Anatomy of a Circle Jerk
This:
“I would bet he will go after the midterms,” said a leading Democratic consultant in Washington. “Nobody thinks it’s working but they can’t get rid of him – that would look awful. He needs the right sort of job to go to but the consensus is he’ll go.”
An official from the Bill Clinton era said that “no one will be surprised” if Mr Emanuel left after the midterm elections in November [..]
is all it takes to get this:
Not every one of those 562 pieces are about Rahm quitting, but the NY Post, Daily News, Fox News and even Haaretz took the bait.
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Pundits write for the people who read them. Their most dedicated readers are other pundits, who then rewrite (or occasionally rebut).
echoechoechoechoechoecho…
Yet another unsourced leak about the Obama administration that turned out to be someone who’s not even in the administration talking out of their ass. Good times. Good times.
I don’t like Rahm, I think he is just as much an enemy of liberal legislation as Republicans are. But this is bullshit. All this says is that the gossip around certain undefined DC circles is anti-Rahm too. Only Obama or Emanuel can decide that he will go, so any other source only knows a little more than I do.
edited to add: If he was really going to go, the time would have been right after health care passed when he could have announced for the Illinois Senate seat. He would have been a better candidate than Giannoulias and the job would have been high-profile enough for his ego.
How about a job for Rahm at the RNC? Rahm seems a natural. Time to replace Steele and who better to enforce Republican values and conservatism than Rahm. we’ll be so glad to see you go; we could use a middle-class recovery.
Apple rumor sites have more accuracy and integrity.
My crystal ball is on the blink today but I don’t see Rahm in any trouble with his boss. Everybody knew from the get-go that he was somewhat of an attack dog. Somebody thought that was needed. And he might be needed.
Nothing lasts forever and he will eventually go on to do something else. And probably do it very well.
And he will still be cute. :-)
Chiefs of Staff generally don’t serve more than a couple of years. Bush I had three in one term. Clinton had four over two terms.
Somebody surely has noticed this and decided that telling a reporter that his side is gonna force Rahm out will make them look better and stronger when he does inevitably quit.
Jane Hamsher taking credit for “forcing” Rahm out to part some more fools from their money with her $50k “fund drive” coming in 5….4….3…..
@MikeJ:
Indeed this is normal, but with Obama it will mean the toppling of his presidency.
All I have to say is that no one should be salivating at this “news”, and then act disappointed when the replacement isn’t a certified Liberal hero like Howard Dean. I actually like Rahm. The fear and loathing he inspires is hilarious.
Wait, so there are rumors that an occupant of a historically high-turnover job might be considering leaving? I’m shocked.
dms
this is all because obama hates israel.
@Linda Featheringill: Know whatcha mean: I’ve always been a sucker for intensity.
My first husband was half Sicilian and half Romanian.
I think this is why pundits make so many predictions; it’s like throwing a zillion darts at a dartboard.
Surely the whitey tape will be released soon as well.
Well, if you can’t trust the Telegraph quoting unnamed insiders, who can you trust.
And though I’m not a fan of Rahm myself, at my most pissy I wouldn’t dream of saying something hallucinatory like this:
There’s a difference between arguing whether this or that approach would have helped more or gotten a better result than what happened, but what unnamed, delusional ‘source’ could possibly think that some godlike leader could be appointed to make Republicans help things go smoothly and make conservative Democrats go along with an agenda they hated?
This almost sounds like they fished around for people who just didn’t have the vicious quotes they were looking for, and the best they could come up with was someone muttering that Moses didn’t come down and part the waters and make all Democrats act together in lockstep.
@El Cid: I wondering if the Democratic consultant who asked not to be named also thinks caucuses don’t count, states with too many black people don’t count, votes taken during full moons don’t count…
Thank God for those unnamed sources of political has-beens, if it weren’t for them and Sarah Palin’s tweets we wouldn’t know what was going on in the capital or in Real America. Certainly guardians of our democracy such as Rush are doing a heroic job filling in the gaps in propaganda left by the breathless awe the Village has for the aforementioned leading lights with their fingers to the pulse of our nation (which elected Obama by the widest margins for a non-incumbent in half a century).
Sarah Palin (R-Former Gov of Hooters) is also out bashing Rahm as a liar. I expect Jane “I’m not at all working with Wingnuts” Hamsher to chime in before the day is out.
@Kirk Spencer: Don’t know if you saw this in yesterday’s NY Times.
The following quote stood out:
@Linda Featheringill:
I truly hope that you are being facetious.
Thank you Joe Sestak!
Here’s what’s going to happen, Hillary and Rahm switch jobs after the midterms, Rahm replaces Biden on the ticket in 2012, then Rahm heads up the Dem ticket in 2016. At least I hope so.
@WereBear:
“My first husband was half Sicilian and half Romanian.”
Did his parents meet in Europe or were they already in the US? I have noticed that a lot of combinations that one finds in the US are actually very rare in the Old Country.
[and he must have been a force to be reckoned with!]
@Tone in DC:
“I truly hope that you are being facetious.”
Why? You and I can probably agree on lots of other things.
@eemom: That picture of MoDo’s bored-to-tears personal assistant at the Prop 8 trail wasn’t good enough for you? ;-)
What happens if it’s true, Rahm leaves, and nothing changes?
Then whom do we blame? Who’s the new Dr. Evil?
OT, I looked at Ha’aretz and found an article about
Exactly what he has been saying for weeks, against the opinion of all other nations. /snark
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@Davis X. Machina:
oh, anyone in the administration that is NOT a card carrying progressive will be the next Dr. Evil
aye, but does he have a reason to stay?
If Rahm goes, then hopefully someone worse will not replace him. Obama has had a moderately successful 18 months in office, but the Democratic party may take a beating this fall.
This despite an opposition party with nothing to offer except obstruction, vituperative rhetoric and increasingly obvious racism.
Don’t be badmouthing obstruction, vituperation, and racism. This isn’t an ordinary opposition party — this is an opposition party in whose hands scapegoat can be cooked so well that it tastes just as good as a job.
And scapegoat, not chicken, is America’s favorite white meat.
Uh, are any unnamed sources talking about Ken Salazar leaving? Please tell me yes.
My favorite combination like that I’m aware of is a girl I know who is half Ukrainian, one quarter Cuban and one quarter Finnish. Unless she gets a sibling, I suspect she’s the only one of those in the world.
Rahm already said months ago that he wasn’t staying 4 years so why is this “news”?
@LD50:
We know two Coptic Egyptian brothers who live in NJ, one of whom is married to a Korean and the other to a Brazilian. Fortunately, everyone speaks English.
@Linda Featheringill:
Because if you deviate from what he or she likes it will be the end of civility.
@Nellcote:
Because someone wants to be declared a genius by his/her fellow pundits by pretending that Rahm doing something after saying he’s going to do it is some kind of scoop.
Can anyone explain why the commenets now all run out foever towards the right side of the page on my computer?
Nothing new, of course: if you control the “debate” you control the “news cycle,” and what the Great Collective Obnoxious of the Heartland thinks is “reality.”
And by now Memeorandum is stuffed to overflowing with reflexive and counter-reflexive bloviating.
Just one problem with minting your own “reality” …
Do it long enough, and you don’t have any fucking clue as to what “reality” actually is.
And the Flintstones become a documentary. (to borrow Lewis Black’s line).
Or, you’ve been taught that semi-trucks are figments of the fever dreams of Liberal propaganda and the “Main Stream Media” for so long that when a Wal-Mart truck splatters your carcass all over Route 66, nobody is more surprised than you.
Why, had you known, you’d have taken precautions. Because that’s how you roll. (Or formerly rolled.)
@lawguy:
All I can tell you is that everyone who complains about it seems to be using IE, so I would guess that it’s a browser failure to render the page correctly. I have never seen the problem in Firefox.
Shouldn’t this have the “Show Me on the Doll Where Rahm Touched You” tag?
I never understood why so many blogger hate Rahm. How did he become teh boogie-man, even before he was appointed chief of staff?
@Mike Kay:
I’ve particularly never understood how he became the boogieman in the eyes of Hillary Clinton fans — given that he was a key part of the Clinton era.
@LD50:
This has blown my mind.
Is she 6’3″ with perfect skin and a tude that would make a NJ shopgirl blush?