Chris Matthews
Hamilton Jordan, Jimmy Carter's top campaign aide,
refused to do either and paid for it. Almost a quarter of a
century later, it is his punishment that most people
remember.
The Washington Post delivered the first blow. After
calling him the capital's "second most important man," it
ran an item that suggested this country boy from Georgia
didn't deserve that status. It had the president's No. 1
man looking down the dress of the Egyptian ambassador
and saying, "I have always wanted to see the pyramids."
A more deadly accusation followed. A pair of New York
nightclub owners, spotting their prey, told police that
Jordan had snorted cocaine at Studio 54, then a popular
Manhattan disco. Their lawyer was the nefarious Roy
Cohn, the late dirt-balling, long-ago chief counsel to
Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Exonerated by a unanimous 24-to-0 grand jury decision,
the Carter aide found himself with his hell-raiser's
reputation notched up menacingly high.
"At least there was a grand jury for Roy Cohn," Jordan says.
He gives a fatalistic sigh.
"There wasn't a grand jury for the pyramid story. To the extent that I cared
about my public reputation and at some level, I certainly did I knew that
it would be forever tainted by these silly accusations. These things stick to you,
and they're there forever."
Jordan says he accepts some blame for letting a "highly unattractive image" of
himself take form here, one that Roy Cohn types could use to hurt him. "I had
never been a public person and had trouble thinking of myself as one," he
writes in his new book.
The book is about survival of another kind. Titled "No Such Thing as a Bad
Day," it is Hamilton Jordan's first-person account of his three-time bout with
cancer lymphoma, skin and prostate all before age 50.
Like others who have left high-level politics to face more authentic, personal
crises Chuck Colson's trip to federal prison comes to mind Jordan found
the experience morally edifying.
"There's a lot of politics today that's artificial. It certainly looks that way from
the outside today, and when I think back to my days in politics, it's almost
surreal. It's almost like it never happened."
More surreal is Jordan's ghastly account of his nocturnal visit down the hall of
the National Cancer Institute here, where Roy Cohn was dying of AIDS.
"I stood there with my head poked inside the door for a few seconds, unable to
enjoy his plight, seeing only another human being wasted by disease."
I will skip his chilling description of the figure lying on the bed.
That was about the time I was asked my opinion of Jordan by one of his
severest critics, my then boss Tip O'Neill (who was known to call the top
Carter aide "Hannibal Jerkin").
"He was good with the troops and he looked at you as part of the
establishment," I told him.
While Tip O'Neill didn't want to hear that, not from one of his people, I'm
always glad I said it. First, because it was true. Second, because a guy like
Hamilton, who's suffered the cancer of politics as well as the real thing,
deserves defenders as tough as his
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
Washington is a mousetrap for
outsiders. The new arrival is greeted with an alert. Either
you genuflect at the political, social and journalistic
receiving lines or you're seen to the door. Either you kiss
the right rings or you're hunted down as an outlaw.
Hamilton
JWR contributor Chris Matthews is the author of Hardball. and hosts a CNBC show of the same name. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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