I used to think that the indestructible species on this planet-the kind of evolution-hardened critters who will never, ever go away no matter how hard you to try to get rid of them-were the German cockroach, the Norway rat and the gold-digging, social-climbing New York trophy wife.
Silly me. I’d forgotten all about the most removal-proof creature of all: the Washington public official.
The other night I went to a really swell party at one of the more select joints (Sylvester Stallone goes there) on the Washington riverfront. It was in honor of a former speaker of the House and his new book, “Worth It All,” which relates his crusading struggle to bring peace to Central America.
Nothing wrong with that, except the former House speaker being honored was the former Honorable Jim Wright of Texas.
When last Mr. Wright was enjoying prominence in our capital, he was resigning the speakership after revelations that he had packaged a bunch of old speeches into an alleged book, copies of which had been snapped up by the carload by influence-seeking lobbyists and special interests-with royalties payable to the Honorable Jim. He also had agreed to pay the Federal Election Commission a $15,000 fine for assorted no-no’s.
The Honorable Jim gave a poignant farewell speech. He and his wife, Betty, went back to Ft. Worth, and that, supposedly, was that. He has his pension. He has been teaching at a local college. No one was going to bother him anymore. Why not just put up the old feet and leave it at that?
But, lo, he just can’t resist the Federal City’s siren call. He turns up the man of the hour at a posh Washington soiree wall to wall with poobahs and VIPs-and all to hawk a new book!
As a D.C. lawyer of my long acquaintance whispered (I’ll identify him only as a former drug enforcement czar), “Wasn’t this the reason he left town in the first place?”
The Honorable Jim didn’t lack for kindred spirits at this bash. Recently defrocked FBI chief William Sessions was there, smiling and glad-handing. Accused but as yet untried BCCI banking scandal figure Clark Clifford was there. Accused and acquitted BCCI scandal figure Robert Altman was there, too, along with his ferociously supportive Wonder Woman wife, actress Lynda Carter. Although none of them, certainly, was a criminal, it was kind of like being at a reunion of the Ma Barker gang.
“We’re very good friends,” said Altman of the Honorable Jim. Wonder Woman nodded, but beat it out of there a few minutes later.
There were plenty of still-honorables present, to be sure, none of them accused of anything except politics: the current House speaker, Tom Foley (“I can only stay 10 minutes”). Former Speaker Tip O’Neill (“Jim was always the most loyal fellow a speaker could want”). Ross Perot and Lady Bird Johnson sent congratulatory messages.
And copies of the book were selling as briskly as that fascinating earlier one full of old speeches.
Oddly, I seem to recall that the Nobel Prize for bringing peace to Central America went not to the Honorable Jim but to former President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica. I recall also that, in his book, former Secretary of State George Shultz made references to “Jim Wright’s rogue diplomacy,” “Wright’s confession that he had been wrong in letting himself become an agent of (former Nicaraguan President Daniel) Ortega’s Washington lobbying campaign” and “this amounted to an admission by Wright of his being duped by Ortega.”
No matter. On Wright’s book jacket we find Dan Rather blurbing, “a fascinating account,” and from Jimmy Carter, “engaging and eloquent.”
“I’m writing another book,” Wright told me (I swear, he was glad-handing everybody). “I’m calling it `Eight Presidents and Me.’ “
He’d better hurry. The Honorable Robert Packwood, author of a diary that reportedly recounts not only his own Senate romantic adventures but also those of several equally amorous colleagues, may well be making a poignant farewell speech himself soon.
His would be a welcome-back book party all Washington would want to come to-especially if they hired one of those ladies who jump out of cakes.
