him that he was going to be on the edge. >> joe moakley was the speaker in the speaker's chair. >> moakley was speaker pro tem at the time. and so, he had to rule on whether or not saying that what another member had done was the lowest thing he'd ever seen. and the then-parliamentarian, bill brown, my dear friend and i were both there trying to convince mr. moakley that, yes, you can't have members saying that about others. nor can you have a double standard for the speaker. there had never been a speaker ruled out of order in modern history, certainly. but moakley was saying, "no, i won't do that." and we were very nervous about the precedent that would set, if he overruled the point of order and said the speaker is not out of order. so, finally, we imposed upon him to rule, and he said, "but i'm still not going to do it, because i think it's true." and the truth was the defense, in other words. and i said, "well, mr. moakley, you can't establish that as a basis for ruling, because that, under those circumstances, anyone could call someone a liar. and if he thought it were true, the spea