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Certain jobs carry very little security with them. Coach of the Washington Redskins comes to mind. So might Senate majority leader at the rate things are going. But whoever serves as director of the Congressional Budget Office definitely should not measure for drapes.

Since Republicans took over Congress in 1995, two CBO directors have served one term each. New York academic June O'Neill didn't get reappointed because GOP leaders believed she didn't understand Congress. The next director - Dan Crippen - understood Capitol Hill, having served as an aide there for years. But he spoke his mind too much and angered his bosses on a regular basis.

Now we have Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who has served four months in the job, having been appointed by congressional Republican budgeters after serving as chief economist of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Technically, he is on leave from Syracuse University, where he serves as Trustee Professor of Economics at the Maxwell School. The term "smooth economist" may sound weird, but based on an interview with National Journal Group reporters recently, the term fits Holtz-Eakin.

While Crippen was known to throw caution to the wind, Holtz-Eakin appears to test which way the wind is blowing before opening his mouth - a good trait for someone who would like to keep his job for a while. It's not as if Holtz-Eakin has not provoked controversy. He has. Under his leadership, for example, the CBO evaluated President Bush's 2004 budget using the controversial dynamic scoring method.

As this column has noted previously, dynamic scoring sounds like something Bob Dole might suggest Viagra could cause. In reality, however, it's a favorite of GOP tax-cutters because it allows them to factor in the impact tax cuts might have on the economy - and that impact, they argue will always be positive. The only problem with Holtz-Eakin's decision was that people could not tell whether the CBO evaluation supported dynamic scoring or criticized it.

That's because Holtz-Eakin believes dynamic scoring works in some cases but not in others, and that the same can be said for old-fashioned, so-called static scoring. So he doesn't believe Congress should use only one method. Ask him about whether repealing the so-called marriage penalty would help the economy, and you get a similar answer. "The marriage penalty goes both ways," he explained.

Then there's the budget process. Crippen was blunt in saying that the congressional budget process was totally kaput and needed to be overhauled. But Holtz-Eakin said, "what comes first is the political consensus and then you implement it." In other words, since you can't determine which way the political wind is blowing when it comes to the budget process, you can't overhaul the system. If you can figure out what the political goals are, you can get to work.

The new director did say he has discovered some "silly" budget rules since he joined CBO. For example, CBO must include the cost of the Iraq war supplemental in any future estimate of how much the federal government spends. The result - in simple terms - is that budget estimates will assume the cost of the war every year.

Having been on the job for only a few months, Holtz-Eakin knows he'll probably have some problems with Congress. He confirmed that he's already received his share of angry telephone calls from both Republican and Democratic members. He said he does not know the recent rocky history of CBO directors, but did confirm that he has hired a congressional liaison to "keep me out of trouble."

But the new CBO director says he firmly believes that his job is to tell members of Congress the truth, even if it's tough to swallow. Asked if he worries that congressional leaders will punish the messenger, Holtz-Eakin contends that he is fearless. "I have one deep fear and that is that my wife will hate me," he said. "Anything else I can handle."

He'd better hope so.

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