Essay: Man of the House - 11/21/2008

The official records show that John Dingell has been in Congress for fifty-three years, but actually, he’s been there far longer than that. He grew up in the Capitol.

His father was first elected to Congress the same day Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president, at the worst point of the Great Depression. John Dingell was six years old then.

Seventy years ago he first went to work for Congress as a page, running errands for young congressmen like Lyndon Johnson.

He served in World War II, then came back to the Capitol to work as an elevator operator, putting himself through law school. He was just 29 when his dad died, in 1955, and won the special election to succeed his father. There is a famous picture of the tall and slightly geeky looking new congressman being sworn in by the short and bald Sam Rayburn, the most powerful speaker of the house in history.

Dwight Eisenhower was then president. Detroit had close to two million people. General Motors was the world’s richest and most powerful corporation. America had forty-eight states, and the number of Japanese cars on our roads was precisely zero.

Barack Obama, Osama Bin Laden, and the two new Democrats Michigan elected to Congress this month have this much in common: When John Dingell was first elected, none of them had been born.

Dingell has been in Congress through ten presidents, and is about to serve with an eleventh. On Valentine’s Day, he will have served in the House longer than anyone in history.

Twenty-eight years ago, he first became head of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. There, he became a legend, setting the agenda, rolling over opponents, serving also as chair of the subcommittee on oversight and investigation.

He never forgot that he was from Detroit, and that the auto industry was Detroit’s heart, soul, and wallet. Critics say he did too much to protect the Big Three from tougher fuel economy standards.

They may be right. But what we forget is that for all but two of his sixteen years as committee chair, Dingell had a Republican president to deal with. The only exception was the first two years of the Clinton Administration. After that, he lost his chairmanship for a dozen years, when Republicans won control of Congress.

Two years ago, he finally got it back. But it wasn’t the same. He had to give up running his subcommittee. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wasn’t a big fan of the auto industry. If she didn’t personally engineer his ouster, she did nothing to stop it.

When the results were official, John Dingell was perfectly gracious. Years ago, I spent a day with him in his district. How long did he plan to stay in Congress? He asked me if I knew anything about John Quincy Adams. Yes, sir, I did.

He nodded. Quincy Adams, the only former president ever to return to the House, served till he died there. Let’s hope John Dingell stays on his feet for many years to come.

Views expressed in the essays by Jack Lessenberry are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

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Comments

[Skylar Woodman]

This was such a fantastic summary of a man I admittedly knew little about but now know much more of thanks to Mr. Lessenberry. As a lifelong resident of Michigan, I have grown to love Jack's NPR contributions. Thank you.

[THRASHER]

Dingell is a legend with life altering footprints but his steps will not lead us into the future..

Digell should resign and become instead of a selfish legend but a SELFUS legend a person whose talents serve US...

[Anonymous]

This essay by Jack Lessenberry reads like an obituary of a chairmanship that died the equivalent of a peaceful death at home, due to old age.

But just to continue the metaphor, Dingell's chairmanship didn't die peacefully in its sleep. It was murdered, by Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi and the far-left eco-warrior wing of the Democrat Party.

This was not a natural death; Dingell's chairmanship was killed by forces that have a name and an identity. Michigan's election of two new Democrats to the House of Representatives plays into the hands of those anti-automotive forces in Democratic Washington.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122722722366746209.html

[Thrasher]

911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911

WE HAVE TO SAVE OUR AUTO INDUSTRY, RALLY, DREAM CRUISE, MEET, HOOK UP, CAR POOL TO DC

WE CANNOT AS A STATE ROLL OVER A DIE !!!!
COME ON DREAM CRUISERS,UAW,NAACP, DPS, STATE EMPLOYEES, PARENTS, WORKERS, VALETS,COPS

WE NEED SOME PASSION, ACTION, CONCERN

911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911

YES WE CAN YES WE CAN YES WE CAN YES

[Gordon Alderink]

I have not followed the political career of Mr. Dingell in much detail, so it was interesting to hear Mr. Lessenberry's interview with one of our state senators, followed by Lessenberry's essay. Mr. Dingell has been a loyal and "effective" public servant, and that needs to be acknowledged.

What I do understand about Mr. Dingell, however, is that he likely was strongly influenced in his "leadership" by the Detroit automotive industry. Neither (Dingell nor automotive executives) used very good "common sense" in the path they chose, and as Robert Frost put it, "and that has made all the difference." I hope we can learn from this instance of misguided leadership.

I think it good that we have new leadership for the committee Mr. Dingell has dominated for so many years. Having said that, time will tell if new leadership can think independently.

[richard moore]

Regarding john dingell:
A few days ago i happened to see "dying to be heard" broadcast by WKAR-TV. It was about george wallace a professor at michigan state who was the first to link DDT with robins' death. Rachel carlson's book, "silent spring" mentions his work and the book most restates his findings. His ideas and research were vigorously opposed by the chemical and agriculture industry. He was threaten with being fired if he didn't shut up. John dingell wrote a letter to the university administration telling them that if they did fire him, mr. dingell would see to it that the university never got another agriculture grant from the federal government.

So, mr. dingell was an early supporter of the environment cause.

See http://www.mprn.org/enews/story.php?fill=070522/environment

for a better description. Also refer to http://www.ejmagazine.com/2005b/jim.html

[Thrasher]

Dingell slayed a lot of dragons with his supreme power he also destroyed a lot of kinghts in armor that dared to question his rightousness..

Dingell is like many icons they come to think they have a birthright to be the all knowing and powerful..

Dingell should retire NOW!!!!!!!!

[Josh Friedlander]

Are fuel economy standards really the issue? I'm not a huge fan of Michael Moore, but he has a point in that Detroit automakers shipped away jobs when they could (helping to kill their consumer base, btw) and have been making cars for years that are either evidence of incompetence or (in reality) of a strategy of planned obsolescence. They have played an enormous role in keeping this country in hock to oil. CAFE or no, a lot of great politicians couldn't see or refused to see the bigger picture.

[Anonymous]

I saw the Larry King interview with Michael Moore, although it was nearly unwatchable.

The corpulent, slovenly, pugnacious Moore is so full of baloney that it is hard to know where to begin in refuting him.

Michael Moore made his name with a cheap-shot attack on Roger Smith, in "Roger and Me." So let's review a couple of highlights from Roger Smith's career at GM. Did Roger Smith think at all about building smaller cars in the style of his Japanese competitors, with a new corporate paradigm, all the way from new designs, to new factories, to new dealerships? Well, he did in fact. They called it SATURN.

Did Roger Smith think about new high tech areas in which GM could diversify itself? To build revenue in totally different ways and try to blend it with GM's core business? Yes, he did that too. That business was EDS, which GM bought, then sold, for billions more than it originally paid.

Michael Moore's basic problem is not that he wants GM to become more modern and more competitive. Michael Moore wanted GM to remain the same, paying exorbitant wages and health care costs to low-porductivity workers in his hometown of Flint.

Which is not to say that there are not good and hard-working people in Flint who could build quality products. They could. But of course Michael Moore doesn't like that, either. He seems to have a problem with the carmakers biulding and selling the vehicles upon which they actually make a profit; light trucks and s.u.v.'s.

Roger Smith, in his lifetime, forgot more about automotive design and engineering than Michael Moore will ever know in ten lifetimes.

So if you want to know about auto manufacturing, the wrong place to start is with professional ignoramus Michael Moore.

And if you want a second opinion on Michael Moore, here it is; Mike, you are a fat, ugly pig.

[Anonymous]

Regarding the Waxman Democrats versus the Dingell Democrats, this is so good that it must be shared with Jack Lessenberry's Michigan Radio audience:

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZWZlMzA2YmM4NGZhZjNmZDdlMDE5NDNhZjZlY2Q4NDY=

[Anonymous]

This essay is crap. Dingell was never even considered as speaker of the House because so many of his peers -- Dems and Republicans -- despise his bullying and self-righteousness.