Dear Reader: How will Obama select people for his new administration? Read about who he selected as his Chief of Staff. This article appeared in Investors Business Daily on November 7, 2008. – Libertyman.
Rahmbo
Transition: Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to change the partisan tone in Washington. So why did he pick a take-no-prisoners partisan for his chief of staff?
The high-level White House selection of fellow Chicagoan Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the sharp-elbowed, foul-mouthed head of the Democrat caucus, doesn’t exactly augur well for the kind of noncynical air-freshening Obama voters had hoped for.
After Emanuel helped the Democrats win Congress in 2006, he told a gathering of celebrating staffers and campaign workers that Republicans “can go f*** themselves,” according to Chicago Tribune reporter Naftali Bendavid in her book, “The Thumpin’: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution.”
Emanuel also has a favorite pejorative for GOP foes — “knucklef***s” — though he prides himself on being “an equal-opportunity pr*ck.” Indeed, he was overheard telling a fellow Democrat candidate whom he was helping win office:
“Don’t f*** it up or I’ll f*** you.”
And he once sent a dead fish in a mahogany box to a Democratic pollster with whom he quarreled while working as a fundraiser in the 1980s.
His ways are so crude that he was demoted by even the boorish Clinton White House for, among other things, disrespecting elder Cabinet members and leaking dirt on his enemies to the press. Clinton strategist Paul Begala, not the most pleasant soul himself, called Emanuel “a cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache.”
That Obama, the seeming paragon of class and dignity, would want to yoke himself to such a guttersnipe leaves many scratching their heads. His thuggish slash-and-burn style may get results, but for how long? Wasn’t it Obama who said he also wanted to change the culture of greed and corruption on Wall Street?
After leaving the scandal-plagued Clinton White House, Emanuel joined the board of Freddie Mac, which backed risky subprime home loans with the encouragement of Obama and other Democrats. He pocketed $231,655 in director’s fees in his last year there.
He also took a job as an investment banker in Chicago. After just over two years there, Emanuel walked away with a cool $18 million while working on merger deals that led to thousands of layoffs.
His firm also funded subprime loans, yet Emanuel now has the nerve to blame Wall Street “greed” and the “anything goes,” “rightwing” free-market ideology of Republicans for the financial crisis.
Then after his golden parachute, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley backed him in his bid for Congress. Emanuel was chief fundraiser for Daley during his 1989 campaign. Obama was also part of the Daley machine, which has long been associated with graft.
On policy, Emanuel, whose Hollywood agent brother represents Michael Moore, wants to make the Earned Income Tax Credit more user-friendly by consolidating it with all the other family tax credits and making them all refundable, while putting them on the IRS short form.
Ambitious. In your face. Aggressive. Combative. Ruthless. Pit bull. Rahmbo. All have been used to describe Emanuel. And now, chief of staff? Not an auspicious start for the candidate of hope and change.
After Emanuel helped the Democrats win Congress in 2006, he told a gathering of celebrating staffers and campaign workers that Republicans “can go f*** themselves,” according to Chicago Tribune reporter Naftali Bendavid in her book, “The Thumpin’: How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution.”
Emanuel also has a favorite pejorative for GOP foes — “knucklef***s” — though he prides himself on being “an equal-opportunity pr*ck.” Indeed, he was overheard telling a fellow Democrat candidate whom he was helping win office:
“Don’t f*** it up or I’ll f*** you.”
And he once sent a dead fish in a mahogany box to a Democratic pollster with whom he quarreled while working as a fundraiser in the 1980s.
His ways are so crude that he was demoted by even the boorish Clinton White House for, among other things, disrespecting elder Cabinet members and leaking dirt on his enemies to the press. Clinton strategist Paul Begala, not the most pleasant soul himself, called Emanuel “a cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache.”
That Obama, the seeming paragon of class and dignity, would want to yoke himself to such a guttersnipe leaves many scratching their heads. His thuggish slash-and-burn style may get results, but for how long? Wasn’t it Obama who said he also wanted to change the culture of greed and corruption on Wall Street?
After leaving the scandal-plagued Clinton White House, Emanuel joined the board of Freddie Mac, which backed risky subprime home loans with the encouragement of Obama and other Democrats. He pocketed $231,655 in director’s fees in his last year there.
He also took a job as an investment banker in Chicago. After just over two years there, Emanuel walked away with a cool $18 million while working on merger deals that led to thousands of layoffs.
His firm also funded subprime loans, yet Emanuel now has the nerve to blame Wall Street “greed” and the “anything goes,” “rightwing” free-market ideology of Republicans for the financial crisis.
Then after his golden parachute, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley backed him in his bid for Congress. Emanuel was chief fundraiser for Daley during his 1989 campaign. Obama was also part of the Daley machine, which has long been associated with graft.
On policy, Emanuel, whose Hollywood agent brother represents Michael Moore, wants to make the Earned Income Tax Credit more user-friendly by consolidating it with all the other family tax credits and making them all refundable, while putting them on the IRS short form.
Ambitious. In your face. Aggressive. Combative. Ruthless. Pit bull. Rahmbo. All have been used to describe Emanuel. And now, chief of staff? Not an auspicious start for the candidate of hope and change.
