According to ABC news, liberalism’s greatest villain, Rahm Emanuel, is planning to leave the administration this week. Prepare for a few days of media wanking about “what this all means.”
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by John Cole| 56 Comments
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter, Election 2010
According to ABC news, liberalism’s greatest villain, Rahm Emanuel, is planning to leave the administration this week. Prepare for a few days of media wanking about “what this all means.”
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Napoleon
Good riddance. It can not bear repeating enough, this is a guy who saw the greatest achievement of the Clinton WH as being NAFTA.
That said what odd timing. Why not wait until right after the election?
Maxwel
What will he run as, D or R?
Ash Can
What does it mean? It means he wants Richie’s job, but you’re right — the professional wankers will spin it every which way but correctly.
General Stuck
cool title
Hugin & Munin
Wait, because he’s liberalisms best friend.
C’mon, I recognize that the criticism of Rahm gets over the top, but let’s not pretend that he is anything other than a centrist and a corporatist who would skullfuck a nun to win power.
I mean really, John, is Rahm your bestest buddy or is he someone who could be replaced by mo’ bettah dems? You tell me.
Peter J
* Obviously he finally figured it out, Obama is a secret Muslim.
Peter J
Weirdest WP error. Why is my last comment in bold? Is it because WP knows the Truth(tm)?
lol
@Napoleon:
The timing isn’t odd at all. The filing deadline for mayor is November 22nd (< 2 months) and the primary is February 22nd. (< 5 months) He needs to leave yesterday to get his campaign up and running.
Leaving now also deflates the "Are DemocRATS fleeing the sinking ship Obama?" storyline if he leaves well beforehand.
Peter J
Instead we’ll get the “DemocRATS are demoralized” storyline.
Napoleon
@lol:
I didn’t know about your first point, which makes it sensible to start on the campaign ASAP.
The second point occurred to me and there is certainly something to that logic.
calling all toasters
I’m not going to interpret, just celebrate. Until he’s replaced by David Boren, that is.
JCT
Goodness, does Christine McDonnell know?
August J. Pollak
Because there’s nothing out of the ordinary or worthy of inquiry about the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States abruptly leaving immediately five weeks before a national election?
lacp
I never could make sense of all the focus on Rahm Emanuel; he’s hired help. Dubyuh had two chiefs of staff – anybody remember the name of either one of them?
Winston Smith
I think it means that he wants to run for Mayor of Chicago.
John Cole
@August J. Pollak: Read comment #8.
General Stuck
@John Cole:
It’s a plot/pro left
Joe Beese
All you need to know about what a POS the health “reform” bill is: Axelrod is desperately trying to dump responsibility for it onto Emanuel before the exit polls show how it helped the Democrats lose the House of Representatives.
JWL
“Liberalism’s greatest villain”? Rubbish.
He’s just another republican, albeit one who styles himself a “pragmatic” democrat.
Which is why that party is such a fucking joke.
beltane
What does it all mean? It means that certain people will have to find a new villain to star in their drama. It shouldn’t be hard.
valdivia
oh boy I see it’s going to be one of those days. Better bring out the doll so everyone can point at it and get the Rahm accusations done early in the thread….
Winston Smith
@lacp:
Bert and Ernie?
Michael
The firebaggotry/fake liberal sockpuppetry is already strong on this thread.
Xantar
Clearly Rahm sold us out by leaving at a time when Democrats need him most!
(The above was snark. I’m saying this because I’m pretty sure someone is going to say the same thing I did but actually mean it.)
geg6
@August J. Pollak:
No, not really. Not when the CoS’s heart’s desire is to win the Chicago mayoralty and then weasel his way back into the House to become Majority/Minority Leader in order to wrestle the title of History’s Greatest Monster from Jimmy Carter. If Rahm doesn’t go for it within the next couple of weeks, that ain’t gonna happen if you take a look at the timetable.
geg6
@Joe Beese:
LOL. Damn, you’re hilarious the last few days. Give it up, dude.
Peter J
@lacp:
I remember one of them, Andrew Card, the guy who interrupted Bush Jr’s reading of ‘My Pet Goat’.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Peter J: Andy’s the one I remember off-hand, as well. WhoTF was the other one, anyway?
Ash Can
@valdivia: My favorite part will be when the professional wankers start handicapping the mayoral race and demonstrate for all the world to see that they know absolutely nothing about Chicago city politics. Then I’ll really start pointing and laughing.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Winston Smith: Win.
lacp
@Peter J: As Jonah Goldberg might say, “This is central to my point.” In Dubyuh, the USA had a president who even a lot of his supporters thought was a boob – but nobody thought he was a puppet of his chief of staff, or that his chief of staff made decisions for him. Why in the world would anyone think that Emanuel is some heavy-duty independent operator?
Peter J
Wikipedia says Joshua Bolten. WhoTF indeed.
Peter J
@lacp: Darth Cheney wouldn’t allow anyone else to play with his puppet.
valdivia
@Ash Can:
yep. But can we laugh now please?
Also: the minute Daley said he was not running again the people who know Chicago politics said Rahm would leave. Why is this a mystery now?
Comrade Javamanphil
The fact that most people that care about politics know Rahm is Obama’s chief of staff is already a pretty big warning sign that he was not great at this job. As mentioned, that position should be hired help. They should remain behind the scenes doing the dirty work and protecting the boss from the shitstorm. Perhaps Rahm did some of the former but he obviously did not do enough of the latter. As an example: somebody should be berating Democrats/progressives/firebaggers to get over it and get to the polls (Remember the “no difference between Gore/Bush” argument?) but it sure has hell shouldn’t be Obama.
gibsojj
So Mr President, how’s about we find someone with tact this time?
ruemara
@Comrade Javamanphil:
I wouldn’t know whotf Rahm was without firebaggers. What pisses me off is, I still have no proof why I should care about Rahm. Nothing they’ve ever said about him is more than speculation and “corporatist” hate. Who gives a fuck? Aren’t there issues that would be better served with your focus. God, this whole Rahm fixation is stupid considering how may conservatives would be thrilled to take away the little you got.
apostropher
On CNN, Paul Begala said that Obama is “losing his right arm.” What this implies for a left-handed president is an exercise left to the viewer.
valdivia
@apostropher:
lol
El Tiburon
Save the DRahma for Your Obama.
Thank you, will be here all week.
Michael
@apostropher:
Nice. Almost too subtle for winning the intertubes for today, but I think I’ll give it the nod and grant you the trophy.
wilfred
Oh, dear. Rahm is just another Sammy Glick, John , no more, no less – this is liberalism’s greatest villain, or its latest incarnation:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/soldier-describes-murder-of-afghan-for-sport-in-leaked-tape/?hpw
We kill them for our sport…Where did I hear that first?
General Stuck
Ot
In other Capital News, President Demint pulls out his veto pen.
Swell
Mnemosyne
I’m not sure that non-Chicagoans understand how huge it was for Richie Daley to announce that he was not going to run for mayor again. Daley’s father died in office — literally at his desk, IIRC. Harold Washington did, too, which makes it kind of a tradition for Chicago mayors to hang onto the position until they croak. Daley was already being referred to as “Mayor for Life.” No Democrat was going to challenge that, and no Republican will ever (ever!) win over a Democrat in the city of Chicago.
Now Daley is giving up the office voluntarily. There are a whole lot of people who have their eye on that job, and Emanuel has never concealed that he’s one of them. If he wants to run, he has to skedaddle back to the city now, and now may be a little too late.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@apostropher: It means he’ll only be able to do layups from one side. But he’ll still kick Agent Orange’s ass.
Allison W.
@Comrade Javamanphil:
No, its not. If you care about and follow politics, you are going to know who works for the president – period. You are going to know of a lot of people that the average person does not. That you know of Rahm does not indicate he was not good at his job. Only Obama can tell you if he was good at his job or not.
Allison W.
Marc Ambinder thinks the new guy is going to be Peter Rouse and wrote a few things about him on his blog. Ambinder points out that he doesn’t like to kiss the press’s butt – so we know how that’s going to turn out.
valdivia
@Allison W.:
isn’t Rouse from Alaska or something? The guy the Palinites say is in a conspiracy to smear her?
I think he is the one that came from Daschle’s office, solid policy guy.
The Other Chuck
@Napoleon:
Throwing a bone to the “professional left” in order to GOTV?
The “Black Jimmy Carter” tag is an interesting juxtaposition — Carter had no Chief of Staff.
Bob L
@The Other Chuck
Proves Obama has completed his transformation into the next Jimmy Carter. Now all does Obama has to do is give away the Panama Canal, have a failed hostage rescue attempt and be attacked by a rabbit.
Just Some Fuckhead
Ah yes, more reflexive Rahm defensiveness. What’s up with that? Seriously?
FlipYrWhig
@ruemara:
AFAIK, the chief reason you’re supposed to hate him because when he was heading the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee he favored wealthier, more centrist/conservative candidates, like — I had to look this up — Tammy Duckworth over Christine Cegelis in IL-6 in 2006. He seems to have supported the idea of targeting fewer races and dumping more money into them, whereas Dean supported the idea of targeting more races and spreading the money more widely/thinly. So it’s mostly that the blogs came of age by being associated with Dean and the “50 State Strategy,” which Emanuel opposed.
Of course, over time, as tends to happen, this difference of strategy started to get remembered as a difference of ideology, and thus Emanuel is also blamed for Blue Doggery, even though the 50 State Strategy brought in a number of Blue Dogs too, because that’s what you get when you run Democrats in hostile territory.
He was also known as someone who pioneered the idea of raising a lot of money from wealthier donors to support the Democrats, which is where that “corporatist” insult comes from.
Bill E Pilgrim
Having to change out your RAHM after a couple of years isn’t that unusual.
Thanks, remember to tip your veal, and try the, er, never mind.
AxelFoley
There’s gonna be a lot of “progressives” showing us places on dolls where Rahm touched them this week.
joe from Lowell
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Punch
Punch
Punch
Punch
Punch
Punch
Punch
Punch
Kick
Punch
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Punch
Punch
Punch
…Hey, why are you so defensive? What’s UP with that?
AxelFoley
@Joe Beese:
Lol, ninja please.