Man Of The House Analysis

Many of those Congressmen took advantage of a new Congressional tool, C-Span by addressing the House under special orders that is, after the regular session has concluded but where members of Congress are still permitted to make speeches on the floor. By this point, the chamber is almost totally deserted. O’Neill had instructed the cameras to focus on the GOP Congressman addressing the near empty chamber. When they were alerted, they attacked it as an indication of the way the House was being run.
That led to another incident. In one of those speeches, Gingrich had attacked the actions of a number of members during the Vietnam War, including Eddie Boland. Boland had long been O’Neill’s roommate and O’Neill would not let that stand. He said, “You attacked him when he wasn’t there to defend himself. That’s the lowest thing I’ve seen in my 32 years in Congress.” Republicans demanded that O’Neill’s words be stricken. The presiding chair - an O’Neill contemporary (from Massachusetts no less) - named Joe Moakley, had to call him out of order.” Incidentally, the next day, O’Neill, then presiding over the House, tried futilely to give Gingrich a chance to explain himself but he declined.
O’Neill said in Man of the House that “he’s always enjoyed good personal relationships with the Republican members, no matter how

Johnson had been alerted to O’Neill’s comments on the Vietnam War and, “as the first member of the Democratic establishment to oppose me on this thing,” worried about its impact. He asked O’Neill to promise to “give me time on this. Don’t go running to the press or telling everybody your views on the war.” O’Neill agreed but later wrote, “in retrospect, I’m sorry I went