Stevens: Don’t Make Me AngryThe latest edition of The New Republic takes a look at Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) “twisted genius for getting what he wants” and the political atmosphere that has let him get away with it for so long.
The key to the most senior Republican senator’s success seems to be his tactical use of his extreme temper. In conversations with Alaska locals, I’ve heard that the legend of Stevens’ temper dates back to the death of his wife in 1978 when the couple’s plane crashed landing at the Anchorage airport. TNR fleshes out how Stevens’ first response to the tragic incident was to lash out at Sen. Mike Gravel (D-AK), grumbling that if it weren’t for Gravel, he and his wife wouldn’t have needed to rush to a meeting over a piece of legislation Gravel was trying to block.
His accusation became more specific in what a former Senate aide who was present calls “one of the most horrifying moments in the modern Senate.” According to the aide (the story was also chronicled by The Washington Post at the time), Stevens hobbled into a Senate committee hearing a couple of months later on crutches and in bandages. With Gravel present, Stevens raised the topic of his reason for flying that fateful day. “I don’t want to get personal about it,” he told the stunned audience, “but I think if that bill had passed, I might have a wife sitting at home when I get home tonight, too.”
Stevens has certainly embraced his reputation, once telling his Senate colleagues that he is a “mean, miserable S.O.B.” He also likens himself to a mythical, green monster.
While some people wear their personalities on their sleeve, the 83-year-old Stevens wears his around his neck, in the form of an Incredible Hulk necktie he dons for votes that will require his full fury. In 2003, Marvel Comics even threw a reception for Stevens to celebrate a new Hulk movie, at which one Hulk artist observed to a reporter, “The monster is basically fueled by aggression. If you stop him from being angry, then he gets weaker.”