Fighting the Unbeatable Foe: Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, the Washington Years (review)

In this short biography, Tom Diemer offers a journalist's portrait of Howard Metzenbaum, a three-time U.S. senator from Ohio. As a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter, Diemer covered the Washington scene during Metzenbaum's second and third terms. His access to innumerable major and minor political figures provided wide-ranging quotes about his personality and accomplishments. Diemer relies primarily on newspaper and magazine articles but is rather scant on documents from the Metzenbaum papers and secondary works.

To Diemer, Metzenbaum was a quintessential Don Quixote figure who avoided the dreaminess associated with his hero. Instead, he was "a doer on a journey to the dragon's lair" (228). Metzenbaum's greatest accomplishment was his use of archaic Senate rules, including the filibuster, to impede or delay bills that he considered objectionable. For his obstinacy he earned the title "Doctor No." His major foes were corporations and senators with pet projects. A liberal from a middle-of-the-road state that often leans right, Metzenbaum beat Robert A. Taft Jr. and George Voinovich because of his ability to convince Ohioans that he stood on principle to protect the little guy.

For Diemer, Metzenbaum also served as a model of the American Dream. Born to relatively poor Jewish parents, he became a successful lawyer, millionaire businessman, and U.S. senator. After graduating from law school in 1941, he and "other nice, young Jewish lawyers" were not hired by any of the major firms in Cleveland, so he served four consecutive terms in the state legislature instead (19). Although he loved politics, he left the state legislature in 1950 to engage in a variety of business opportunities, including an airport parking company (APCOA) that mushroomed into an international business. When he ran again in 1970 for the Senate, he lost to Robert A. Taft Jr. but rebounded against him in the post-Watergate election of 1976.

As Metzenbaum gained experience in the Senate, he learned to seek compromise with opponents. By 1994, his last full year, he had built a substantial, but not exceptional, legislative record. Metzenbaum touted the Brady gun-control bill, the requirement that food and drug manufacturers list nutritional values on their labels, and new standards for infant formulas as his major achievements. He also worked on civil rights legislation, including age discrimination; federal financing for Alzheimer's research; and pension protection. Yet Metzenbaum was most effective in blocking the special interest amendment slipped into a broader bill.

Although Diemer has written an admiring biography, he does discuss Metzenbaum's warts. Surprisingly, in spite of Metzenbaum's consistently pro-labor stance and his many AFL-CIO clients, APCOA did not use union labor and paid its employees a little more than half of the prevailing union wage. He was also gruff and at times cruel to political aides. Most embarrassing for Metzenbaum were his naïve comments after meeting Saddam Hussein in May 1990—"and I am now aware that you are a strong and intelligent man and that you want peace" (188).

Overall, Diemer has written a readable and compelling first biography of a complicated political personality. The book has a few minor errors, but most unfortunate is an editor's failure to notice the duplication of the same paragraph on the final pages of the biography. The extensive quotes from the senator and people who worked and lived with him, however, create a rich delineation of Metzenbaum's character and a judicious evaluation of his importance in the post-Watergate political era.