Rahm is on Charlie Rose for the full hour. Rahm comes across as fairly likable so far, but, then again, everyone does when they’re next to Charlie Rose.
On the other hand, he doesn’t speak very well. He’s lucky he’s white.
by DougJ| 44 Comments
This post is in: Good News For Conservatives, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
Rahm is on Charlie Rose for the full hour. Rahm comes across as fairly likable so far, but, then again, everyone does when they’re next to Charlie Rose.
On the other hand, he doesn’t speak very well. He’s lucky he’s white.
by John Cole| 81 Comments
This post is in: Manic Progressive, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
Chris Bowers dissects Ben Smith’s assertion that the passage of HCR will vindicate Rahm:
The last tow months clearly followed Andy Stern’s recommendation, not Rahm Emanuel’s. Or really, everyone’s advice except Rahm Emanuel’s:
Senior Congressional aides said that lawmakers and the White House were increasingly focused on a plan by which the House would adopt the health care bill approved by the Senate on Dec. 24, with any changes made in a separate bill using the budget reconciliation maneuver.
Instead of scrapping the Senate health care bill and passing something stripped down, Congress is moving to pass the Senate health reform bill with improvements through the reconciliation process. Which is what almost everyone except Rahm Emanuel wanted.
It beats me how someone can have the exact opposite of his recommended path forward come to pass, and still be vindicated. Emanuel wanted to water down the Senate bill further, but instead it will be getting stronger through the reconciliation process as progressives were demanding. Yeah, Emanuel really paved the way forward after the Massachusetts debacle.
And that is why I continue to wonder why most everyone on the progressive left keeps freaking out about Rahm. He is the chief of staff, not the President. He offers his input, and as his been pointed out repeatedly, the President then makes his own decision. On some issues I am sure he agrees with him. On many others, it is clear he does not.
It is like there is no middle ground- either you think Rahm is the master of the universe or Satan incarnate, and if you point this out, you get accused of being a “Rahm defender.” Maybe he’s just the Chief of Staff and he works at the will and pleasure of President Obama?
Then Why Are We Spending So Much Time Focusing On Him?Post + Comments (81)
by DougJ| 54 Comments
This post is in: Good News For Conservatives, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
I don’t understand the fascination with Rahm Emanuel, why he’s so evil, why he’s so good, why he’s a genius, why he’s an idiot, why he’s sexual napalm to the DC press corps. He was a decent (but not great) leader of the DCCC, he’s been involved with the HCR bill, which has gone fine (better than I thought it would) but not great. He seems like kind of an asshole and I don’t like his buddies mouthing off to Dana Milbank, but it’s not like he’s waterboarding people and shooting his friends in the face.
The articles about him are coming so fast and furious that I can’t keep track of them. There was one in the Times Sunday magazine today, but I feel like people were talking about it days ago. The article is fine, focusing mostly on substance, but it also has some “Rahm looks worn out when I see him in the gym” type stuff.
I think in a way that’s good, because we could just as easily be reading “Obama looks worn out when I see him in the gym” type stuff. When Clinton was president, we were treated to endless articles about his psychological state, his Hamlet-like indecision, his temper, his betrayal of hippies and so on. I think that hurt his image in the end. If all that stupid armchair psychologizing focuses on Rahm instead of Obama, that probably helps Obama’s image to some extent.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 164 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Democratic Stupidity, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
If the mighty Rahmbama was able to eject Massa from Congress, how did he miss the continued existence of Dennis Kucinich, who’s done little but bitch and obstruct for his 7 terms in Congress:
In fact, according to the Web site GovTrack, of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn’t even make it out of committee.
The three that were enacted are, in chronological order from first to last: bill “to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program ‘Window on America,'” a bill “to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the ‘John P. Gallagher Post Office Building” and a bill “proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously.” (via Kos)
Unlike Massa, who was the best Democrats are going to get in a R+5 district, Kucinich lives in a D+8 district where a well-financed Democrat would probably win the general. Yet he’s coasted to more than a decade of easy wins.
Kucinich is the Ron Paul of the Democratic Party: a useless, one-man purity squad. In Paul’s defense, the whole point of being a libertarian Congressman is to accomplish nothing. Kucinich doesn’t have that excuse.
by John Cole| 87 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Democratic Stupidity, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
He’s really decided to go down with the ship out with a bang, hasn’t he? All sorts of groping allegations. Someone should get him in touch with that Ashburn fellow from California.
Does anyone have a report from the Glenn Beck meltdown? I saw some people tweeting about it, but refused to watch.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 131 Comments
This post is in: First Posts, Politics, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
Thanks to John and my friend DougJ, I’m going to be posting my barely literate musings here. I’ll write a little more about myself in a later post, but I want to start with one of the strangest things I’ve heard in, well, perhaps forever.
Eric Massa, my Congressman for about 12 more hours, had his Dick Nixon 1962 moment yesterday on a radio show he co-hosts on Sundays (audio here). Highlights:
The incident that Massa believes sparked the investigation happened at a wedding reception for one of his staff members. When being razzed about possibly banging one of the bridesmaids he had just danced with, Massa “tousled the hair” of one of his male staffers and said “What I really ought to be doing is fucking you.”
It’s a strange end to a promising career, but those of us who have been watching him over the years always knew he had something like this in him.
Update: Just to be clear, by “always had something like this in him”, I meant a crazypants rant, not the harassment stuff.
This post is in: Politics, Show Me On the Doll Where Rahm Touched You
Glenn, in a piece I otherwise agree with, updates with this:
One related point about the spate of “Obama-should-have-followed-Rahm’s-centrist-advice” articles that have appeared of late: if you really think about it, it’s quite extraordinary to watch a Chief of Staff openly undermine the President by spawning numerous stories claiming that the President is failing because he’s been repeatedly rejecting his Chief of Staff’s advice. It seems to me there’s one of two possible explanations for this episode: (1) Rahm wants to protect his reputation at Obama’s expense by making clear he’s been opposed all along to Obama’s decisions, a treacherous act that ought to infuriate Obama to the point of firing him; or (2) these stories are being disseminated with Obama’s consent as a means of apologizing to official Washington for not having been centrist enough and vowing to be even more centrist in the future by listening more to Rahm (we know that what we did wrong was not listen enough to Rahm). One can only speculate about which it is, but if I had to bet, my money would be on (2) (because of things like this and because these “Rahm-Was-Right” stories went on for weeks and Rahm is still very much around).
I think you’d have to be nuts to think Rahm is behind the recent “Rahm was right” stories. It may be “friends” of Rahm who think they are doing Rahm a favor, or it may be folks in Washington playing their own political games, but no Chief of Staff in their right mind would be behind stories like this. Rahm may be a lot of things, but he is not a blithering idiot, and I’d bet anything he hates these stories as much as Obama.
The second point, that Obama is not only ok with these stories but furthermore is “apologizing” to Washington is as crazy and conspiratorial as I’ve ever seen. It makes, quite honestly, no sense. Obama is ok with spreading stories that appear to have his Chief of Staff undercutting him?
Glenn consistently mocks the 11-dimensional chess when Obama’s defenders use it deflect blame when the Obama team has made mistakes. It’s absurd to then suggest that the Obama team is now deploying 11 dimensional chess with the media in order to apologize to centrist Washington. It particularly makes no sense when you consider Obama has become far more aggressive in the past few weeks (up or down vote, the line drawn at the HCR summit).
More than likely, I’d bet these stories are coming from Rahm’s buddies who think they are doing him a favor.