THE 30 FAT YEARS AFTER THREE DECADES overseeing the premier daily outpost of conservative opinion, legendary Wall Street Journal editorial-page editor Robert Bartley turned over his command last week to that same page’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington columnist, Paul Gigot. In a March 10, 1997, Casual for this magazine, David Brooks pondered the method by which Bartley produced his celebrated pages: “Last week,” wrote Brooks, “the Journal held a dinner party celebrating Bartley’s quarter-century as editorial-page editor. Seth Lipsky held up a worn sheet of paper—the one piece of feedback he’d received during his 12 years under Bartley. It was a xerox of a short editorial Seth had written, and on it, Bartley had scrawled, with characteristic loquacity, ‘Good.’ Paul Gigot mentioned Bob’s job-interviewing style, which is unique in that he often doesn’t ask any questions. “During the many speeches that evening, people tried to figure out how someone so reticent could have had such vast influence on the people around him and been so revered by his staff. He rarely gives orders to his subordinates, or even guidance, but the page nonetheless reflects his personality. [Deputy editorial page editor Daniel] Henninger put his finger on the nub of it: In dealing with Bartley, you don’t listen, you play Luke Skywalker. You feel The Force. “It’s true. You may be away in a satellite office in Brussels or Hong Kong, working on the paper’s European or Asian edition, and therefore may not have spoken to Bartley in six months, but still you feel the consistency of his views and the rhythms of his unmatched news judgment. “The one time you do hear from Bartley is when you are in trouble, when some target of yours has threatened to sue, or when some government official or government—Singapore, China, Belgium—has gone ballistic over something you wrote. Then, Bartley comes to your support with one goal: to get you in even deeper. When someone attacks an editorial you wrote, Bartley will insist on hitting back twice as hard. If someone issues blustery libel threats, you can be sure that Bartley will make them even angrier before he’s finished with them. Indeed, the Bartley mystery no one will ever explain is how someone could spend a lifetime within the Establishment and yet remain so daring in taking it on.” We wish Paul Gigot—a friend and occasional contributor to these pages—well. He has a hard act to follow. THE HOUSE RULES AFTER REPUBLICANS RETAINED a six-vote majority in the House of Representatives in the 1998 election, the conventional wisdom was that the place was ungovernable, hence no help to the GOP. And after Jim Jeffords split and gave the Senate to Democrats, the House was judged to be irrelevant, since the Senate would now be where the action is. Wrong on both counts, it turns out. House Republicans, who today run the body with a seven-vote majority, are moving and shaking on two fronts with amazing success. The House has become President Bush’s home turf: It’s where he launches his agenda. The latest is the faith-based initiative, supposedly at death’s door but approved by the House last week by a comfortable margin. Absent this, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle would be free to keep the Bush proposal off the Senate floor. Instead, the pressure’s on Daschle to take up the faith-based plan in the Senate soon. The other role for the House is as a graveyard for liberal legislation from the Senate, or at least improver of such legislation. It was no accident that campaign finance reform died in the House through speaker Denny Hastert’s clever use of the rules. Besides, GOP leaders had won back enough Republicans who’d earlier favored reform to deny a majority to liberal reformers allied with senators John McCain and Russ Feingold. Next candidate for Hastertization: the patients’ bill of rights. The Senate passed the liberal version. Hastert & Co. are determined to substitute a palatable scheme. The question is what happened to the heralded alliance of moderate Republicans and Democrats who were supposed—the media said so—to run the House? It hasn’t materialized. House Republicans—that is, conservative Republicans—are three for three, passing Bush’s tax cut in toto and a milder version of faith-based, while killing campaign finance reform. Not a bad half-year’s work. THE LOST ART OF THE FILIBUSTER PERHAPS, LIKE THE SCRAPBOOK, you have been wondering what became of the good old-fashioned filibuster. Remember the glory days of October 1992, when Al D’Amato sang showtunes and told stories for 15 hours-plus, all to save a few hundred jobs at a Smith Corona typewriter factory? And don’t forget the record-setting 24 hours and 18 minutes by Strom Thurmond back in 1957 (to delay fair housing legislation). These days, senators are more fond of the virtual filibuster, in which the mere threat to debate an issue to death is often sufficient to make the filibuster unnecessary, as opponents who lack the 60 votes to achieve cloture (and end the filibuster) simply give up preemptively. But just when you thought the filibuster was dead, THE SCRAPBOOK is pleased to announce that it is alive and well and living in Missouri. Last week, St. Louis alderman Irene Smith led a filibuster against a redistricting measure she believed would result in less representation for African Americans. But during this filibuster, she reached the limit of her stamina and asked for a restroom break. Aldermanic president James Shrewsbury said she would have to yield the floor. And by 13-11, the board voted that she could not be excused and return to continue her filibuster. What happened next would take filibustering into uncharted waters: Smith’s aides surrounded her, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and “held a tablecloth, sheet and quilt around her while she appeared to use a waste basket to urinate.” (No streaming video jokes, please.) This raises a couple of questions. First, we can understand the need for a tablecloth and a sheet. But a quilt? Second, how in the world did Strom Thurmond manage to go on for more than a day and not once answer nature’s call? According to the senator’s press secretary, prior to the filibuster, Thurmond took a steam bath and dehydrated himself severely. Oh, yes. We are relieved to say that Smith’s heroic filibuster succeeded, and unlike Thurmond she did not have to carry on into the wee, wee hours of the night. KEEPING IN MIND THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL last week told USA Today that the selection of Beijing as host city for the 2008 Olympics might be a force for positive change in China. “I hope they know what they got—seven years of supervision by the international community to make sure that the Olympic spirit is kept very much in mind,” said Powell. As a member in good standing of the international community, THE SCRAPBOOK hereby kicks off the supervision, with a July 19 AP wire story that suggests the spirit has not yet taken hold in China: BEIJING—The sister of a veteran labor activist has been sentenced to three years in a labor camp for helping him stage a hunger strike, a human rights group said Thursday. Li Wangling was charged with subversion and sentenced this month in Shaoyang, a city in the central province of Hunan, said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. . . . [She] was detained for helping during his hunger strike and talking to foreign reporters, the Information Center said.
