Silent Minority

Robert Michel, one of the last remaining vestiges of political bipartisanship, has died of complications of pneumonia at the age of 93. A World War II veteran who earned two Bronze Stars and four Battle Stars plus the Purple Heart when he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, Michel was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois and served for 38 years. A conservative by nature, Michel sought to govern through compromise rather than confrontation. Elected during a four-decade period of Democratic control of the House, the courtly Michel maintained friendships on both sides of the aisle, including House Speakers Tip O’Neill and Tom Foley, which served him well when he became minority leader in 1981 and was tasked with shepherding the policies of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush through Congress. He was dismayed by the late ‘80s-early ‘90s rise of conservative firebrands like Newt Gingrich more interested in winning than governing, more interested in slogans and sound bites than common ground. When Gingrich indicated he planned to challenge Michel for the Republican leadership position in 1994, Michel chose capitulation rather than trying to preserve the integrity of the party and retired from the House, helping to set the United States on the path to the dysfunctional mess that we currently call our political system. On his way out the door, he criticized the growing incivility of Republicans who focused on “trashing the institution” for political gain. Bill Clinton honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for “[serving] our nation well, choosing the pragmatic but harder course of conciliation more often than the divisive, but easier, course of confrontation.”