Violence, Scandal, and the End of the Cold War 297It did not take much imagination for some members to recognize
that television provided an excellent means of attacking the opposition.
Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia was particularly astute in
recognizing how television could assist him and his Republican col-
leagues to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the
Democrats. “I figured out [that] if I could start making speeches on
C-Span, then I would reach a dramatically bigger audience than people
who fl ew five hundred miles to speak to a Kiwanis club.” He and a
small band of followers began delivering short one-minute jabs at the
Democrats in the morning and longer “Special Order” jabs in the eve-
ning. Special Orders entitle a member to take the floor after the House
has finished its business and speak for an hour on any subject he or she
desired. The House is usually empty by that time, and the speeches
were normally intended for home consumption. But Gingrich used them
to charge that the House had been corrupted under Democratic rule.
He said the opposition was “ruthlessly partisan in changing the rules of
the House, stacking committees... and questioning the [Reagan] ad-
ministration.”
The number of one-minute speeches by members in the morning
increased from 110 in March 1977 to 344 by March 1981. Unfortunately,
this type of activity only generated incivility within the chamber and
drove members apart. It “will poison the national dialogue and cripple
domestic debate,” predicted David Obey, Democrat from Wisconsin.
And indeed it did. Gradually the poison of confrontation and per-
sonal attack, rather than compromise and bipartisanship, worked its
way through the legislature and within a short period of time destroyed
all vestiges of courtesy and civility among the members of Congress. A
new era had begun, an era of partisanship that would dominate debates
for the remainder of the twentieth century and would continue into the
twenty-fi rst century.
Tension between the United States and the Soviet Union esca-
lated during the Reagan administration. Referring to communist
Rus sia as an “evil empire,” the President initiated restrictions that sus-
pended trade between the two countries involving electronic equip-
ment, computers, and other advanced technology. On a trip to Europe