Hush-Hush: Whispering on Capitol Hill

Shhh, it’s a secret. There are a lot of secrets on Capitol Hill, and whispering is a natural offshoot of life under the radar in the halls and hearing rooms of Congress. It happens before hearings, during hearings and after hearings. It happens among colleagues and between lawmakers and their aides in the pin-drop quiet of a committee hearing room.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is a famous whisperer. She whispers during press conferences, but that’s not all. On the Senate floor, she once told former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) to settle down — only to be overheard by a reporter, who subsequently published the remarks.

There are infamous whisper campaigns. As syndicated columnist Clarence Page noted in January of this year, “Whisper campaigns are a sad reality of politics.” He wrote about a whisper campaign (whispered to have originated in the Clinton camp) that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) had studied at a Muslim school.

Hill whispering can seem provocative. But as one veteran Hill reporter put it, “You know, I used to think it was members trying to appear important, then I started to think it was staffers directing their bosses on what to think and say. Now that I’ve been around here awhile, I realize they’re just giving their highly elaborate coffee orders.”

But one lobbyist had a different take: “Much of the whispering in hearings is regarding a member of the opposite sex. Such as: ‘So-and-so’s new aide is hot.’ Of course, some of it can be, ‘Ahhh, man, so-and-so is throwing my company under the bus again.’”