Thomas P. Oneill :: essays research papers fc

Thomas P. ONeill     Tip was a man who was not timid to call himself "a man of the tolerate."Thomas P. ONeill was a person whose superior charm was that he seemed"completely out-of-date as a politician."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 redress consultants to make over. He k overbold these qualities gave him his powerbecause they "made him real." (Sennot 17) His gigantic figure and sufferbeaten face symbolizes a political force of five decades, from Roosevelts newdeal to the Reagan retrenchment. He was the last democratic leader of the old schooldays and "the longest-serving speaker of the house (1977-1986) and easily themost loved." (Clift)     Thomas P. ONeill (1912-1994) al counsels knew why he was in Washington, andwhat he stood for. He was a native of capital of milliampere and always prided himself on histheory that "all politics is local." (ONeill 1) Tip was a friend of every wizard.When ordinary concourse 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 merely fifteen thousand dollars to his name. He devoted 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 large who "would usually vote yes on any billthat helped people (he at one time voted to put money into an appropriations bill tostudy knock knees)." (Gelzinas 6) When Reagan came into office 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 sent ONeill into folk music hero 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 contract that gave Lyndon Johnsonfull control over all military intervention in Vietnam. He did this because itwas a time when Congress did what leadership asked, in feature there was not onedescending vote in the house on this issue (414-0). Right away he hadspeculation that the livid House might use this as a device to make up full