Word: hasterts
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...making an effort to smooth its often tense relations with Republicans on Capitol Hill. G.O.P. congressional aides say their White House counterparts are consulting them for the first time in five years. And Bush's speech last week touting a resurgent economy came only days after House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate majority leader Bill Frist privately implored Card and Bush counselor Dan Bartlett for more cheerleading from the White House. "Offense," says a top congressional aide. "We want him to play offense...
...news that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay had been dreading for months was brought by an aide, who interrupted DeLay's weekly lunch with Dennis Hastert in the House Speaker's office. DeLay absorbed it, and then the man widely called "the Hammer" on Capitol Hill (though rarely to his face) did what he does best: he hit back. "All right," DeLay replied. "Let's go. Let's go fight." Less than three hours later, before a roomful of reporters, DeLay addressed a Texas grand jury's charge that he and two political associates conspired to funnel...
Almost immediately, it did. A plan engineered by DeLay and Hastert to install complaisant Rules Committee chairman David Dreier as temporary majority leader was nixed by conservatives who dislike Dreier's moderate positions on stem-cell research and gay marriage. Instead the brain trust installed ambitious whip Roy Blunt, who will share some of the majority leader's duties with Dreier. The setup is so shaky that some House Republicans are pressing for the election of a new leadership team as early as January...
There are still a lot of people in city planning and engineering who are glad that Hastert spoke their innermost thoughts. "They should just move the whole city to higher ground," says UCLA's Stewart. "There's nothing you can do about the fundamental problem, which is that it's 9 ft. [on average] below sea level." Of course, Venice is also ever threatened by water, but nobody suggests just letting it sink. Postdisaster reconstruction is therefore likely to focus on strengthening the levees, but some experts in the field see that as a losing proposition in the long term...
...will go on existing. Even Hastert knows that New Orleans isn't going anywhere. In the same interview in which he expressed those doubts about the wisdom of rebuilding New Orleans, the Speaker acknowledged the human impulse to stay put. "We build Los Angeles and San Francisco on top of earthquake fissures," he said. "And they rebuild too." Then he offered an explanation: "Stubbornness...