Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked by Chris Matthews

Author:Chris Matthews
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781451695991
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2013-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

Winning twenty-six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives more than doubled the postwar average for the opposition party in a first presidential midterm election. It was a big victory for Tip O’Neill.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TIP AT THE TOP

“Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to be?”

—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Time zips by on Capitol Hill. When I worked there, I found myself often reminded of those old reel-to-reel tape recorders. You know the flip-flip-flip at the end of a tape when it runs out? During this period of my life, each year passed so quickly I never realized the tapes were running out. Looking back, I think it must be because I never escaped from the intensity of what I was engaged in for long enough to actually feel the passage of time.

In late August 1982, King Sobhuza II of Swaziland died. The world’s longest-serving monarch, he was known worldwide for his many wives and hundreds of grandchildren. Since my time and work in his country meant a lot to me, I realized I’d like very much to attend his funeral with the American delegation. It turned out not to be that hard to arrange. My hunch—that the Reagan administration’s list of officials wanting a quick out-and-back to this little-known southern African destination would leave room for at least one more—was correct. And off I went. My companion on the journey was the great jazz star Lionel Hampton, for decades an ardent Republican. Somehow, he’d gotten the idea that my stint teaching modern business practices to shopkeepers in isolated Swazi villages entitled him to introduce me as the young fellow responsible for the country’s economic development. I couldn’t manage to convince him otherwise, so finally gave up trying.

The funeral was a spectacle, though in no way resembling what I’d expected. In my imagination, there’d be a traditional Swazi ceremony with plenty of dancing, excitement, and wild emotions. What we actually witnessed from the American delegation’s seats in the country’s enormous soccer stadium was a Christian service traditional enough that it might have been taking place anywhere. The only real hint telling me I wasn’t in Kansas was the unforgettable sight of the late Sobhuza himself dressed in full military regalia visible in an upright coffin that featured a full-length window.

Once the ceremony that had brought me there was over, I headed out to the distant town I’d lived in. Temporarily putting Capitol Hill out of my mind, I rediscovered the sensations of rural Africa. Yet here I was, thousands of miles away, and, suddenly, startled to be reminded of my current life back home. It happened when an old acquaintance, Mr. Mbabama, the provincial health officer back in my day, expressed to me his curiosity about how it happened I’d been “sent over by the Republicans.”

And speaking of Republicans, this was an occasion when at least one got playful—at my expense. Ken Duberstein, the White House aide who had okayed my request to join the delegation, now

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