Randy Neugebauer’s disgraceful outburst against a U.S. National Park Service employee has brought unflattering comparisons between the West Texas congressman and the man who preceded him in that office.

Neugebauer, a Lubbock Republican, confronted a park ranger this week as she was seeking to enforce a rule banning visitors from entering an open-air exhibit on the Washington D.C. Mall. The exhibit was the World War II veterans memorial and Neugebauer, whose votes in the House of Representatives contributed to the partial government shutdown now in its fourth day, upbraided the ranger for refusing to let people in. “You should be ashamed,” he told the ranger. The exchange was caught on video and has gone viral.

It was an idiotic example of what’s transpiring now in D.C. The people responsible for this mess are now becoming the chief grandstanders.

I thought of Republican Larry Combest, who represented the same 19th Congressional District from 1985 until 2002, when he resigned unexpectedly to return to private life.

Combest came from a different era. He is just as conservative as Neugebauer but he saw up close the good side of divided government. Combest once served on the late Sen. John Tower’s staff and he would tell me of the times Tower would argue ferociously with the likes of the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey, who was just as liberal as Tower was conservative. Tower and Humphrey would debate on the Senate floor and then walk out arm in arm after the session was gaveled to a close. The men were foes — never enemies — while they were on the clock, but friends when time expired.

Combest understood that. His best friend in the House was a Democrat, Charlie Stenholm of Abilene, with whom he served on the Agriculture Committee. Stenholm lost his congressional seat in 2004; his district was paired with Neugebauer’s district. The GOP-led Texas Legislature made sure Neugebauer would win by stacking the new district with true-blue Republican voters.

I’ve long wondered how Combest voted in that election.

I got to know Combest pretty well over many years. For a time, from the early 1990s until 2001, his congressional district included the Randall County portion of Amarillo. Thus, he was a frequent visitor to the newspaper where I worked. I don’t know Neugebauer; I know only of him. What I witnessed this week was thoroughly disagreeable.

I have tried in the past day or so to imagine Larry Combest confronting that park ranger. The image just doesn’t register. Gentlemen know better than to make spectacles of themselves.