when i first arrived on the scene here, people were invited to dinners by people like joe alsop or katharine graham and those dinner parties were ritualistically 50% democrat and 50% republican. that continued on for quite a while and indeed most of the social gatherings were of that nature, but most importantly, everybody talks to each other. i remember for example i was in the ford administration in the white house and jerry ford would rail against tip o'neill's positions on issues from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and tip o'neill would come right back with his singers to jerry ford. at 6:00 p.m. tip would show up at the west wing of the white house to have a bourbon with his old buddy jerry. that does not happen anymore and we find that the parties are 98. [inaudible] there is very little cross fertilization of ideas or realistic compromise and something has got to give. i don't know what it will be but i will tell you this, unless and until we do that we are going to have these types of crises which are showing up periodically for an indefinite period. right now in discussions with respect to

when i first arrived on the scene here, people were invited to dinners by people like joe alsop or katherine grimm, and those dipper parties were realistically -- dinner parties were realistically 50% democrat, 50% republican. and that continued on for quite a while and, indeed, host of the social gatherings were of that nature. but most importantly, everybody talked to each other. i mean, i remember, for example, i was in the ford administration white house, and gerry ford would rail against tip o'neill's positions on many issues there 9 a.m. to 5 p.m -- from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and tip would come right back with his zingers at old gerry ford. at 6 p.m. tip would show up at the west wing of the white house to have a bourbon with his old buddy gerry. that does not happen anymore. and you find that the parties are 98-2 either way. there is very little cross-fertilization of ideas or willingness to compromise. and something has got to give. i don't know what it will be, but i will tell you this, that unless and until we do that, we're going to have these types of crises which are showing up perio