PUT UP OR SHUT UP

The announcement was a stunner. Wearing a conservative gray suit that matched his habitual gray demeanor, Prime Minister John Major strode across the lawn of the rose garden behind 10 Downing Street and announced to a hastily assembled press conference that enough was enough. He had become weary, he declared, of "a small minority" that was disrupting his Conservative Party and undermining his position. With the bright summer sunshine streaming over his shoulder, Major threw down the gauntlet. Rather than wait until November for a possible challenge to his leadership--and endure months of politically damaging backbiting in between--he was resigning as...