Dick Armey s Last Act, HE'S QUITING - Armey Readies for His Last Act

For those who have followed House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s (R-Texas) nine-term political career from afar, the irony is rife.

After 18 years in Congress, Armey will retire at the end of the year. But even when he announced his plans to leave Congress seven months ago, no one could have predicted that the self-declared revolutionary who came to Washington in 1984 railing against big government would spend his last days in Congress happily creating a massive, brand-new government agency.

"The urgency and the sheer magnitude of homeland security is so great it crowds out politics and parochial interests — and you don’t see that too often,"he said during an interview last week. "To me, it’s a very refreshing point of view."

Last week Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) tapped Armey to chair a special committee of House GOPleaders charged with overseeing the creation of the Homeland Security Department proposed by President Bush two weeks ago. Republicans touted Armey as the best man for the job because of his extensive experience working with House committee chairmen to get legislation passed on the floor and noted that his decision to retire would give him the independence necessary to make difficult decisions.

To hear Armey tell it, his role in establishing the Department of Homeland Security is perfectly consistent with the supply-side economics he endorsed while an economics professor and espoused his entire adult life.

"Achieving efficiency in the classic economist definition is that you get greater output from smaller input," he said.

Armey cited the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947, constructed to deal with the threat of the Cold War, as the most natural comparison to the task at hand.

"Now the threat is terrorism," he said. "We have to reconstruct our defense readiness and institutional structure and consolidate a lot of things from different lines of authorities into one line of accountability with a clear understanding that anti-terrorism is job one."

In many ways, Armey appears genuinely enthused about his new mission, as well as with the notion of working across the aisle and the Capitol to reach the goal of passing legislation establishing the agency by Sept. 11 or at least the end of this session.

Once known for his partisan rhetoric and indifference toward offending Democrats and anyone who did not share his conservative principles, he now chats openly about his personal fondness for Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), chairman of the Government Reform panel who is guiding the creation of the new agency in the Senate, and his confidence about their ability to work together. The two had their first one-on-one meeting about the issue last week.

The first time House leaders met with the president at the White House about the homeland security plan, Armey said he turned to Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (Mo.).

"I said when we were leaving the table: ‘What we will do is rise above ourselves, and we’re doing that on both sides of the aisle.’ We’re rising above our politics and we’ll rise above our parochial and our jurisdictional issues as well."

Despite the enthusiasm, Democrats still remember the Armey of old, who, along with the rest of the Republican leadership, shut down the federal government in a showdown with then-President Bill Clinton over spending in 1995 and once supported the elimination of several Cabinet agencies.

"We’ll have to wait and see about his ability to lead this effort,"one Democrat lawmaker warned. "He’s certainly not known for his bipartisan ways."

The past few years, however, Armey has softened his approach, if not his politics. To some degree, the shift in style could be a result of the careful pragmatism Hastert has brought to the leadership table. But Armey has also learned some survival skills after his colleagues nearly dumped him from the No. 2 leadership post after the aborted coup against former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.). A handful of lawmakers still believe he backed out of the coup only when he realized he didn’t have enough votes to grab the Speaker’s gavel for himself. Others believe Armey had a very limited role. But most Members consulted for this article said they consider the whole episode ancient history.

This year has offered a different sort of trial for the Majority Leader. Armey announced his plans to retire just before the Texas primary filing date — a way to make it easier for his son, a Denton County judge, to run for the seat he was leaving behind.

But the younger Armey was beat in a runoff by a little-known political neophyte despite a considerable fundraising advantage and his father’s influence in Washington and the district. During the last few weeks of the runoff, The Dallas Morning News ran a series of damaging articles about Scott Armey. The Majority Leader said he has lost "all respect" for the paper and accuses it of acting on "an outrageous vendetta against me that was focused on my son."

"I was disappointed about the way Scott was treated,"Armey said. "In politics it’s rough and tumble — some you’re gonna win, some you’re gonna lose. We all understand that. But the lies that were told about Scott cut me and his mother very deeply."

Armey would not elaborate about why he believed the paper had a vendetta against him, mentioning only that he has his own theories about it.

"He did not deserve to be treated with the vicious unprofessionalism by The Dallas Morning News. The paper has lost all standing in my regard. There is not a vestige of decent professionalism left in that paper as far as I’m concerned. It’s disgusting."

Gilbert Bailon, the vice president executive editor at The Dallas Morning News, rejected the criticism and any claims of a personal vendetta against the Majority Leader.

"Clearly we think what we did is professional and accurate,"Bailon said. "[Scott Armey] held office locally and he had a track record and we followed it. I know they are critical of it and the timing of it, but we ran the stories when they came together. There was no vendetta or conspiracy to undermine his campaign."

Armey said his son has already moved on from the defeat, referring to the White House-appointed position he has landed at the General Services Administration’s regional office in Texas. And, he added, his son is actually better off for losing the House seat.

Armey also strongly denies a number of media accounts crediting him with playing a serious role in securing the position for his son. Instead, he asserts, his son has been a longtime Bush supporter in Texas and that Scott Armey’s relationship with the president is "much larger and more complete than mine."

"How do I feel about Scott now that he didn’t win the election? For him, [his wife] Chris and [his son] Avery, life is better," Armey said. "He’s got a better job, a good job and he’s going to be home every night. I’m proud and happy for him for life. His life will be a better life."

Armey insists that he too is looking forward to a more relaxed life but will continue to pursue his pet issues such as the flat tax and social security reform next year in the private sector, possibly at a think tanks or simply by writing editorials.

In some ways, he is taking his leave at a politically awkward time. Lately, staunch conservatives such as Free Congress Foundation’s Paul Weyrich have openly wondered where the revolutionaries have gone, grousing about this year’s return to deficit spending, GOPleaders’ willingness to increase the debt ceiling, the president’s education plan and House Republicans’ complicity in allowing school vouchers to fall by the wayside.

"I’m more like Paul Weyrich than most people in terms of my philosophical underpinnings," Armey said. "But you’ve got to do what you can do."

Still, in the next breath Armey falls back to his familiar pattern of placing partisan blame. Republicans were forced to return to deficit spending, he said, because of the economic downturn and the war on terror. In fact, he points to former Attorney General Janet Reno and the Clinton Justice Department’s anti-trust suit against Microsoft Corp. as one of the main reasons for the economic downturn the country has experienced in the past year and a half.

"To me, that’s where all our economic troubles were born,"he said, adding an elaborate explanation about how the case against Microsoft served as a catalyst to dot-com demise. The economy was already in a downward slide when Sept. 11 occurred, only compounding the economic decline.

"Sooner or later, the anti-trust division [at the Justice Department] is going to have to sneak out the back door with a minimum amount of egg on their face and hope they have done permanent damage to the American economy," he said.

But these days, Armey doesn’t stay the angry partisan for too long. He appears jovial at weekly briefings with reporters, peppering his answers with jokes and references to country music more frequently. He and his wife even decided to give up smoking a few months ago.

When asked about how he views the aftermath of the attempted coup now, Armey doesn’t even flinch.

"That was a time," he said. "Some day I’ll write the story for my children’s sake. But right now I don’t have much interest in it."

"I think that’s all behind me," he added. "People who like you will always find a way to believe the best about you, and people who don’t like you will always find a way to believe the worst about you. In the end there’s only one God in heaven that Ihave to square up with, and I’m not worried about that."

Dick Armey was a leader once, now he's a politician. Does it matter what label he wears? I was once proud that he was my congress critter. No more.

Hopefully, Michael Burgess (beat Sott Armey) wins the seat. The drawback is that my wife loses a good OB Gynecologist.

Quote of the year

Nominated for quote of the year is the statement made by Representative Dick Armey, who when asked if he had been in President Clinton's place, would he have resigned?

He responded: "If I were in the President's place I would not have gotten a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood, with Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, "How do I reload this damn thing?"

Just like all the great ones, over time, they are "changed" by the Washington "club" climate. It's sad. But if you read the history of our nation, this has been true from the very beginning of our country. Congress has ALWAYS been a pain in the side of our nation. Sadly, those who have come in with the most to give - have almost all been compromised in some way - just to survive the crushing affects of lobbyists and constituents and the always present Demoncreeps who make it their goal in life to turn every strong consrervative into a wimp.

Fortunately, for Republicans, at least some of them start out with good intentions. Dick Armey has been one of the brightest lights in Congress. Considering the Demarxocratic "colleagues", he will be greatly missed.

I hope Texas has somebody really good to replace him.

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