PASS THE SOAP

Like many of his colleagues in the Capitol, Vice President Dick Cheney is a bit testy. Failure to get a resolution on the budget, disagreements over further tax cuts – much work in Washington comes to a standstill when the political parties are far apart in philosophy but not in numbers.

So, last week, after an angry confrontation at the annual picture-taking in the Senate chamber, Mr. Cheney is reported to have stalked away from Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, using an obscene anatomical impossibility about what he thought Mr. Leahy should do.

Their dispute, according to The New York Times, occurred when Sen. Leahy, long an annoyance to Republicans, approached the vice president, who was there in his constitutional role as president of the Senate, for a chat. Mr. Cheney is reported to have said he didn’t appreciate Mr. Leahy’s personal attacks on him. Mr. Leahy retorted that he did not appreciate being called “a bad Catholic,” a reference to Republican charges that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee were anti-Catholic in refusing to confirm a judicial nominee, William H. Pryor, Jr., who opposed abortion. That was when Mr. Cheney turned on his heel and made the obscene remark.

To make matters worse, Mr. Cheney later said he felt better after hurling the insult and that many people felt he simply said what needed to be said.

Although obscenities have become increasingly common in public discourse, they are unusual in the Senate, where members typically refer to each other as “my esteemed colleague” or “my good friend.” Even in the staid chamber tempers have flared as the vote of one member can decide an issue. (Remember the anger the Republican Party directed at their own Sen. Olympia Snowe when she stood in the way of a $760 billion tax cut?)

Also last week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, called the suggestion from Sen. Leahy that the committee subpoena memos from the Justice Department about prisoner interrogations a “dumb-ass thing to do.” The rancor has also spread to the House of Representatives. Late last month, House Speaker Dennis Hastert suggested that fellow Republican Sen. John McCain visit soldiers at military hospitals so that he could learn the meaning of sacrifice. Sen. McCain, who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had objected to tax cuts while the country was at war.

With heated battles over the federal budget and tax cuts still to be fought and a national election on the horizon, the nation’s elected leaders might find themselves getting more done with less frustration if they stopped swearing at each other. Either that, or a bar of soap should be kept handy for those members of speak too freely.