Richard Cohen in the Post on Tuesday:
"Washington is a bad marriage with monuments. Just to get through the day, it's necessary to lower voices, modulate tempers, eschew insults, voice soft lies -- compromise, compromise, compromise. Quaint parliamentary rules have their utility -- no name-calling, please, and lots of grandiloquence about the "eminent gentleman" who in actuality is a skirt chaser who needs to trim his nasal hair. It is all necessary, like the rules of war or journalistic ethics. Sans manners, nothing would get done. Even with them, precious little is accomplished."
Even in the heat of battle, little things like manners can matter a lot. I note that for Daschle's retirement speech the chamber was almost empty, with Frist coming in right at the end. For Frist, the Democrats all showed up, and he spoke to a packed house. "We don't want to be seen as petty," a Democratic aide said. "We don't want to be seen as trying to get even. We want to show some respect."
Maybe a positive harbinger of things to come.