Most often, it’s better to be lucky than good. Last
Thursday, I was lucky enough to claim one of the 900-odd seats in the visitors’
gallery of the United States House of Representatives and even luckier to be
present as California’s Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the country’s first-ever
female Speaker of the House.
Clutching my gallery ticket as if it were a stock
certificate, I arrived an hour before the 110th Congress’ opening session, just
so that I could sit quietly in the empty chamber, a place where 15 American
presidents have delivered State of the Union addresses and the place where
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 stood somberly the day after the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor, that now-famous “date that will live in infamy.”
Happily, the woman standing at the podium later this
balmy January afternoon presided over a far more convivial gathering. With
hundreds of members’ children swarming over the floor, the House chamber looked
as much like a day-care center as a legislative assembly.
But applause and
celebration notwithstanding, Pelosi made clear that her intentions were just as
serious as FDR’s, as she took a figurative leaf out of his scrapbook, in this, a
winter of considerable national discontent. From the podium, the Speaker
launched a frontal assault on the political status quo ante so roundly rejected
by voters last November, vowing that her new Democratic House would be the kind
of place where a hundred-days’ pace would be far too languid.
“Let us join together in the first 100 hours to make
this Congress the most honest and open in history,” she said.
Time will tell if Pelosi can fulfill that promise, but
her break from the starting gate was certainly impressive. Within an hour, the
House was in full session, dealing with an ethics-reform bill designed to break
the “culture of corruption” Democrats claim has engulfed the national political
process. Most sections of that particular bill were voted on that first day,
forcing congressmen like new 9th District representative Steve Cohen to linger
long after dark at the Capitol, making them late for their own victory parties.
Watching the Speaker strike so quickly, I could not
help but think of how badly our own city needs similar therapy in dealing with
the “culture of corruption” that has so seriously infected its body politic.
Here in Memphis, half a dozen former state and county officials have been
indicted and/or convicted on corruption charges. Two current City Council
members have been indicted for bribery, with their refusal to resign supported
by a majority of their peers. Others on the council call for ethics reform while
appearing seriously conflicted themselves.
Our city is not well. Is there a doctor in the house?
We have, in fact, long had a doctor in charge of our
civic affairs, but recent events make me wonder if Dr. Herenton’s medicine bag
is just about empty. At his annual New Year’s Day prayer breakfast, the mayor’s
response to this corruption crisis was to declare that Memphis’ foremost need
was … a brand-new football stadium.
Perhaps Jerry Jones has a fondness for Memphis barbecue
and is moving the Dallas Cowboys here. But otherwise, I fear that the mayor’s
stadium proposal is about as likely to make Memphis a better place as President
Bush’s forthcoming Iraq “surge” is to bring peace and prosperity to an
increasingly anarchic Middle East.
Inside the Beltway last week, Bush’s bizarre Iraq
scheme was all anyone wanted to talk about, and the talk was rarely positive.
Speaking with an AP reporter, Republican congresswoman
Heather Wilson of New Mexico expressed the conventional wisdom succinctly: “I
have not seen a clarity of mission, and I think that’s the greatest weakness we
have right now.” Wilson might just as well have been speaking about
Memphis’ City Council and its mayor, leaders whose “clarity of mission”
apparently extends no further than planning for their next reelection campaigns.
Our civic leaders all should have been in Washington
last week, where at least some national political figures demonstrated that they
now “get it.” The Democratic Party seems to realize that business-as-usual is no
business at all and that the American people have lost patience with crooks,
charlatans, and incompetents.
How nice it would be if Memphis voters could deliver
the same message at the ballot box come October.
Kenneth Neill is the founder and publisher of the Memphis Flyer.