Hill Rat
Jackley, John L.
many voters are under the impression that their congressmen actually like them, and that their staffs (the Hill rats) are harried public servants doing their best in a tough system. But to John L....
...Jackley is unable to, which causes Luken to grab a file from his aide's hand and throw it toward the ceiling...
...Jackley was particularly outraged by Tony Coelho, who announced that "under our system of law Jack Mack owed his debt to society, not to this young woman...
...Jackley worked for three congressmen, finishing his tour of duty as press secretary for a nondescript liberal Democrat from Texas...
...Which word don't you understand...
...Which one...
...This goes on for quite a long time, with the congressman storming about the office, jabbing his finger at poor Jackley, trying to get his quaking factotum to Dave Shiflett is deputy editorial page editor of the Rocky Mountain News and TAS's Rocky Mountain editor...
...Then the ax...
...We had more scandals in one week than the Pentagon had in a year...
...A block away, the ambulance reserved exclusively for members of Congress sat unused...
...Which one...
...But some members were not happy about her resurrection, and when the Washington Post ran a large story recounting the beating, some Hill personalities defended the hammerman...
...We made the public forget about the hundreds of Reagan-era officials accused of misconduct...
...Coelho was last seen at Dorothy Bush LeBlond's wedding to a major Hill rat...
...Coelho had a penchant for defending his friends and political allies, no matter how horrendous their crimes...
...T he one event that disgusted Jackley more than any other was the House's reaction to the John Mack affair...
...Deep down in our hearts we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy...
...he exploded...
...Uh, it's going just fine sir, how about you...
...We made Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker look like amateurs...
...No, goddammit, how's it go go go...
...We have been so intent on getting ourselves elected that year after year we have put off the hard issues . . Jackley seconds that emotion: We squandered more money than Wall Street ever dreamed of...
...During an earlier stint as a hardware-store manager, Mack had beaten a female customer with a hammer, dumped her in the trunk of a car, and gone to the movies...
...There's nothing to this s---," Jackley quotes the infallible Cannon as saying...
...Figure it this way: even if it's only half as bad as Jackley says, they deserve the rack...
...hum the tune...
...Like Jackley, Cannon is now living on the West Coast...
...Mack, as many will recall, was an aide to then–House Speaker Jim Wright...
...Thomas A. Luken (D-Ohio) about a bill to designate "The Merchant Marine Hymn" as the official song of, yes, the merchant marines...
...HILL RAT: BLOWING THE LID OFF CONGRESS John L. Jackley Regnery Gateway /377 pages/$21.95 reviewed by DAVE SHIFLETT 64 The American Spectator October 1992...
...The larger story is that in the guise of operating a representative democracy, our representatives have paddled the country ever closer to the big falls...
...The reader winces, as if he were watching a man beat his dog...
...Luken speaks first: "How's it go...
...According to one press report, David Weidert had been convicted of beating a slightly retarded young man with a baseball bat, torturing him, stabbing him, and forcing him to dig his own grave before burying him alive...
...How does it go...
...I furrowed my brow, looked at him, and without thinking, stepped off the edge...
...Jackley's early faith in the system was .perhaps responsible for his being willing to put up with more than a self-respecting person should...
...Hill Rat is a bitter book, the more so because its author was, at one time, a believer...
...How's it go...
...That she survived was something of a miracle...
...On October 10, 1991," he writes, "House Foreign Affairs Cotnmittee aide George Warren was struck by a heart attack and had to wait eighteen minutes for a public ambulance...
...The book brings to mind that eloquent dirge delivered on the Senate floor not long ago by John Danforth, who tried to grasp the reason so many of his colleagues had decided not to run for office again: I think the major cause is that deep down in our hearts we believe that we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country...
...In 1981, Jackley says, Coelho had sought a lighter sentence for David Weidert, the son of the executive director of a group called California Westside Farmers, which had contributed $1,000 to his campaigns in 1980 and 1981...
...Warren died...
...But to John L. Jackley, your representative and his staff are more likely to be arrogant, cynical, and duplicitous fixers who wish that constituents—including yourself—would walk off a cliff...
...This is a disheartening book, perhaps a bit long, but worth reading—especially by those who might be hesitant to pull the trigger on their local incumbent this fall...
...B ut such are the sidelights...
...Less tragic was Lou Cannon's initial response to suggestions that an obscure marine named Oliver North was providing illegal military and intelligence assistance to the contras...
...One day, for instance, he had this exchange with Rep...
...Jackley's book provides many revealing tidbits...
Vol. 25 • October 1992 • No. 10
