Leavitt breezes through hearing

WASHINGTON — Most people have to die for so many people to say so many nice things about them.

But most people, it turns out, aren't former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who breezed through a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) with both sides of the aisle lavishing praise on President Bush's nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

"As a former governor, he knows how HHS works and doesn't work," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., the ranking Democrat on the committee. "Everyone who knows him respects his intelligence, his high energy and his experience as a manager and problem solver."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a member of the committee usually saddled with leadership responsibilities, showed up with words of praise and encouragement, pledging the Senate will work with the White House to "reach meaningful solutions to many of the challenges before us, securing a freer, safer and healthier future for generations of Americans to come."

In all, the two-hour hearing breezed through with scarcely a grumble, let alone a tough question.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a committee member who with Utah's other Republican Sen. Bob Bennett introduced Leavitt, predicted things could get tougher today when Leavitt goes before the Finance Committee for a second round of hearings.

The Finance Committee is, as Hatch puts it, "where the money is," and senators are going to want to know how Leavitt intends to spend — or where he is willing to cut — the $580 billion HHS budget.

Additional information Senate hearing: Mike Leavitt's opening statement

The absence of political sniping clearly pleased Hatch, who joked, "I made it clear (to his colleagues on the committee) I am ready to kill" over the nomination. "No, really, everyone has tremendous respect for Gov. Leavitt."

Kennedy told Hatch before the hearing started that Democrats would not oppose the nomination. But Hatch appeared gratified by the praise from Kennedy and Sen. Christopher Dodd, a liberal Connecticut Democrat married to a Utahn who calls himself Utah's third senator.

Leavitt, who has spent weeks preparing for the nomination hearings, appeared comfortable and knowledgeable, shifting frequently to a barrage of questions running the gamut from affordable child care for single moms to reforms in the Food and Drug Administration.

He peppered his comments with all the right statements, although some of it smacked of good coaching, particularly when he did not know the answer to a question regarding some obscure program among the hundreds administered by HHS.