White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. — If a group of politicians can't be civil to each other at a quiet mountain retreat like The Greenbrier, is there any hope?
Outnumbered Democrats say the jury is out.
"We all seek more bipartisanship, but we're a long way from there," Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri said Saturday during a break from the House of Representatives' third "civility" retreat.
"Our members are concerned over the procedures the last week, and next week it may be something else," said Gephardt, the chamber's Democratic leader.
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., called the weekend retreat at the historic West Virginia resort, "a good first step."
"But a first step is what it is," Hastert said.
The news conference was called to announce the results of the latest Congressional civility study conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, which declared the 106th Congress "better than five of the last eight Congresses" on four measures of civility.
The Annenberg report is a review of four measures of civility instances on the House floor of name calling, the use of the word 'lie,' vulgarity and pejoratives.
House members "found a way to disagree, and disagree strongly ... without being disagreeable," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg school.
But the civility was strained, at best.
Gephardt and Hastert arrived together to talk to reporters, but they exchanged no words or looks, and they refused to take questions from reporters.
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