Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial 11/17/00 PRESIDENT TYLER HAYES, MEET THE ALTERNATIVE A Modest Proposal to Shut Up the Partisans Newt Gingrich talking about partisanship is like Hannibal Lechter talking about brunch--you know you're listening to an expert. Gingrich, in DC to unveil his roly-poly official House Speaker's portrait in the Capitol, solemnly intoned that the next President will have no mandate at all, that he'll face an almost evenly-divided Congress, and tht bi-partisanship will be the only way around paralysis. Because of the dug-in positions of the Gore partisans ("Keep the polls open late in St. Louis. Confused in Florida? Just re-count 'til it comes out right.") and the talk radio politically-correct Bushies ("How can you say he lost the popular vote? He won more counties!"), Newt, for once, is right, not merely Right. We already have the unholy spectacle of Senate co-majority-leader-in-waiting Tom Daschle threatening to filibuster the GOP into a quagmire unless the Dems get a co-chairmanship of every committee. Like a modern version of Strom Thurmond or John Stennis, Daschle's reminding his colleagues that it takes 60 votes to shut off a talkathon, and ain't nobody got those votes now, and that the Upper Chamber may make President Bush II's life miserable. Trent Lott, for his part, has darkly warned that if Florida goes for Gore, he'll pressure the U.S. Congress not to accept the electoral votes. meantime, Dick Armey, who always made a point of telling the Democrats that President Clinton was "your president", not "the president,"is making the same noises about what may happen if the GOP's ox is Gored. Two of the least effective governments in American history resulted from this kind of juvenilia. John Tyler became president in 1841 when William Henry Harrison caught pneumonia and died after his inaugural parade. Tyler set a record for futility. Think Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork were treated badly? Tyler had six Supreme Court appointments shot down. His enemies in Congress referred to him as "Your Accidency." Which is only slightly better than being called "Your Fradulency," the title Rutheford B. hayes got after the Ohio governor became president in 1877. Hayes lost the popular vote to new York Governor Samuel J. Tilden, and only won the White House by one electoral vote. He wasn't even able to do that until a secret meeting 10 days before the inauguration, during which he caved in to Southern Democrats demands that all Union troops be removed from the old Confederacy. he was one of history's biggest one-term failures. The stonewalling anything-for-a-buck Clinton administration and the radical Right-wing GOP blowhards have taken the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor parts in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" on a six-year roadshow. And we've finally had enough. The American people are patient, not masochistic. We elected a coalition government, with a narrowly-elected president and a schitzoid Congress. Good, we said. Let's see if some adults can get along for a change. To prevent the next chief executive from becoming President Tyler Hayes, a few suggestions: * the winner should immediately fly to wherever the loser is and shake his hand. The loser should accept it; * the new president should immediately name at least two of the other guy's Cabinet choices to his own team. If it's Gore, he can pick Colin Powell for Secretary of State. If it's Bush, he can drop Sam Nunn into the Secretary of Defense slot; * as his very first act, the new president should invite the top dozen leaders of each party on the Hill to the White House for an old fashioned come-to-Jesus. He should roll up his sleeves, boil the coffee black, and spend at least two days trying to agree with them on the top ten problems facing the country. He then should spend the next week behind closed doors with the top five from each party, figuring out what can actually get done to at least not make them worse; * he should have the Senate majority and minority leaders and the House speaker and minority leader over once a week for steaks, tofu, poker, Bible study, or anything else he can think of; * he should get on radio and tv within the first week and assure us that he's the president of all Americans, and that he knows a heckuva lot of people on the other side of the cultural divide don't like him; * he should turn the weekly radio address from a five-minute bromide to a one-hour call-in show. Let Jim Lehrer screen the calls. It's either that, or we let Lott and Daschle and Armey and the spinmeisters for whoever's elected chew up the dining room furniture and lift their legs on the sofa. Who let the dogs out? Not us. Join the discussion

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