Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s first and most important staff hire as Chief of Staff: on the wrong side of the credit crisis, but the right side for his own pocketbook. Shocking, I know. The good news about making his first pick a hyper-partisan Chicago pol with a scandalous financial past is that it does away with the whole “new politics” pretense right from the outset. Even the NYT notes that “Democrats are second-guessing one of his first and most important post-election decisions: Why is he asking Representative Rahm Emanuel – “Rahmbo,” one of the capital’s most in-your-face partisan actors – to be his chief of staff?” Obama will be coming for the GOP with the long knives, and Republicans will need to go into that with our eyes open. Washington never changes, after all; only the names change, and so far those aren’t changing much either.
Then there’s Rahm’s plan for compulsory national service. And they said Republicans were the ones plotting to bring back the draft.
On the upside, Emanuel supported the Iraq War:
On Iraq, Emanuel has steered clear of the withdraw-now crowd, preferring to criticize Bush for military failures since the 2003 invasion. “The war never had to turn out this way,” he told me at one of his campaign stops. In January 2005, when asked by Meet the Press’s Tim Russert whether he would have voted to authorize the war-“knowing that there are no weapons of mass destruction”-Emanuel answered yes. (He didn’t take office until after the vote.) “I still believe that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, okay?” he added.
If that signals Obama sobering up on Iraq now that he actually has to govern, all to the good. The nation needs the Democrats to govern responsibly. It’s not like the anti-war faction has anywhere else to go, after all.
You know, it’s easy to forget that one of Bush’s main themes was “Uniter not a Divider.” It was a huge part of his campaign message. We saw how that worked out. It’s amazing how the nation naively thought Obama would be “post-partisan” and be above politics as usual. He’s already blown his credibility on that to bits with this hire.
Somehow I suspect in 4, or possibly 8, years we again will have all forgotten Obama’s pledge to be above it all.
Bush actually was what he said he’d be. He ran in 2000 as a guy who had strong conservative economic message with respect to deregulation and cutting taxes, and traditionally conservative judges, but he also promised to reach across aisle – and reach he did. A big reason Obama won is the R base stayed home, and a big reason for that is Bush’s big spending programs, most of which were right out of the Dem’s agenda. (Federal interference in schools, entitlement expansion, immigration.) He ran on his second term as a guy who’d do what was needed to turn the worm in Iraq, and he did that too.
As for Obama – he ran as some sort of post partisan messiah who could both expand the size of the gov programs (a college education for everyone) and yet cut spending and taxes. Obviously when you promise to be a contradiction, you won’t be able to deliver. And file me as a Rahm is as much to slap around the Dems on Capital Hill as anyone else. Obama can pimp his own policies, but he doesn’t know how to get things done on Cap hill, thus Rahm.
Bush actually was what he said he’d be. He ran in 2000 as a guy who had strong conservative economic message with respect to deregulation and cutting taxes, and traditionally conservative judges, but he also promised to reach across aisle – and reach he did. A big reason Obama won is the R base stayed home, and a big reason for that is Bush’s big spending programs, most of which were right out of the Dem’s agenda. (Federal interference in schools, entitlement expansion, immigration.) He ran on his second term as a guy who’d do what was needed to turn the worm in Iraq, and he did that too.
As for Obama – he ran as some sort of post partisan messiah who could both expand the size of the gov programs (a college education for everyone) and yet cut spending and taxes. Obviously when you promise to be a contradiction, you won’t be able to deliver. And file me as a Rahm is as much to slap around the Dems on Capital Hill as anyone else. Obama can pimp his own policies, but he doesn’t know how to get things done on Cap hill, thus Rahm.
Bush sold himself as a consensus builder Republican…but even though he “won” in 2000 by Supreme Court vote, he tried to govern like he was not in a divided country. And we came together to support him after 9/11, and he betrayed that trust. He deserves to go down in history as one of the worst Presidents ever, and do so he will.
That’s good to know that at least one member of the liberal illuminati have been actively supporting the war. It gives us hope that our troops will receive their funding now.