Thomas P. Oneill :: essays research papers fc

Thomas P. ONeill     Tip was a man who was not bashful to call himself "a man of the house."Thomas P. ONeill was a soulfulness whose greatest charm was that he seemed"completely out-of-date as a politician." (Clift) He was a gruff, drinking,card playing, backroom kind of guy. He had an image that political candidates pass consultants to make over. He knew these qualities gave him his powerbecause they "made him real." (Sennot 17) His gigantic figure and weatherbeaten face symbolizes a political force of five decades, from Roosevelts new overlay to the Reagan retrenchment. He was the last democratic leader of the oldschool and "the longest-serving speaker of the house (1977-1986) and easily themost loved." (Clift)     Thomas P. ONeill (1912-1994) always knew why he was in Washington, andwhat he stood for. He was a native of Boston and always prided himself on histheory that "all politics is local." (ONei ll 1) Tip was a friend of everyone.When ordinary raft wanted something of ONeill he gave it to them. Whenanyone asked him a favor, he would do it. ONeill served fifty years in publiclife and retired with only fifteen thousand dollars to his name. He attached hislife and his money to the people of Boston.     Tip came of age in the Great Depression, arrived in congress fromMassachusetts in 1952 and "came to power amid the plenty of the 60s and 70s."(Woodlief 4) He was a rampant liberal who "would usually vote yes on any billthat helped people (he once voted to put money into an appropriations bill tostudy knock knees)." (Gelzinas 6) When Reagan came into government agency in 1980 biggovernment began to feel the pinch and ONeills big hearted liberalism was onthe way out. In 1980, ONeill was a target of a clever Republican ad campaignthat pictured him in a limo as a symbol of a bloated out of control congress.The advertisement backfired and it sen t ONeill into folk submarine status. Tip even"made an appearance on "Cheers" as an effect of the advertisement." (Time 18)     Tip said that he "only made one vote that he regretted." (ONeill 218)It was a yes vote on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave Lyndon Johnsonfull control over all military intervention in Vietnam. He did this because itwas a cadence when Congress did what leadership asked, in fact there was not onedescending vote in the house on this issue (414-0). Right forth he hadspeculation that the White House might use this as a device to open up full