and served on its Legislative Process Subcommittee. He was chosen for the Rules Committee by Republican leader Bob Michel of Illinois, but McEwen would grumble that "the Committee on Rules is stacked in a partisan manner 2 to 1 plus 1" by the Democratic majority. During the 102nd Congress, he was also on the Select Committee on Children, Families, and Youth. Late in his Congressional career, he began regular appearances on public affairs programs such as Nightline and the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour and was often a guest on C-SPAN and the Cable News Network. Martin Gottlieb of the Dayton Daily News, a Democratic newspaper, thought McEwen's performances showed why he had remained in the background previously: In the past, McEwen's ambition has taken the form of interest in higher office. Twice he made feints about seeking statewide office. But he didn't want to risk his congressional seat. Now he's found a way to nurse a healthy level of ambition without taking that risk. He has, of course, a pronounced tendency to be wrong about the issues . . . . Most typically, he appears as an ideological combatant. He seems to be selling himself to the nation's conservatives as an attractive spokesman. He's got enough talent to do it. In the days when McEwen was content to be a back-bencher, he was criticized on this page for his irrelevance on the important issues. Now, however, it is clear that the nation as a whole was better off when he was keeping his views to himself. In his decade in Congress, McEwen compiled a conservative voting record, usually scoring in the single digits in the annual Americans for Democratic Action ratings and 85% or higher in the American Conservative Union's similar polls, though McEwen was never one of the most conservative Republicans in the House nor the most conservative Republican in the Ohio delegation. McEwen often joined his fellow Republicans in making special order speeches in the House, which occur after the business for the day has concluded and are made to a nearly empty chamber. McEwen's ally Newt Gingrich of Georgia had discovered that, thanks to the C-SPAN cable network's promise of "gavel-to-gavel coverage" of the House, he and his fellow conservatives such as McEwen, Mississippi's Trent Lott, California's Robert K. Dornan, and Pennsylvania's Robert S. Walker could speak directly to Americans. Congressional Quarterly wrote viewers often found "McEwen playing the