was an economics professor - quotes his son as proudly proclaiming that "my dad beat the establishment." Armey demanded and, with the votes of his colleagues, got "a seat at the [leadership] table" after taking a prominent role in the GOP revolt against the elder President Bush's 1990 tax hike. In socking the taxpayer that year, the then-president broke the most widely publicized campaign promise ("Read my lips") in modern American history. Armey survived the rough and tumble of Washington's back-stabbing culture while sticking to his conservative beliefs in a city whose establishment looks down on the values if Middle America. In another time, one of Armey's fellow Texans, the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn, D, advised incoming freshmen that they would be wise to "go along to get along." In that desire for acceptance, "lies the seduction," Armey writes. "If they are not careful," he warns, "they will fit right in before they understand the city and its self-absorption. The city is involved in an eternal love affair with itself." Cutting through the hypnotic fog of never-ending "cocktail parties, dinners, testimonials, awards and banquets" requires a lot of any young person coming to the Nation's Capitol with a Jimmy Stewart-like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" attitude. The "big shots, media celebrities, and visiting glitterati" can obscure the goals of a young idealist who arrives here to "make a difference." Washington, says Armey, "is the only city in America that makes its entire living off the rest of the country. The city produces nothing. It only taxes, regulates, spends, and compels through the use of force." North and South John F. Kennedy once said Washington has, "the charm of the North, and the efficiency of the South." The author of "Armey's Axioms" agrees. Armey, who never did "go along to get along," nonetheless "beat the establishment" by rising to the second ranking leadership post in the House. The former lawmaker is now a Senior Policy Advisor at the Citizens for a Sound Economy, a think tank that dedicates itself to cutting the behemoth federal government down to size. So uppity is the Washington establishment, says Armey, that "the senator who buys a home and moves his family into the right school is the object of approval. The congressman who leaves his family back home and sleeps on the couch in his office [as Armey did in his early years here] is suspect." Since Congress consists of 535 individuals with so many different approaches to solving the nation's problems, watching the legislative process is - as Bob Dole used to say - like "watching sausage being made" or "watching the grass grow." That may in fact be a price Americans pay for representative government, but Armey tells NewsMax that newcomers to Capitol Hill "have no idea how hard it is to cause things to happen. And they get discouraged." Add to that the "go along to get along" inducements, and young idealists become old cynics before their time, the Texan believes. Here is Armey's word to the wise in the chapter dealing with his 40th and perhaps most telling "axiom:" "If you come to Washington as a young idealist and you are happy with who you are and would like to remain so, the trick is not to fit in." He further advises, "You had better know who you are before you get there or someone will darn sure own you by sundown." Born in Cando, North Dakota, having worked at age 18 atop an electric light pole at night when it was 30 below zero, Armey was the first in his family to go to college. He ultimately taught Economics at the University of North Texas. The congressman rose from obscurity to leadership without "fitting in." He derives inner satisfaction in the fact that he left the power centers of Capitol Hill with his integrity intact, and his head held high.
I wonder what permanent effects that kind of work might have. Can you imagine doing that for 30 or 40 years?
If this were only true. Many tasks ought not to be accomplished.
Dope, booze, interns, lobbyists, nest feathering, sticking it to the taxpayers, and so on.
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