Shared by bjohnsme
I'm probably tainted from watching too much Deadwood, but I would love to read a book of heated interactions in Washington. Back in the day Congress was a bit more violent, with Charles Sumner nearly being beaten to death in the Senate over some folks trying to void the Missouri Compromise. Everybody knows about Hamilton ending up on the losing side of a duel as well. I'm sure there's a ton of others.

Sounds like it still gets pretty heated...

Thursday’s shouting match between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and lawmakers on the Joint Economic Committee raised eyebrows but Mr. Geithner isn’t the first Treasury Secretary to find himself publicly sparring with a Senator.

In 2002, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill got into a tense, emotional exchange with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd over, of all things, which of them grew up in a ditch.

The volley began when Mr. Byrd suggested that Mr. O’Neill, who had come to Treasury from aluminum giant Alcoa Inc., was not looking out for the interests of those less well-off.

Mr. O’Neill, his voice trembling, took issue with the “inference” in Mr. Byrd’s statement and said “”Senator, I started my life in a house without water or electricity, so I don’t cede to you the moral high ground of what life is like in a ditch.”

Mr. Byrd countered with his own poor upbringing, saying: “Well, Mr. Secretary, I lived in a house without electricity, too. No running water, no telephone, a little wooden outhouse.”

“I had the same,” Mr. O’Neill interrupted Mr. Byrd to say.

“I haven’t walked in any corporate boardrooms,” Mr. Byrd retorted. “I grew up in a coal miner’s house. I married a coal miner’s daughter. So I hope you don’t want to start down this road.”

Mr. Geithner may want to avoid comparisons to Mr. O’Neill, who was pushed out of office before the end of President Bush’s first term.