Washington ? With Congress on its August break, it is possible to step back and note the distinguishing features of this session. The record of legislative achievement is decidedly mixed with notable successes in response to the terrorist attacks and notable failures on matters from prescription drug benefits to budgetary discipline.

The mixed record is what one might expect, given the narrowness of the party majorities and the division between a Republican House of Representatives and a Democratic Senate.

What is truly distinctive about the performance this year is the remarkable strength of the majority leadership on both sides of the Capitol and the degree of discipline and cohesion displayed by House Republicans and Senate Democrats.

The leaders on the two sides House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are not known for employing strong-arm tactics. Both are soft-spoken and affable, seekers of consensus and preachers of teamwork. But they have had notable success in keeping their diverse flocks working and voting together on major policy initiatives.

They have faced different challenges and have used different tactics. Once Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords shed his Republican label in the middle of 2001 and dubbed himself an Independent, thus making Daschle the new majority leader, Hastert became President Bush’s principal agent on Capitol Hill. Time after time, Hastert and the House Republicans have voted first on administration bills, thus setting a marker the White House can use in its negotiations with the Senate.

Hastert enjoys having the leverage of a popular president, who has been willing to buttonhole members personally for support of administration bills. But the situation inevitably limits Hastert’s maneuvering room meaning he cannot negotiate compromises that deviate very far from the White House policy line.

Still, compromises are often necessary. While the House Republican membership is overwhelmingly conservative sometimes to the right of Bush Hastert needs most of the 15 to 20 moderate Republicans to go along if the bills are not to be defeated on the floor.

Democrats would have you believe that it is the House Republican Whip, Tom DeLay of Texas, who bullies these New England and Upper Midwest Republicans into line. Certainly DeLay knows his business and is an excellent vote-counter. But my impression is that it is the affection and loyalty that Hastert commands that really keep the moderates from jumping ship on key issues.

Daschle’s situation is quite different, and his tactics are therefore dissimilar. He is very much on his own, an exposed target for White House charges of being an “obstructionist.” His one-vote majority is even tinier than the narrow margin for error Hastert confronts.

While most of his fellow Democrats share his general liberal disposition on issues, the differences among them are enormous. The ideological gap from Paul Wellstone of Minnesota to Zell Miller of Georgia is one that could stretch Daschle into a contortionist. And his problems are compounded by two facts of Senate life: Any single senator can throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings by exploiting its arcane rules. And passage of most controversial measures requires 60 votes, meaning that Daschle has not only to unite the Democrats but lure 10 votes from the Republican side as well.

Yet he does so with some frequency. He does it because he is a patient listener, absorbing variant views and seeing where consensus is possible. And he has shown an exquisite sense of political timing, postponing issues when the climate of public opinion is hostile to his purpose, and prodding committee chairmen to strike quickly when the time is right.

While Hastert has happily let the president serve as the spokesman/salesman for the Republican agenda, Daschle has accepted and largely mastered a second role as the chief Democratic spokesman on television and in print.

The quality of the leadership in both chambers would be a national asset, if only both Hastert and Daschle were pulling in the same direction. Since the early days after 9-11, when the first counter-terrorism bills were being rushed through Congress, there has been almost no productive communication between them. Each is focused on his own chamber and, mightily, on protecting his own party’s majority in the coming election.

Neither one wants to go back to the minority status he knew all too well earlier in his career. So partisanship drives much of the daily agenda as it does for this whole Congress.