For the past few days it has seemed like old times in the United States Government. There have been the usual fusillades of idiocy from right and left, but beneath that there have been the first faint stirrings of concerned men ready to sit down together and try to make things work.
There one morning in the family dining room were Speaker of the House Carl Albert and the 260 pounds of Boston's Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill Jr., Majority Leader, both Democrats once considered unworthy of presidential attention.
Tip O'Neill, back in his dim political beginnings, used to play a...