Rahm Must Go, Continued
Turns out hyperpartisan White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was in the meeting when the language allowing for the AIG bonuses about which Democrats have been grandstanding overmuch in recent days was inserted into the “stimulus” bill”
“Right now, you get the feeling this is all about protecting [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel,” says a former Treasury Department lawyer, who worked in that department’s counsel’s office on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) before joining a D.C.-based law firm in February. “At the time, we were led to believe there were basically three or four people from the Administration at the table when the final deals were cut and one of them was Emanuel.”
“Emanuel isn’t talking” as White House officials try to pass the buck. Doesn’t sound like the Administration is doing much to follow through on the president’s recent pledge to break “a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame.“
If the president wants to live up to his campaign pledge of post-partisanship, his commitment “new kind of politics,” he needs to fire Rahm Emanuel, a man who embodies the worst excesses of that old kind of politics against which Mr. Obama ran such an effective campaign.
Not just that, as I’ve said before, given the president’s particular strengths*, he need a Chief of Staff with a different skill set, a man who can serve a kind of prime minister, effectively running the government while the president sets the broad agenda. A master of scripted eloquence, Obama needs a detail man as his right-hand man. Not a partisan gunslinger with an axe to grind.
*UPDATE: Jennifer Rubin suggests Obama might see his new job as preferring to “campaign and hold summits, leaving the governing to others.” It would then follow that he should entrust that govering to competent and dispassionate indiviuals.
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It seems to me that Rahm is exactly what Obama wants.
All that talk of bipartisanship was only campaign rhetoric. He wants to remake America into a socialist country.
During the latter part of his campaign he tried to sell himself as a moderate on the abortion issue. That too was simply a ruse.
With the cover of MSM and the strong desire of people to elect a well spoken clean black man as president of the US, he sailed into office.
His honeymoon is over, if things don’t turn around soon he may regret Rahm, right now, I think he is loving it.
Comment by Leah — March 24, 2009 @ 11:43 am - March 24, 2009
Dan, did you intend to write “If the president wants to LOVE up to his campaign pledge of post-partisanship…” because, in this day of Hope and Hype, I think love up ought to replace “live up”.
It reminds me of all those JibJab documentaries of Obama prancing around the political stage on a unicorn, spreading love with a Pride colored banner held high.
But you’re right: this Emanuel is NOT “the promised of ages”. “Open the gates before him” and let’s all “lift up our voices” to get him and TimmieTheTaxCheat tossed.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — March 24, 2009 @ 11:49 am - March 24, 2009
(Sorry, that reference may have been too obscure for the more God-challenged commenters here… it’s a famous Christian song marking the end of Lent and the Glory of Easter.)
Comment by Michigan-Matt — March 24, 2009 @ 11:51 am - March 24, 2009
oops, M-M, typo in the original draft, since fixed.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — March 24, 2009 @ 11:51 am - March 24, 2009
Nawh, Dan… it worked just fine that way. Brilliant slip of the Freudian subconscious there.
Comment by Michigan-Matt — March 24, 2009 @ 11:53 am - March 24, 2009
I think Rahm is reflecting the true Obama. The press did such a good job of hiding just who and what Obama is that I feel we can better assess this poor excuse for a president by observing those around him. He picked them because they are a reflection of whatever he really is.
Also, Dan, just what particular strengths do you think Obama has? I do not call reading well from a teleprompter a skill and besides that Obama has shown he does not even do that all that well.
Comment by Not Always Right — March 24, 2009 @ 1:19 pm - March 24, 2009
“I think Rahm is reflecting the true Obama.”
This is exactly correct. Obama is on the left of virtually every issue, usually on the extreme left. The only “moderate” feature he has is a calm, reassuring voice.
Comment by MJ — March 24, 2009 @ 2:46 pm - March 24, 2009
[...] Rahm Must Go, Continued [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » With Rahm Emanuel as Chief of StaffObama Commitment to “New Kind of Politics” Remains Hollow — March 25, 2009 @ 5:18 pm - March 25, 2009