The president's newest power player

At a recent speech in Peoria, Joe Biden said something very revealing.

During the annual Partners in Peace Celebration on Tuesday, Biden said [Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood was Barack Obama's first choice for an appointment out of all the Cabinet positions he needed to fill.

"I remember my saying, 'Isn't he Republican?'" Biden said. "Which goes to show you, this is an all-Illinois team."

"He is the star of the Cabinet and he is the reason, he is the reason more than anyone else, why this Recovery Act is actually working, saving people's jobs, rebuilding infrastructure," Biden said. "He's a hands-on guy. There isn't anything, any detail, too small to attend to. And that's the way it gets done.

BIden has been known to exaggerate, but on this he's completely accurate. Ray LaHood's name seems everywhere lately. Most recently, he led the government's crusade against Toyota for allegedly dangerous defects and worked with the EPA to issue new greenhouse gas emission standards for cars. Prior to LaHood, the Department of Transportation was viewed as relatively unimportant, especially compared to the Pentagon or State Department. But this administration has made going green one of its top priorities, and that means getting people out of their cars. As LaHood forthrightly said of his collaboration with the EPA, "It is a way to coerce people out of their cars."

LaHood is a Republican, as Obama never tires of mentioning, but a very moderate one. A former congressman from Illinois, he refused to support George W. Bush's tax cuts and led a crusade against the death penalty. He also gained a reputation as one of the worst porkers and patronage men in Congress. The Club for Growth gave him a 0% rating for 2007 and Citizens Against Government Waste awarded him an 11% rating. Tellingly, LaHood was one of three congressional Republican candidates who didn't sign the Contract for America in 1994, one of the main designs of which was to curb excessive spending in government.

This wasteful fiscal liberal is now presiding over stimulus grants, which he's awarding largely to clean energy projects and bike paths. There's a reason the Amtrak-loving Biden praised LaHood so lavishly. LaHood's aim has been to promote and fund public transportation, particularly rail projects, at the expense of private car ownership. His campaign against Toyota led Rush Limbaugh to remark that LaHood was behaving like "one of the brand managers" for GM, which is now owned by the government.

Indeed, in a cabinet dominated by big names like Hillary Clinton and Tim Geithner, LaHood has probably been the biggest showboater. He's also been one of the most dangerous radicals.