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Hastert Revealed
By Leo Kocher
With Wrestler/Coach/Teacher/Speaker of the US
House of Representatives J. Dennis Hastert what you see is what you get -
plainspoken, modest, approachable and guided by bedrock values. This is a man
who has reached the pinnacle of politics without the driving, self-serving
ambition that is so often evident in today's elected national leaders - from
both political parties.
This is no small accomplishment and if you want to understand how the
undoubtedly unpretentious Hastert rose to third in line for the Presidency I
suggest you pick up his book "Speaker". Full disclosure requires me to reveal
that I know Speaker Hastert personally and find him to be an extraordinary man.
But I am confident that pretty much anyone will find this "unpolitician's" story
refreshing and perhaps inspiring.
The book is entirely in the first person and Hastert begins with a description
of his Midwestern roots and the family environment in which he grew up. It does
not take much reading between the lines to grasp that J. Dennis Hastert learned
two important lessons when he was very young. One was how to work and the other
was how to apply that work ethic to win.
When he was eight years old Hastert was told by his dad that he would not be
getting an allowance - but he would let him care for twenty chickens and young
Dennis could keep whatever he made selling the eggs. At 30 cents a dozen this
brought in a couple bucks a week and in 1950 that had to make for one
entrepreneurial third grader.
You could almost draw a straight line from that beginning, through the 4:00 AM
one hundred mile drives to the feed mill in summers when he was sixteen, to
driving young athletes to the east coast in a school bus for wrestling camps
(and coaching his high school team to a state championship), all the way to an
amazing job leading a 435 member House of Representatives with a bare bones five
vote majority when he first became Speaker of the House. Hastert does not say
it, but it becomes apparent that he accomplished what he has because he worked
smarter- but mostly just worked harder- than the people he was up against.
My favorite part of the book was the run-up to where he was literally drafted to
be Speaker by a Republican Party in crisis. It is a riveting tale from the
perspective of a man who was surprised as anybody when (in a two hour period) he
went from preparing to leave politics - to phoning his wife Jean to ask how she
felt about their lives going through an enormous change. It is a sterling
example of how the history of this country can sometimes turn on a dime.
Besides Hastert’s personal story “Speaker” delivers some other nuggets. You get
the inside view on some interesting maneuvering in DC, and Hastert does not
worry about naming names. He has no problem calling a loud mouth a “loud mouth”,
and when in his eyes a US Vice President looked like an “idiot” Hastert says so.
The Speaker also hits on some things that really bother him – among them the
illegal bestowing of citizenships on a massive scale in order to defraud the
election process and the negligence that led to a terrible backslide in the war
against drugs after significant gains in the Reagan years. And Hastert gives his
views on policies he thinks are very important to our nation: reforming the tax
system, medical savings accounts, policies for spurring economic growth, etc.
“Speaker” does slow down for a few pages when covering the years in the Illinois
State Legislature, no doubt important formative years and experience for Hastert
but not too interesting to the average reader. But outside of that the book
rewards the reader with a pretty good story. I would recommend reading the words
of this national leader who still considers himself wrestling’s own. Next time
you see him at a tournament you can tell him you read his book – and you will
both be aware that he is looking at someone who knows him fairly well.
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