McHugh exhibits fighting spirit

WASHINGTON — Rep. John M. McHugh's campaign slogan has been "a proven fighter for Upstate New York."

Sometimes, though, he's just a fighter.

The congressman's flashes of anger, the stuff of occasional gossip on Capitol Hill, could be both an asset and a shortcoming as he approaches confirmation to become the next secretary of the Army.

"It's a tiny minus, maybe," said Joe R. Reeder, a former Army undersecretary who has traveled with Mr. McHugh on military business and considers him an excellent candidate. "Temperament always is important."

Mr. McHugh will have plenty of opportunity to test his patience at the Pentagon, where he will lead one of the federal government's biggest, slowest agencies, where waste seems forever rampant and high-ranking officials can easily be blamed for problems not of their making, or perhaps of their making. Frustration, satisfaction and pride could come in equal measure.

It is not a place for thin skins. But Mr. Reeder said anger, carefully directed, may come in handy when he faces a crisis. Former secretary Francis J. Harvey failed in that respect, Mr. Reeder said, when the Walter Reed scandal broke in early 2007; he was away from Washington for much of that time and missed a chance to react strongly and hold the bureaucracy accountable. Mr. Harvey was forced to resign.

"Do I think John McHugh would do a better job? Yeah," Mr. Reeder said.

In his 16 years in Congress, Mr. McHugh has become one of the more well-liked lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; it is almost unheard of for a member of Congress or anyone in the defense establishment to say anything negative about him, and that was reflected in bipartisan praise for his selection by the president. His self-deprecating sense of humor breaks up long hearings.

But every so often, he loses his cool in withering fashion.

In 2005, he had such a heated argument with Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., that witnesses told reporters it nearly came to blows. Mr. McHugh was steamed that Mr. Istook stripped some north country transportation projects, as well as some from other areas, from a bill funding Amtrak. Mr. McHugh was hardly the only member troubled, but his reaction made the papers.

As a member of the House GOP Steering Committee, he then helped engineer Mr. Istook's ouster from an Appropriations subcommittee chairmanship.

Both lawmakers denied that punches were about to be thrown, however.

Whether that incident soured Mr. Istook's view on Mr. McHugh isn't clear; the former congressman, now an analyst at the Heritage Foundation think tank, did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday.

In another instance, Mr. McHugh was rumored to have upbraided congressional pages — the teenagers who run messages and documents around the Capitol. Asked about that at the time, he acknowledged that lawmakers need to be especially mindful of the effect their words and actions can have on impressionable young people.

Campaign seasons have been especially tough for Mr. McHugh — not because he was in danger of losing, which he was not, but because of his sensitivity to the criticisms lobbed at him. Intimations that campaign contributions are somehow connected to his positions on issues have tended to rile him, coming from political opponents, as have suggestions that he is swimming in special interest campaign money; in truth, his campaigns have always been small-money affairs compared with the average member of Congress.

The congressman has sometimes talked openly about sharply opposing his own leadership when the issue was important to the north country. In 1994, the year after he arrived in Congress, he and other lawmakers met with the new House speaker, Newt Gingrich, to discuss low-income home heating aid, which Mr. Gingrich was prepared to cut. When Mr. Gingrich said GOP lawmakers would pay a political price for not sticking to the party line, Mr. McHugh responded, "Mr. Speaker, you're confusing me with someone who gives a damn."

Mr. Reeder said he has seen Mr. McHugh, in official settings, say things that were clearly not intended to be popular. And a touch of "indignant outrage" is helpful in certain situations, he said.

"So long as he's fair, there's no community on earth that better understands righteous indignation when lives are at stake," Mr. Reeder said. "Courage is important. He has courage."