DIRKSEN : PORTRAIT OF A PUBLIC MAN by Neil MacNeil. 402 pages. World. $12.50.
He was essentially a legislative man, not so much an ideologue as a hierophant of parliamentary procedure. He embodied much that is best and some that is worst—or perhaps silliest—in the American congressional tradition. His talent for the political about-face was acrobatic. Everett McKinley Dirksen, said his Illinois colleague Paul Douglas, "is a man of no principles." Dirksen preferred to call it "flexibility," and that kindlier word, which suggests growth rather than knavery, often proved accurate enough to describe his shifts in policy. During his 35 years in...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
