The Congress: Speaking Out on the Speaker

The President was not alone in lavishing praise on John McCormack. One after another, a dozen of his fellow Democrats rose on the House floor last week to laud the Speaker's virtues. "A kind man, a Christian, a gentleman," intoned Oklahoma's Carl Albert. "No human being has ever been more human," chimed in South Carolina's Mendel Rivers. "When the history of this era is written," apostrophized Louisiana's Hale Boggs, "no name will loom larger."

The eulogies were not exactly spontaneous. They came as a defensive reaction to reports leaked by disgruntled Democratic liberals...

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