March 27, 2003

IN MEMORIAM: DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN

By James Eugene*

I remember the first time I met Patrick Moynihan like it was yesterday. I was working as a waiter in a restaurant. It was during the early stages of the 1976 Presidential race, the summer of 1975. Into the restaurant came, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso, and assorted local politicians, along with Moynihan. Jackson, Grasso and the other politicians moved towards their reserved table on this sunny day, but Moynihan paused, looked at the other politicians and simply pointed to the bar and said, "Me and the boys are going to have a few over here." He made it to the table around the middle of lunch.

My second time seeing Patrick Moynihan in the flesh was a few months later, at a debate between him and then New York Senator James Buckley. I came aware duly unimpressed. Buckley was smooth, articulate and confident. Moynihan was choppy and nervous, like a college professor who was reading the course material for the first time just ahead of his or her class.

I bring up these two unflattering situations to preface an article about a true giant. In fact, Moynihan was the last of the giants. A Senator who could actually think, a man to whom opinion polls were truly irrelevant, a man for whom the right answer was important because it was right, not because it allowed for political gain. (And if the right answer meant political loss, it was still the right answer.)

Our political system has changed over the years. Congress has been debased. Instead of intellectual thinkers, we have ideologues. Instead of thoughtful policy, we have sound bites. Instead of leaders, we have followers. If there was ever a moment when that was true, it is during today's events. Except for Tom Daschle and Robert Byrd, who in Congress has outright and forthrightly challenged the President? But still, who in Congress has the intellect to think about the future of policy? To think 20 years down the road and ask: how do we move in a direction that makes this country better for all its citizens? Our leaders rely on the thoughts of others, or even worse, fall into lockstep with an ideology that may be inappropriate for the moment or the future (witness, Bush's back ended tax cut in the midst of a recession and the debate on social security).

Moynihan thought about the future. He asked the questions about what will be the ends of the policy that we are implementing. He asked what are our nation's goals. He asked what was fair. And he articulated a vision. Sometimes it was stark and unnerving ("We are moving towards two countries one white and one black"), other times it was revolutionary (revenue sharing). But always, Moynihan had an idea of his country and its promise and was passionate about how to achieve that promise.

It is ultimately interesting to see how Moynihan was perceived in his political career. He was the first of the so-called "neo-conservatives", a group of Democrats who were blasted by liberals for stands that were out of step with their liberal orthodoxy. Those liberals did not foresee the death of their philosophical means. But Moynihan and his neo-conservatism were not seeking to kill the liberal philosophical ends. In fact, they were trying to achieve it. Throughout the years, this became more and more obvious and eventually, Moynihan was perceived as a liberal, and then, in time he may have been the last of the liberals.

If ever that became apparent, it was in the debate over welfare reform during the Clinton Administration. During an economic boom, when welfare roles were decreasing, everyone wished to look good and to show how tough they were on "lazy" welfare recipients while cutting the welfare budget. Clinton wanted to both look tough and to transform the welfare population by transitioning them to the employment market. But in the end, Congress was not interested in the second factor. It cut child care expenditures, it promoted insane employment policies, it produced a sham, except for its intended punitive impact on welfare recipients. In the end, welfare reform was simply another excuse to cut aid to the poor. And to this, Clinton caved.

In the end, Moynihan was a lone wolf, strenuously arguing that the reform was improperly done, arguing that more, not less money was truly needed for such reform. He showed the proposal for the sham that it was. Others joined him, but Moynihan was the only politician with the brains and the legitimacy to truly show the fallacy of this charade. He was the only politician to articulately argue that welfare reform would require more money in the short-term to save money in the long-term. Ironically, for all his victories with revenue sharing, sociological research and foreign affairs, this might have been his greatest moment.

Moynihan's greatness shows a flaw in our political system today. In today's political system, we would react like I did in my earlier immature years and not promote a man with such a fondness for alcohol and who stumbles through a debate. He would be too risky. But the intellect that is projected sometimes is not the intellect within. And within Moynihan, the intellect within was enormous.

There are no more intellectual giants in Congress. When Moynihan retired, he was the last. When he announced that he was leaving the Senate at the end of 1999, I felt a loss for our country that I have never felt before. A Congress without intellectual leaders is like a ship without a compass. The proof is our current demise.

Rest in peace, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and may God quickly grant us more leaders like you.

* James Eugene is the pseudonym of a veteran of NYC government affairs. Inside The Big Apple will appear exclusively on the Empire Page. If you want to send tips or column ideas to James Eugene, email them to jameseugene@empirepage.com.