Word: rayburnisms
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...makers of The Fan seem to be aware of the problem. So the screenplay (by Phoef Sutton) gives De Niro's character, Gil Renard, a novel fixation for his volatile blend of admiration and envy--a baseball star named Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes). The Fan also provides De Niro with good, carefully outlined reasons for spinning out of control: Gil loses his job, and his ex-wife obtains a court order preventing him from seeing their son on the grounds that Gil is both too intense and too careless. There's even a back story that explains...
Lyndon Johnson once said, "If you want to be President, you've got to do it through Sam Rayburn." No one got onto any committee in the House unless Rayburn wanted him on that committee. He had a fearsome temper. He was a broad, massive man with a very hard face, and when he was in a bad mood he would come down the hall and Congressmen would be afraid to even talk to him because they were afraid of saying the wrong thing. He was like a stone coming through a wave. People would part before...
...contrasts with Gingrich are fantastic. Rayburn was absolutely silent. He gave very few speeches. If he really wanted to say something, he would step down from the Speaker's platform and go into the well of the House. And he only did this a handful of times. When he did it, he would say, "Do this for me." And they would do it for him. So far, Gingrich has great control over his party, but let's see what happens now that things are turning against...
...saying Gingrich will not achieve major things. If he were to be Speaker for 17 years, as was Rayburn, he might, at the end of that time, have achieved what he wanted. But I wouldn't say that right...
...CERTAINLY HAS BEEN THE MOST INFLUential Speaker of the House in the past century, since Joseph Cannon. Sam Rayburn was respected and influential, but he was not an active formulator of agendas. He was very influential in lining up votes and he was consulted by the President, but he did not say, "I have a vision; I want the government to be this and do that." It is very rare to have a Speaker of the House who has a vision of any kind, because they usually don't get chosen for that role...