Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert does not find himself in the spotlight very often these days in Washington. Yesterday, largely at his insistence and with the support of Way and Means Committee chairman, Bill Thomas, the House approved a stripped-down economic stimulus bill.
This bill was approved by the whisker-thin margin of: 417-3.
The bill includes an additional 13 weeks of unemployment insurance coverage and a 30 percent tax write-off for new equipment investment.
It is the fourth try to get some sort of stimulus package approved, and is not nearly what the House Republicans wanted. But it is instructive as to the difference in the way the Speaker and the President are approaching these things from the way Tom Daschle is approaching them.
House Republicans, under Hastert's leadership, decided to move ahead even though it will give the Senate DEMOCRATS a vote which those running for re-election will tout when they go home to campaign.
If the situation were reversed, the Democrats would have refused to vote on anything short of everything they wanted. They would have blamed the President and Congressional Republicans, and have been perfectly happy to make it a campaign issue.
Wait just a minute. Is this another one of those "New Tone in Washington" things which President Bush always talks about? If so, the White House - and the Speaker - have embarked on a new American political paradigm:
Do what's right. Trust the American people. They will reward responsible behavior.
On the other side of the paradigm teeter-totter, Tom Daschle's personal war against the President's conduct of the real war, has collapsed.
Forget about the public comments backing away from his previous statements. Forget about the fact that he now wants to introduce a resolution SUPPORTING the President. Here's the real evidence: House Minority Leader, Dick Gephardt, had to come to the Senate side of the Capitol, attend one of Daschle's press avails, and defend him.
Watching Daschle's body language as Gephardt swooned over him spoke many volumes, at a very high volume. Daschle's downcast eyes were not demonstrating modesty - real or feigned. No Senator has ever wanted to admit he has ever needed the help of a Congressman.
The other night, while at Harvard, I had the opportunity to listen to a man named Haron Amin, who is the senior Afghan diplomatic representative to the United States.
There is a very good Travelogue about that trip to Harvard on the Mullings website today:
Mr. Amin is 32 years old, lived in the US for eight years while he was growing up, returned to Afghanistan to fight with the Northern Alliance, and is a very impressive spokesman for his government.
In the part of the discussion which dealt with the future of Afghanistan, Mr. Amin suggested that the U.S. will have to provide long-term foreign aid for his country - which has been at war for 23 straight years - to begin to recover.
He said that the only people employed in Afghanistan are civil servants. There is a 99 percent unemployment rate.
It crystallized, for me, the enormity of the problem the leaders there face: How do you restart an economic engine in which the spark plugs have been fouled, the pistons have seized, and the fuel has long since evaporated.
On the domestic front, President Bush has proposed tougher rules on corporate executives in reporting the financial results of their companies, up to and including forfeiting bonuses if those bonuses are tied to financial performance and it is found that the books have even been heated, much less cooked.
People who have been around George W. Bush, even back in the day, know that he has very, very sensitive antennae. If he thinks someone was cozying up to him for personal gain, he shut them off.
This was true when he was helping his dad. This was true when he was running the Texas Rangers. This was true when he was Governor of Texas. And it is true today.
It has to do with being open and honest which, perhaps to a fault, this man is.
Before this is over, George W. Bush is going to make Teddy Roosevelt look like Theodore Rex was in the pocket of John D. Rockefeller.
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