The Conservative Revolution 311would have gotten Clinton and his staff to realize how deadly serious
we were.”
The public reacted to the shutdown with anger and disbelief. It was
probably more the idea of a government shutdown to prove a point
than the closing of tourist sites that offended them. What kind of gov-
ernment is this? asked many outraged citizens. A banana republic?
Then Speaker Gingrich made a colossal mistake. At a breakfast
meeting with reporters he revealed that he had imposed the shutdown
in part because he and other Republicans had been snubbed by Clinton
on an overseas diplomatic trip to attend the funeral of the assassinated
prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, by making him and the Senate
majority leader Robert Dole exit the plane from the rear door.
The reporters guffawed. Newspapers around the country high-
lighted the story. On November 16 , 1995 , a cartoon appeared on the
front page of the New York Daily News showing Gingrich as a scream-
ing baby in a diaper under a boldface headline: “CRY BABY.” The
caption read: “Newt’s Tantrum. He closed down the government be-
cause Clinton made him sit at the back of the plane.” Suddenly Ging-
rich had become the villain of the shutdown drama.
After a weekend of talks between the opposing sides a truce was an-
nounced on Sunday eve ning, November 19 , sending federal employees
back to work on Monday. A continuing resolution was passed to cover
government expenses through December 15 , as the House leadership
labored for the next four weeks to reach a budget deal with the White
House. But disagreements and recriminations brought the negotiations
to a halt, and at midnight on December 15 , the government shut down
again—just in time for Christmas. This time the shutdown lasted
twenty-one days.
With 250 , 000 federal employees locked out, Congress adjourned for
the Christmas holiday and members went home to face very angry con-
stituencies. By the time they returned to Washington in January, they
knew that the so-called Republican revolution was in trouble. “Enough
is enough,” cried Senator Robert Dole. Even Gingrich capitulated.
He told the Republicans assembled in the House on January 5 , 1996 ,
that it was time to end the shutdown. Later that day both the House
and Senate passed a series of appropriation bills that reopened the
government and terminated the battle between Congress and the