A war of words is erupting between Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert and his fellow Illinoisan Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the new chairman of the House Democratic political operation.

Hastert, in an interview for my Monday Chicago Sun-Times column, accused Emanuel of being unduly partisan and took a shot at him for the millions of dollars he earned (about $10 million) in just three years after leaving the Clinton White House, with at least $7 million of it his salary as a Wall Street deal maker. The mention of Emanuel’s fast-tracked fortune during a discussion about Social Security made the dig personal.

The Speaker said Emanuel’s experience could be useful “if we worked on a bipartisan basis and [Emanuel] was willing to do that, instead of saying, ‘My way or the highway,’ which is what he is saying right now. We are looking for good information and good input.”

I told Hastert his comments, delivered with sarcasm, could be taken as a dig at Emanuel. Smiling, he said, “No, I would never do that. Let me be perfectly clear. ... Here is somebody with knowledge of what the real world of finance is about and what the potential is. And to deny every other young person that ability to have that same opportunity; I say, let’s work together.” Hastert also said Emanuel was “injecting” partisanship into the usually harmonious Illinois delegation.

A reminder of the back story: Hastert was reacting to Emanuel’s “winning is everything” line he used after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped him to be chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) last month. The DCCC’s goal is to elect a Democratic House majority and take the Speaker’s gavel from Hastert.

Emanuel is dishing it back. He wrote a letter to the Speaker with its own sarcastic overtones. “I welcome your invitation to help develop thoughtful solutions,” Emanuel wrote in a letter to Hastert after the column ran.

Unable to stop himself, Emanuel reminded the Speaker of his heavy-handed ways. “I am also pleased to learn of your new spirit of bipartisanship, which is a marked change from past policies of keeping the vote open for three hours on controversial measures, using the House rules to prevent alternate proposals and amendments from coming to the House floor, and withhold any vote on key pieces of legislation unless it could produce ‘a majority of the majority,’” wrote Emanuel. Those are references to Hastert controversies: when he kept a 15-minute roll call open last year so that the GOP prescription-drug bill could pass and his management philosophy of drafting legislation that first pleases the GOP majority.

 “This new policy of reaching across the partisan divide will come as a relief to many Americans who feared the Republican majority might try to ram through the president’s ill-considered plan to cut Social Security benefits and hand its future to Wall Street,” Emanuel wrote.

Emanuel offered to meet with Hastert, but the kumbaya moment will not happen.

“It’s what the Speaker was saying all along,” Hastert spokesman Pete Jeffries said. “Politics is everything for the new chairman. ... It’s obvious he is trying to make a political point here. He wasn’t in earnest trying to discuss policy.”

Emanuel wrote the letter on political letterhead after asking for and receiving guidance from the Administration Committee that he was better off not using government bond.

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