Naked City

"The article speaks for itself," is all Congressman Lloyd Doggett would unhelpfully say in response to the latest inanity emanating from our beloved hometown editor, the Statesman's Rich Oppel. Perhaps Doggett was taking Oppel's advice to "park his sharp tongue." In his Sunday column ("Tough-talking Doggett should reel in the rhetoric"), Oppel patronizingly tsk-tsked at eye-glazing length over Doggett's pointed (and accurate) judgment of the House Republicans' solution to any and all social problems: tax cuts. "Their position is so extreme," said Doggett, "that I would not be surprised to see them advocate a tax break for Osama bin Laden as a way to get him to turn himself in."

Oppel's Bad Taste Detector went into overdrive, as he rushed to agree with Doggett "on substance," condescended to him ("Doggett impressed me as bright"), and then muttered dignified imprecations about his "rhetoric with the subtlety of a stevedore's punch." It does not seem to occur to Oppel that rhetoric is about all the House Democrats have to work with these days. But even more comical is his declaration that "In Congress, progress is accomplished by people who work hard, negotiate, and are liked and trusted by opponents." This op-ed pablum hasn't been close to true -- especially about Texas politicians -- at least since the days of Sam Rayburn -- but Oppel's Goody Two-Shoes version of U.S. politics goes down comfortably over the scrambled eggs on Sunday morning.

For the record, the Wall Street Journal article Oppel cites for Doggett's quote is not, as he wrote, "a corner reserved for political quotes so bizarre that they require no comment," but Tom Herman's regular "Tax Report," where the remark is headed "Notable and Quotable." Oppel grudgingly reports that even Robert Novak acknowledged Doggett's sarcasm "might be justified in reacting to the way the committee repealed the alternative minimum tax for corporations." A few days later, at the behest of the private security industry lobby, the House GOP scuttled the attempt to raise standards for airport security staff, because U.S. Reps Dick Armey and Tom DeLay were worried that might mean better paid, unionized federal workers. Even after Sept. 11, Oppel apparently didn't find that in bad taste.