Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives Read Online Free PDF

rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we have lived to see the bright and happy breaking of this auspicious morn . . . He spoke of the great House Speaker Sam Rayburn, with whom the old man had once worked, a half century ago—how Mr. Sam had once been asked how many presidents he’d served under, prompting the reply, “Not a damn one. I served with presidents.”
    And then the old man shared with the gathering a joke that he hadonce been told “when I was a young fella.” He said, “A fellow was once very impressed with this institution he’d come to work for. And an older colleague said to him, ‘My friend, for the next six months you’re going to be wondering how the hell you got here. And then one day you’re going to come out onto the House floor, look around—and wonder how the hell all these other fools got here.’ ”
    The old man permitted himself a tight smile and waited until the laughter died down. Then he said, “At any rate, it is a wonderful institution, one I’ve been very proud to have the privilege to serve in. Something like ten to fifteen thousand Americans, out of the two billion who’ve been part of America, have had such a privilege—to be part of the most humanly perfect . . .”
    His eyes seemed to become watery as he looked out into the crowd. “Most humanly perfect,” he repeated, “institution on this planet.”
    He welcomed them to the House, finished with a terse “Thanks,” and then the old man with the walker took off with surprising velocity.
    Though the eighty-four-year-old man, whose name was John Dingell, had a not-undeserved reputation for being cantankerous, he got along with almost everybody. He got along with Mr. Sam and his fellow Democrats, of course, but he also got along with Ronald Reagan and counted Newt Gingrich as a friend. He got along with big business—particularly the American auto industry, which was the chief employer of his Michigan district—and equally so with labor unions. He got along with consumer groups and the National Rifle Association, with all the ethnics, with young and old, urban and rural. The only folks he’d yet encountered with whom he simply could not get along were the tea partiers— “but then again,” he would invariably add, “I don’t think the good Lord will get along with them, either.”
    Tea-baggers, he preferred to call them. Over time it became clear to his (significantly younger) staff that Mr. Dingell (as they called him) was unaware of the term’s alternate meaning. This had been a source of private hilarity, until March 2010, when Dingell was invited to be a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss the recent passage of the Democrats’ landmark health care legislation, which had been Dingell’s legislative raison d’être not only throughout his career but also throughout that of his father, John Dingell Sr., whose congressionalseat the son was elected to after the elder died in office in 1955. To say “tea-bagger” on the comedian Stewart’s much-viewed show would . . . well, no one on his staff could envision an upside to it.
    Dingell was surprisingly nervous about going on the show as it was. The congressman had been studying past episodes as if preparing for a confirmation hearing—relishing the way Stewart had verbally undressed TV stock tipster Jim Cramer, yet dreading such a fate himself. Staffers took turns playing the host in mock Q&A sessions with the boss. After maybe the third or fourth mention of “tea-baggers,” Michael Robbins—Dingell’s chief of staff at the time—finally spoke up.
    “Sir,” he said carefully, “do you know what that actually means?”
    By the look on Mr. Dingell’s face, it was clear that he did not.
    Because Mr. Dingell was hard of hearing, Robbins knew that he would have to speak loudly and enunciate. Well, sir, I guess you could say it’s a kind of sex act, when a man places his testicles onto the face of another person . .