“I appreciate sharing the stage with Denny Hastert,” President Bush said Monday, in Chicago for a speech, the GOP Speaker of the House from Illinois by his side.

“He is an excellent Speaker of the House. He is dependable, reliable, smart, capable. Do you realize that he will have served, come June 1, longer than any other Republican Speaker in our nation’s history? And the reason why, he knows what he’s doing.”

As Bush — and the front page of Tuesday’s edition of The Hill — noted, Hastert sets a record June 1 when he becomes the longest-serving GOP speaker, surpassing the previous record held by another Illinoisan, Joseph G. “Uncle Joe” Cannon, who served from Nov. 9, 1903, until his successor was elected April 4, 1911.

Note that it’s the GOP record here — Democratic Texan Sam Rayburn is the longest-serving Speaker in House history, with three stints — between 1940 and 1947, for two years starting in 1949 and then again for a term in 1955.

Hastert’s office is downplaying the milestone until he hits it, but I have a sense it is important to the Speaker to be recognized. He’s kept a restless and sometimes divided caucus in the majority all these years, in part because of his willingness to travel the country as a relentless fundraiser for his conference.

I surmise that John Dennis Hastert (everyone calls him Denny), 64, first elected to the House in 1986, will step down after one more term, no matter the party in control after the 2006 midterm elections. If there is a GOP president after the 2009 vote, I could see Hastert, who has traveled the world, as an ambassador to Japan.

I well remember the day the speakership was thrust on Hastert, Dec. 19, 1998, a Saturday when House members headed to the chamber to vote on impeaching then-President Bill Clinton. But before the impeachment vote, after a six-hour blitz, Hastert locked in the votes to be Speaker as the day delivered stunning surprise news: The man tapped to follow Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), announced from the House floor that he was resigning, realizing that an affair he was carrying on was becoming public.

Since then, Hastert has beat the rap that he was the “Accidential Speaker,” installed by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Hastert will outlast his friend, as DeLay, facing an indictment in Texas, has decided to quit the House on June 9.

Hastert’s style is to fix a mistake as soon as it happens, and one misstep of his was an attempt to help DeLay by changing the GOP conference rules to allow a leader to stay on the job, even if indicted. Hastert retreated after it was clear the move was controversial within his own ranks.

The low point for Hastert during these years was in 2000, an ugly controversy over the selection of the House chaplain, which Hastert writes about extensively in his memoir, Speaker, published in 2004.

His biggest legislative victory is probably getting the Medicare Part D prescription-drug plan passed in 2003 — by exerting his muscle, breaking regular order and keeping the vote open for hours in an all-night session until he scored enough points to get the goal.

That’s a reason why Hastert, a former high school wrestling coach, is The Coach.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it