Rahm Emanuel: Good for Partisans, Bad for America
Sometimes, when I bring White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel with conservative friends, they say they want him to stay on because his presence in the president’s office serves to sharpen the distinctions between the parties. His partisanship sets him apart from the mainstream of America and the unifying message of Obama’s fall campaign.
Democratic partisans like him because he is an unapologetic champion of their side and critic of ours. With Rahm by his side, the president will continue to steer a left-wing course, pandering to the various liberal groups eager for additional federal handouts and hoping to influence federal policy.
But, if the president replaces Emanuel with a less partisan Democrat adept at Administration and respectful of Republicans, say like former Clinton White Hous Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, he would stand a greater chance of uniting the country and succeeding as president.
The simple question is whether or not the president sees his partisan affiliation as incidental to his Administration or as its defining aspect. In the campaign, he made it sound like the former. In the past two and one-half months, he made it seem the latter.
Replacing Rahm Emanuel, a hyperpartisan gunslinger, with a dispassionate administrator, even one, like Panetta, committed to Democratic ideals, would help the president fulfill the promise of his campaign and would put my party on the spot, making it far more difficult for Republican leaders to be confrontational.
With Rahm on the job, however, we have only the promise of a confrontational policy and increased partisan warfare. And that’s not good for this great nation.
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Democratic partisans like him because he is an unapologetic champion of their side and critic of ours.
The Democrats play hardball. For them, politics is a profession — the end-all, be-all. We are more than ripe for our own.
Comment by Ignatius — March 30, 2009 @ 5:04 pm - March 30, 2009
The “policy” in the White House is being run by a cabal. Obama is the front man, but the politburo is running the agenda. This is not a Democrat v Republican debate, it is about the radical intrusion of government in managing the economy. The Obama cabal is heavily engaged in what Bill Ayres teaches as “social justice.”
The Obama cabal is not just controlling who gets the advantages, it is also making sure that those with “too much” get their fair share of disadvantages.
Rahm Emanuel is a key member of the Politburo. This is not “politics as usual.” Rahm is not going anywhere.
Unless the Democrats in Congress turn on the revolutionary committee, nothing will change. The Democrats are so intense in their gorging on power that they will burn their own house down to prove an obscure point.
Comment by heliotrope — March 30, 2009 @ 6:14 pm - March 30, 2009
[...] an era where Democrats, as one of our commenters put it, “play hardball [to whom] politics is a profession — the end-all, be-all,” we need advocates who will fight back in the same terms. Rush is such a fighter. It [...]
Pingback by GayPatriot » Of Rush Limbaugh & the Conservative “Pantheon” — March 30, 2009 @ 6:18 pm - March 30, 2009
In more of Obama’s celebrated bipartisanship, Democrats prepare scorched Earth campaign against Sarah Palin. Boy, aren’t you glad Obama moved beyond all the partisan bickering?
Comment by V the K — March 30, 2009 @ 10:41 pm - March 30, 2009
#1: “For them, politics is a profession — the end-all, be-all.”
Profession? I think you meant “religion.”
Comment by Sean A — March 30, 2009 @ 10:56 pm - March 30, 2009
Rahm holds a dual role. They need to keep Israel quiet because “those people” do have a way of honing in on the truth. Rahm is on their side, supposedly.
Rahm is also the cut throat killer, who is just as much a student of Alinsky Rules of Radicals, as is Obama. That is their game book, and they all have to be on the same page.
Comment by Libby — March 31, 2009 @ 3:15 am - March 31, 2009
#6 – Until Iran attacks Israel. Then which way will Rahmbo (and, presumably, The Snob) leap?
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 11:29 am - March 31, 2009