Since at least one commenter has asked about this specifically, here are a few thoughts about what Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff means. First, it apparently means that many Obama supporters are going to freak out over an important, but not major appointment, or they are going to find themselves very disappointed to discover that Obama is, in fact, a Chicago politician who is interested in pushing his agenda rather than being the national psychotherapist they seem interested in finding.
I am not sure if the left is freaking out over this pick, but if they are, it is going to be the first of many times they lose it over Obama’s centrism. The weirdest thing about this election was listening to Democrats acting if he was the new liberal icon and Republicans attempting to pretend he was the new socialist devil. He is neither, and there was never anything in his speeches or his policies to suggest that he was. Watching Republicans try to demonize him as some wild lefty over the next few years is going to be pretty damned amusing, especially since if anything, Obama represents a competent, nonthreatening centrism.