This week, as House Republicans remain unsympathetic to any kind of deal to re-open the government, our Faheem Haider brings us an annotation of our recent history. We are reminded not just of the bright promise of a few years ago, stalled against a determined opposition, but we see in the features of our current Speaker a pragmatic face of the not-too-distant past: Bob Dole, the senate majority leader who helped bring the last government shutdown to a close—before, of course, running against President Clinton and losing.