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Friday, November 3, 1972
University Daily Kansan
Agnewism Answer to 'Spiro Who?'
By MARK BEDNER
Kencon Staff Writer
BY MARK BEDNEM
Kansan Staff Writer
Alben W. Barkley, Harry Truman's vice president, was once asked by a friend what he thought of the office of the vice presidency. He told the friend a story.
"Once upon a time," Barkley said, "there was a farmer who had two sons. One of them ran off to sea. The other was elected vice president of the farm. He more was ever heard of either of them."
Barkley's concept of the vice president as a politician who is paid to say nothing was probably as valid as it is funny. But then Alben Barkley never met Spiro Agnew.
Agnew, the man who rots from a county zoning board to the vice president in less
than eight years, doesn't believe in precedent, political precedent at least
Agnew explained his concept of the vice
president's role in helping the Boston
Middlesex Club in March 1977.
"In my own case," Agnew said, "I found it an onerous choice between the eum of easy chair existence and pointless verbosity. And so I forsock the comfortable code of many of my predecessors, abandoned the unwritten rules—and said something."
AND SAY something he did. In fact Spiro Agnew has rewritten political history with his own wit.
He started the campaign of 1968 by
admitting that Spiro Agnew "certainly was no
household word." He called Hubert Humphrey "squishy soft on Communism," then said he hadn't realized that he sounded a little like Sen. Joe McCarthy.
"Why," said Agnew, "had I known that my remark was to be related in some way to cast me as the Joe McCarthy of 1968. I would as the five somersaults to avoid saying it."
But there were to be more Agnewisms. He slipped in Chicago and said he didn't look for Polacks in the crowds that came to hear him speak. Soon Agnew jokes were sweeping the air, as a reporter on his plane a "fat Jap." he had said it "only in jest," a friend.
"I never jest with my enemies," Agnew told a Hawaiian audience. They believed him and gave the candidate a standing ovation. The press remained skeptical. One reporter called the episode, "Agnew's Checkers speech."
The rhetoric didn't stop once the Nixon- Agnew team was elected. After a brief rest, Agnew was back on the stump. Only this time he was not just Sipro Agnew the can-do man, but a president. His rest had polished Agnew's speaking style, but it hadn't imputed it. No matter. By now Sipro Agnew was not only a household name, it was number three on the list of the most admired" Americans, behind two other orators, Richard Nixon and Billy Graham.
A IN SENSE Agnew was a composite of Nixon and Graham. His speaking style was pure Graham, but its content was pure Nixon. It turned out to be a winning combination as the antiwar groups the nation's left and dissident congressmen were to find out.
Agnew assailed the antiwar groups for their peace marches on Washington. He first hinted that the antiwar groups were Communist elements. He then called on them to repudiate a telegram of support they had received from the Viet Cong. When they refused, Agnew took his case to the citizenry.
In New Orleans he characterized the antiwar movement as "a spirit of national masochism . . . encouraged by an aflete corus of imudent snobs."
He called the Washington demonstrations "emotional purgatives for those who felt the need to cleanse themselves of their lack of experience to offer constructive solution to the problem."
When the press criticized Agnew's rhetoric he aimed his next verbal barrage at them. In Des Moines, Agnew said the television commentators were too powerful and too biased. His Republican audience loved it, but the networks were less than enthusiastic about the velled threats to their autonomy in Agnew's remarks.
WHEN MEMBERS of Congress called for a "lowering of voices," Agnew raised his. He went after the dissidents in Congress during the 70 election.
The game plan was to give Richard Nixon a friendly Republican Senate. The quarterback was Spiro Agnew, with some enthusiasm. He took over House. In Illinois on one campaign trip, Agnew raided against the "ultra-libermals" the "troglodytic leftists" and the "radical liberals." Soon it was Agnew the "radical" in the 70 campaign and the encapsulated.
In the end even a Republican, New York Sen. Charles Goodell, had felt Sirpi's voice. The White House had dumped Goodell, outlawed his critic, for conservative James Buckley.
"We got that son-of-a-bitch. Agrew was seared to said when he found out that Goodell was
The vitiligos proved less than successful when the smoke cleared. The Republicans picked up only two Senate seats, while losing nine House seats and 11 governorships.
THE FAILURE of the White House plan to give President Nixon the friendly Congress appointed might have precipitated what many in the 1970s called following the 70 election the vice president was noticeably less vituperative. In one instance Agnew started a group of American newspapermen by calling the president "the least self-satisfied, most ingenuous, least inhibited, best informed, least controlled, most professional, least subjective, most competitive, least party-line, fairest and journalistic complex in the entire world."
The vice president had finally succeeded in electing the American president. He left them there, and now he speaks only to the media.
And of course there was the election of 1972. After much speculation that the vice president had to grab, Agnese was quoted as saying he not did care if he was on the ticket or not.
"I am very relaxed about it," Agnew told the Wall Street Journal.
"I have forsworn rhetoric," Agnew said in an interview this fall, "but I feel a little like the man who sold all his stock just before a boom in the market. Rhetoric has become very popular at a time I have disavowed it."
Maybe. Or then again perhaps it is that sipro Agnore is stock is beginning to rise with the market falling.
The vice president has certainly never been one to sell himself short. After all, as Agniew once said, "becoming vice president for the son of a Greek immigrant."
But then neither would becoming President with a name like Spiro.
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Information You Want To Know About
JAMES W. PADDOCK
Republican Candidate
FOR
DISTRICT JUDGE
James W. (Bill) Paddock and his wife, Ruth Ann, reside at 2136 Louisiana St. Bill and Ruth Ann have two children, Jim who is in Kansas University and Joel who is in the ninth grade at Central Junior High School.
Bill Paddock is 43 years old, a veteran, received his Law Degree from Kansas University, and was admitted to the practice of law in 1954. Duryen the 16 years since his admission to practice. W. Paddock has been a prominent, respected lawyer in Lawrence and Douglas County. He has been involved in civic organizations. He has served this community for 4 years on the school board, having conducted 3 consecutive years as president. In addition, Bill was Assistant Attorney in 1957-58, Municipal Judge 1958-59, assistant County Attorney 1959-80, and is a past president of the Douglas County Bar Association.
James W. Paddock will bring to the position of Judge of the District Court his ability, fairness and impartiality -qualities essential for a District Judge.
The District Court is a court of general jurisdiction within the county, that is where all types of litigation includes contracts, crimes, family law, personal injury property damage and real estate, to name a few. James W. Paddock has his 20 years experience in handling cases involving all of the areas of litigation.
THIS IS WHY WE URGE YOU TO
Paid Pol. Adv. Citizens for Paddock, Rees Jackman. Ch
JAMES W. (BILL) PADDOCK
VOTE FOR