Erin O'Riordan’s Reviews > The Class of '74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship > Status Update

Members of the Class of '74 still recall that even in the late '70s, it was still considered a good thing to accomplish bipartisan efforts and to have friendships across the political aisle. We need to bring that back. We need to stop attacking politicians for working together. When a Republican backs an effort the Dems put up to help children or veterans or whoever, that's a GOOD thing.

One of the reasons I'm having such a tough time getting through this book is that it has so many "characters" no personalities stand out as protagonists. An interesting personality who pops up here is Phillip Burton (1926-1983), the legislator who held the seat currently occupied by Nancy Pelosi. Burton was acerbic, profane, and undiplomatic. He was a complicated man, but not an entirely bad one.

This is probably a bit more academic than is quite necessary for a general-history reader such as myself, but I'm sticking with it for the lessons learned (or not?) from Watergate and the "roots of partisanship" part.