Majority Leader Dick Armey dares to be not sensational

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 10, 1997 | by Stephen Goode, | Rick Kozak

Political ambition is an ugly character trait of many who serve on Capitol Hill, says this economist from north Texas. He prescribes a kinder, gentler Congress filled with honorable men and women.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey is a man who likes to talk ideas. A former professor of economics, he is at ease lacing his conversation with casual mention of the scholars he has read, from theologian Oswald Chambers to economist Alfred Marshall. But Armey also is comfortable with getting things done. A 1988 Wall Street Journal article reported, "By tempering his tactics without abandoning his goals, he is getting legislation passed." At the time Armey had been in Congress only three years. The House majority leader is hoping for a more disciplined, efficient and civil 105th Congress. He speaks of the "very bitter election of 1996" and speculates that "animosity exhaustion" has rendered most congressmen ready to behave. At the same time he is cautious: Armey's axiom, he says, is "sooner or later, politics makes a horse's rear out of everyone."

Insight: What issues must the 105th Congress address?

Dick Armey: We ought to have a balanced budget. In doing that, we have to save Medicare from insolvency. I think it's time after 16 years to fix Superfund and make it work.

The interesting thing is that virtually everybody in Congress and certainly the White House ran on the Republican agenda, so we ought to be able to get together.

We have this institution of the House of Representatives. I want to see it more appreciated than it is. The fact is, we're going to have differences, and we should. But we can still be civil in the expression of those differences.

I've been using the line "we must dare to be not sensational." There's no doubt in my mind that the least-attractive characteristic that seems to be predominant in Congress is political ambition. It leads to a lot of things. It leads to dishonesty. It leads to guile.

Insight: What qualities do you appreciate in your colleagues in Congress?

DA: I like honesty. I like candor. My standard is no one should spend five minutes listening to me talk and then have to spend one second wondering what I said.

I like to see people who take initiative. Quite frankly, I like quiet people. My wife accuses me of having John Wayne for a hero. But I say my hero is Gary Cooper.

There is something to be said for taciturnity. Since I'm the first one to shoot himself in the foot while it's still in my mouth, I've got an empirical basis for admiring taciturnity.

Then I think you ought to have a sense of service. Your goals and objectives ought to be about someone other than yourself. When I came to town, I gave myself something I think is one of the finest gifts a man could give himself, and that was the gift of no political ambition.

Insight: What people have you most admired?

DA: Obviously, my mother. I call her the "queen of irreverence." There was no big shot big enough to impress her. And she didn't have any use for the government.

There isn't anyone alive today I respect more than my pastor back in Texas, Ken Rogers, for the simple, honest and humble service he does in the ordinary business of life. He's a guy who doesn't have to be on center stage.

Clarence Thomas is always an inspiration to me of courage. There was one magic, courageous moment I witnessed . . . it's probably the only time I'll see anything like it in my lifetime, but I saw it in Clarence and I'll always treasure it.

Ronald Reagan, of course, he's really all that we like to think we are.

Insight: You've been called a tough guy. How would you describe yourself?

DA: I always find circumstances where confrontation is required to be unfortunate and unhappy. But if it's necessary, I will do it. There are so many instruments [to make use of]. I think there are times when a quiet stubbornness is what is necessary.

There's a great country and western song by Lacy J. Dalton where she says, "If they do you down and dirty in a way you don't deserve, you'll feel better if you take it like a man." That's what toughness is to me. It's also instructional to me that at the end of the song she sings, "The heart is all that matters in the end."

Maybe I'm wrong, but let me throw this out to you. I was reading Oswald Chambers a month-and-a-half ago and he made the point that insecurity is outrageous audacity in light of God's promise: "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

If I take a look back over my life and I say, "When are the times Dick Armey made a fool of himself?" it was probably when I felt most insecure.

I take it as a point of fact that in any population there's going to be anywhere from 30 percent on up who are going to find things they don't like about me, and some are going to be outspoken about it.

Insight: Why was the 104th Congress at times so rancorous?

DA: Come 1994, end we have one of the most unbelievable reversals in history. For the Democrats, this could not have been more unexpected or a more bitter disappointment. All of a sudden, team! someone pulled the rug out from under them.