Good morning, it's Friday, March 17, 2023, the day of the week when I reprise quotations meant to be educational or uplifting. Today's lines are intended to be both, which is fitting, as St. Patrick's Day is an interesting historical occasion as well as a day for merriment.
Three years ago, as I'm sure you recall, good cheer was in short supply. The big St. Patrick's Day parades were canceled in Europe as well as the United States. Ireland's prime minister cut short his annual American trip, avoiding New York City. Capitol Hill was the scene of little drinking and music. As was true at bars and restaurants across the country, The Dubliner, Washington's iconic Irish pub, reluctantly closed its doors, not just for St. Patrick's Day but for the foreseeable future.
One by one, these closures and alterations in the cherished traditions and regular routines of our daily lives brought home the dimensions of the coronavirus outbreak. For college students and their families, it was the cancellation of classes, along with "March Madness." For baseball fans, it was the suspension of spring training and indefinite postponement of Opening Day. For lovers of horse racing, it was the postponing of the Kentucky Derby until September.
But dispensing with such social pastimes was only the beginning. It wasn't just theaters, movie houses, and concert halls that closed. Also, Apple stores, libraries, gyms, swimming pools, dental offices. Americans were told by their political leaders to work from home. Many of those who couldn't lost their jobs and livelihoods. Before it was all over, more than 1 million Americans lost their lives.
Even those who were spared the health consequences of COVID-19 faced life-altering challenges. We know now what should have been apparent then: that for millions of school children, "remote learning" is an oxymoron. The lockdown brought other medical challenges, from delayed cancer screenings to mental health crises for those struggling with addiction, depression, or plain loneliness. Those who live by themselves faced particularly difficult hurdles.
Human beings are social animals, it turns out. We need each other even if we don't always get along, which is the real theme of this morning's homily, which I'll illustrate by discussing the annual St. Patrick's Day truce between two headstrong pols with partisan grievances. No, I'm not talking about Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi, who couldn't manage to pull off the annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon on Capitol Hill three years ago for reasons having nothing to do with the pandemic. (They aren't even Irish.) Instead, I'm referring to Ronald Reagan and Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.
The heart-warming tradition of Ireland's ambassador bringing shamrocks to the White House dates to the last year of Harry Truman's presidency. Although Truman wasn't home when the first shamrocks were delivered in March 1952, this gesture eventually evolved into having the Taoiseach himself come from Dublin and personally deliver the famed clover to his American counterpart.
In the early 1980s, House Speaker Tip O'Neill used the occasion to host a bipartisan lunch on Capitol Hill. It was domestic diplomacy, not international relations, that motivated O'Neill. His goal was a thaw in relations between himself and his fellow Irish American pol, Ronald Reagan.
"I'm going to cook you some Boston corned beef and I'm going to have an Irish storyteller there," O'Neill promised Reagan, according to the official House historian.
"I'll have to polish up some new Irish jokes," replied the Gipper.
And so it began. It turned out that Reagan and O'Neill had some personal fondness for each other, though in O'Neill's case it was grudging. They often had the opposite kind of feelings, too. In their pitched battles over federal spending, particularly anti-poverty programs, Tip would sometimes lose it. "Vicious" and "sinister" were two of the adjectives the Democratic speaker applied to the Republican president. Tip also said Reagan was "cruel to the poor" and "hog-wild and crazy." Once, O'Neill even brought first lady Nancy Reagan into the fray. "[Reagan] could quit tomorrow," he once said, "and she would be queen of Beverly Hills."
The president gave as good as he got in these exchanges, although Reagan often had others carry his sword. In 1980 and 1982, the GOP ran television spots with an actor portraying O'Neill as an overweight, bulbous-nosed buffoon.
In late January 1986, the two were at it again. "You're insensitive to people without jobs," Tip fumed at Reagan in a pre-State of the Union meeting in the Oval Office. "I thought in five years you would have grown."
(Hours later, the space shuttle Challenger exploded in the air. The White House asked the speaker's office if the speech could be postponed, and Reagan made eloquent remarks to a stricken nation. O'Neill observed later that he'd seen the worst of Reagan, and the best, in a few hours' time. "It was a trying day for all Americans," O'Neill wrote, "and Ronald Reagan spoke to our highest ideals.")
St. Patrick's Day came just seven weeks later. By then the nation had grown accustomed to the way these Celtic warriors could lay down their shillelaghs and put politics aside after 6 p.m. -- or any time on March 17.
That St. Patrick's Day -- in 1986 -- was an occasion that today's elected officials would do well to remember, and to emulate. O'Neill had announced his retirement at the end of the 100th Congress, and a fundraising dinner (Boston College was the recipient) was held at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Bob Hope spoke, as did Ted Kennedy, Irish Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald, Gerald Ford, and of course, Reagan.
Gentle needling of O'Neill was encouraged, as long as it was tempered with self-deprecation, and Reagan delivered both -- as did Tip.
"I have traveled the nations of the world," O'Neill said while thanking Reagan for coming. "You see on one side of the hall the leadership and other side the minority -- and they don't talk."
"We have different philosophies," O'Neill added, looking at the president, "but I want to tell you much I admire you … your charm, your humor, your wit. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I tell myself, ‘Don't let it get you, old boy.'"
When it was Reagan's turn, he quipped, "To be honest, I've always known that Tip was behind me -- even if it was only at the State of the Union address. As I made each proposal, I could hear Tip whispering to George Bush, ‘Forget it,' ‘No way,' ‘Fat chance!'"
Reagan then turned serious. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think you know Tip and I have been kidding each other for some time now … and I hope this continues for some time to come. A little kidding is, after all, a sign of affection -- the sort of things that friends do to each other."
It may be said that Reagan and O'Neill weren't really close personally, and that what they did to each other was more than kidding: They were practicing serious oppositional politics. And yet there was mutual respect there, and a determination not to dehumanize the other side.
"Mr. Speaker, I am grateful you have permitted me in the past -- and I hope in the future -- that singular honor, the honor of calling you my friend," Reagan said at that St. Patrick's Day testimonial. "I think the fact of our friendship is testimony to the political system that we're part of and the country we live in -- a country which permits two not-so-shy and not-so-retiring Irishmen to have it out on the issues rather than on each other or their countrymen."
You see, when President Reagan spoke of "friendship" he was really talking about something more profound, at least when it comes to self-government. He was talking about the importance of recognizing that in the American political context, those on the other side of the aisle may be adversaries, but they are not enemies.
That's the very word used by the very first Republican president, in his 1861 inaugural address. He also used the word Ronald Reagan would apply to Tip O'Neill.
"We are not enemies, but friends," Abraham Lincoln said. "We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."
And those are our quotes of the week.
