Word: dirksenism
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...Senate had been hamstrung for nine days by a filibuster that Minority Leader Everett Dirksen called "the second battle of 14(b)." As in the first, which was waged during the waning days of last year's congressional session, Dirksen's aim was to block Administration attempts to repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which permits states to outlaw union membership as a condition of employment. The talkathon began when Majority Leader Mike Mansfield moved that the Senate take up the repeal bill; Dirksen got the floor -and held on for dear life...
...odds, it was the most flaccid filibuster in memory. There was no reading of recipes or telephone books, none of the oldtime Bible-spouting, rip-snorting oratory. Dirksen and his filibuster co-captain, North Carolina Democrat Sam Ervin, had assigned each of their 27 teammates to a group and a captain; each was prepared to carry on night and day if pushed. But nobody was pushing. Majority Leader Mansfield refused to hold marathon sessions, saw to it that the Senate always recessed in time for dinner, and once even in time for lunch-all of which moved Oregon...
...statement urging continued restraint. The President's face, said one participant, was "frozen as concrete." When Fulbright began to air his views, Johnson pointedly turned to Rusk and chatted away intently, completely ignoring the Senator. Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen said he would support whatever course the President decided upon, but declined to make any judgment himself because "I don't like to have the sidewalk fly up and hit me in the face." His refusal to take a stand was elemental politics; by leaving the choice to the President, he also left the G.O.P. free to criticize...
Electronic Mother. Next day, by way of capping the Republicans' TV message, Johnson had Press Secretary Bill Moyers relay the President's "grateful" reaction to Dirksen's support for his Viet Nam policy. As for Ford's criticism that the Great Society was being mismanaged, Moyers allowed blandly that Johnson was "very happy" over Ford's endorsement of "programs which the President has been pursuing...
foreign policy more effectively than any of his recent predecessors. As Everett Dirksen puts it, "He has walked on more eggs than any other human being in the last half-century of this country...