Rahm Emanuel, Squealing like a Pig?
By Larry Johnson on February 20, 2010 at 11:57 AM in Current Affairs
Hey Rahm. You got a pretty mouth. Talk about your WTF moment. Yesterday’s Tomorrow’s Washington Post contains an article by Dana Milbank that rips the scab off of the festering wound that is the Obama Presidency and reveals a cancer that is helping consume Barack. The cancer’s name? Rahm Emanuel.
Here are some of the key passages from Milbank’s piece:
Obama’s first year fell apart in large part because he didn’t follow his chief of staff’s advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter.
Obama chose the profane former Clinton adviser for a reason. Where the president is airy and idealistic, Rahm is earthy and calculating. One thinks big; the other, a former House Democratic Caucus chair, understands the congressional mind, in which small stuff counts for more than broad strokes.
Obama’s problem is that his other confidants — particularly Valerie Jarrett and Robert Gibbs, and, to a lesser extent, David Axelrod — are part of the Cult of Obama. In love with the president, they believe he is a transformational figure who needn’t dirty his hands in politics.
The president would have been better off heeding Emanuel’s counsel. For example, Emanuel bitterly opposed former White House counsel Greg Craig’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, arguing that it wasn’t politically feasible. Obama overruled Emanuel, the deadline wasn’t met, and Republicans pounced on the president and the Democrats for trying to bring terrorists to U.S. prisons. Likewise, Emanuel fought fiercely against Attorney General Eric Holder’s plan to send Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for a trial. Emanuel lost, and the result was another political fiasco.
Obama’s greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel on health care. Early on, Emanuel argued for a smaller bill with popular items, such as expanding health coverage for children and young adults, that could win some Republican support. He opposed the public option as a needless distraction.
I don’t know where to begin. Milbank’s assertions (e.g., “Obama’s greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel”) are so outrageous that if Jesus Christ himself was reading the piece he would exclaim, “Jesus Fucking Christ!”
Who could have passed on all of these words of wisdom to Dana Milbank? Hmmmmm? Two words. Rahm Emanuel.
We have had a lot of fun on this blog ridiculing Barack Obama for the number of friends and family members he has tossed under the bus in order to advance his career, but you have got to give Rahm some props here. He shoves a telephone pole of the collective asses of Valerie Jarret, Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod. Milbank shares with us Rahm’s brillance and the retards that he must battle inside the White House:
Contrast Emanuel’s wisdom with that of Jarrett, in charge of “intergovernmental affairs and public engagement” — two areas of conspicuous failure. Jarrett also brought in Desiree Rogers as White House social secretary; the Salahi embarrassment ensued. Then there’s Gibbs. It’s hard to make the case that you’re a post-partisan president when your on-camera spokesman is a hyper-partisan former campaign flack.
No wonder Emanuel has set up his own small press operation and outreach function to circumvent the dysfunctional ones that Jarrett and Gibbs run. Obama needs an old Washington hand to replace Jarrett and somebody with gravitas on the podium to step in for Gibbs.
The failure of the president’s message also reflects on his message maven, Axelrod, who is an adept strategist but blinded by Obama love. A good example was Obama’s unproductive China trip in November. Jarrett, Gibbs and Axelrod went along as courtiers; Emanuel remained at his desk in Washington, struggling to keep alive the big health-care bill that he didn’t want in the first place.
But Rahm does not stop there. He trashes his boss. Obama, per Rahm, is “airy” and does not understand the congressional mind? And did I mention incompetent? That’s the message delivered with the effect of a sledgehammer by Milbank. Barack is failing because he is not listening to Rahm.
While every Presidential administration has had fractious advisors and behind the scenes cat fights, this is the most ham-handed, clumsy and vicious example of dishing dirt on colleagues that I can recall in my 31 years in Washington. There will be blood. Rahm may be right about the incompetence of Jarrett, Gibbs and Axelrod (I agree with him) but spilling his guts to Dana Milbank not only crosses a line but reveals a shocking level of amateurism, which is the major weakness of the Barack Obama administration. Worse, he challenges the competence of Obama. I also agree with Emanuel on that point. Obama is shockingly inexperienced and incompetent with the task of governing. It is one thing to trash Jarrett, Gibbs and Axelrod but the boss?
That boys and girls is a recipe for political suicide. Do you think Jarrett, Gibbs and Axelrod are going to remain bent over the log like Ned Beatty in Deliverance? Nope. If anyone is going to be squealing like a pig my guess is that it will be Rahm. If the reference to Ned Beatty and pig squealing is too obscure for you let me help jog your memory.
We will learn alot about the Barack Obama administration in the next week or two. If Obama allows Rahm to bitch slap him on the pages of the Washington Post like some two-bit crack whore then you can be sure that others will be getting in line to administer their own beating to the boy from Hawaii. Alternatively, if Obama moves decisively and fires the lot and installs some adults in the White House then maybe, just maybe, he might be able to prevent his Presidency from suffering a fate worse than Jimmy Carter’s.
by Ronald Scott
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