Welcome Instapundit Readers! While you’re here, please check out my followup post, Obama’s Focus, not Rahm, is the Real Problem.
As one who first called for White House Chief of Rahm Emanuel’s resignation on this blog nearly a year ago (but have questioned his appointment since it was announced), I guess I should be pleased by the various left-wingers calling for his head and blaming the hyper-partisan Clinton veteran and Chicago politician for the president’s difficulties.
Memeorandum seems to have been linking stories about him (or accusations leveled against him) every day for the past week, with Rep. Eric Massa’s (D-NY) accusations the latest to lead the headlines. The New York Times magazine is running a lengthy story of the “Limits of Rahmism.“
Some of the coverage seems, well, a little bit sensationalistic, as if no men ever discussed business in the locker room before. I hate to make Rahm seem any less of an nasty partisan, but, guys do this all the time. And while we’re at it, I join Michelle in warning conservatives against trusting Massa. He seems more interested in the attention than anything else.
That said, you gotta wonder why, all of a sudden, a lot of criticism of Rahm has suddenly hit the fan. And, to be sure, there have been a number of news outlets defending him. Indeed, through Glenn Reynolds, I learn the Hill has devoted an online symposium to this very matter asking, “What does all of the chatter surrounding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel say about the White House?” Reynolds himself offers the best explanation:
Unity is easy when things are going well. Backbiting and fingerpointing start when things go badly. The leak attacks on Rahm Emanuel indicate that things are going badly.
Rahm is only to blame in that he is a hard-charging partisan political operative and not a level-headed administrator. The president needs someone with a cooler head running the day-to-day operations in the executive branch.
All the said, Rahm isn’t the only person to blame for what’s going wrong in the Obama White House. It’s just that certain folks are determined to make him the fall guy. The real question is who are they? And what do they seek to gain by attacking Rahm? (more…)