Post by delhi Garden on Mar 14, 2005 15:22:43 GMT -5
A standing-room only crowd was deferential to former U.S. Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. at an environmental conference on the Clean Air Act, but attendees loved former Vice President Al Gore.
For a brief time in an otherwise serious meeting, the conference had the hallmarks of a political event - with both men receiving standing ovations and applause. Gore also received thunderous cheers.
And when Gore completed his hour-plus presentation, he attempted to leave but was surrounded by students, retirees, educators and others to the point he could barely move.
Gore's wife, Tipper, who was with him, got ahead of the crowd accompanied by TVA Director Skila Harris and missed the chaos. Harris is a former aide to the vice president and chief of staff to Tipper.
The conference Wednesday at the University of Tennessee was sponsored by the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and two other UT centers.
It was Baker's first address since retiring and returning to Huntsville and only the second public speech Gore has made in Knoxville since losing his run for the presidency as the Democratic nominee in 2000.
Both men are former U.S. senators from Tennessee. Both their fathers served in Congress. Baker, a Republican, also was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan.
Both lamented the partisan bickering occurring in Washington today.
It was a different time in 1970 when Baker and Sen. Edmund Muskie, a Democrat from Maine who was majority leader, worked together to establish the Clean Air Act. When it passed the Senate, the vote was unanimous, Baker said.
Gore agreed there were fewer special interests when first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and when his father, the late Al Gore Sr., and Baker's wife, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former U.S. senator from Kansas, served. Gore acknowledged her presence at the conference by pointing to her and calling her Sen. Kassebaum.
A speaker at a dinner later also talked about the friendly atmosphere in which senators worked 35-40 years ago. Leon Billings, staff director of the Senate's Subcommittee on Environment Pollution from 1966-1978 and later Muskie's assistant in the Senate and as secretary of state, said senators accommodated one another.
"Muskie refused to campaign in Tennessee when Sen. Baker was on the ballot," he said.
Billings is president of a public policy consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and president of the Edmund Muskie Foundation.
n PROGRAM ENDING: Horne Radio ended its local programming Friday that included conservative morning drive personalities from "The Voice," Lloyd Daugherty, Kelvin Moxley and Leslie Snow. They'll have a St. Patrick's Day Party at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Ramsey's Restaurant. To find out what they'll do next, consult the Web site www.voicesouth.com.
n CLARIFICATION: Bee DeSelm served on the Knox County Commission 1976-1998. This clarifies dates that appeared in this column on Feb. 26.
www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_column...3615059,00.html
For a brief time in an otherwise serious meeting, the conference had the hallmarks of a political event - with both men receiving standing ovations and applause. Gore also received thunderous cheers.
And when Gore completed his hour-plus presentation, he attempted to leave but was surrounded by students, retirees, educators and others to the point he could barely move.
Gore's wife, Tipper, who was with him, got ahead of the crowd accompanied by TVA Director Skila Harris and missed the chaos. Harris is a former aide to the vice president and chief of staff to Tipper.
The conference Wednesday at the University of Tennessee was sponsored by the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and two other UT centers.
It was Baker's first address since retiring and returning to Huntsville and only the second public speech Gore has made in Knoxville since losing his run for the presidency as the Democratic nominee in 2000.
Both men are former U.S. senators from Tennessee. Both their fathers served in Congress. Baker, a Republican, also was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan.
Both lamented the partisan bickering occurring in Washington today.
It was a different time in 1970 when Baker and Sen. Edmund Muskie, a Democrat from Maine who was majority leader, worked together to establish the Clean Air Act. When it passed the Senate, the vote was unanimous, Baker said.
Gore agreed there were fewer special interests when first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and when his father, the late Al Gore Sr., and Baker's wife, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former U.S. senator from Kansas, served. Gore acknowledged her presence at the conference by pointing to her and calling her Sen. Kassebaum.
A speaker at a dinner later also talked about the friendly atmosphere in which senators worked 35-40 years ago. Leon Billings, staff director of the Senate's Subcommittee on Environment Pollution from 1966-1978 and later Muskie's assistant in the Senate and as secretary of state, said senators accommodated one another.
"Muskie refused to campaign in Tennessee when Sen. Baker was on the ballot," he said.
Billings is president of a public policy consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and president of the Edmund Muskie Foundation.
n PROGRAM ENDING: Horne Radio ended its local programming Friday that included conservative morning drive personalities from "The Voice," Lloyd Daugherty, Kelvin Moxley and Leslie Snow. They'll have a St. Patrick's Day Party at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Ramsey's Restaurant. To find out what they'll do next, consult the Web site www.voicesouth.com.
n CLARIFICATION: Bee DeSelm served on the Knox County Commission 1976-1998. This clarifies dates that appeared in this column on Feb. 26.
www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_column...3615059,00.html