Rahm is the Mahn (UPDATED)
Looks like the rumors are true: Raham Emanuel has been chosen to be Obama’s Chief of Staff. To those who think this is a bad idea — Rahm being, you know, crazy — I disagree.
There are lots of reasons why — if you’re Obama — it makes sense. First of all it sends the signal that Obama is serious about managing relations with the Democratic congressional majority (I’m looking at you Nancy Pelosi) on his own terms. Next, it demonstrates that Obama is a tough-minded pol. I never bought Tom Daschle as CoS for that reason. Of course Rahm is from Chicago. And of course Rahm is Jewish. Lastly, it says that Obama believes it’s better to have Rahm inside the tent pissing out, instead of outside the tent pissing in.
Rachel Sklar has this additional thought:
It’s yet one more link between The West Wing and the eerily similar story of the Obama campaign. As many of you no doubt know, the character of Josh Lyman in The West Wing, played by Bradley Whitford, was based on — you guessed it! — Emanuel. Lyman toiled as Deputy Chief of Staff under President Bartlett, but ascended to Chief of Staff under the Obama-like President Santos.
This will be interesting on so many levels.
UPDATE: Here is a 3-minute video from Slate on the similarities between Barack Obama and the West Wing’s Matt Santos. If you’re a fan of the show, you probably already are aware of the parallels. What I didn’t know is that Obama was someone they modeled the Santos character on.
1) I don’t care much for Rahm (DLC) Emanuel and 2) it’s probably a great pick.
It’s an interesting pick additionally because he’s very tight with David Axelrod.
And speaking of Rahm Emanuel/Josh Lyman here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite episodes of The West Wing:
More serendipity. Rahm’s brother Ari, agent for Larry David and Michael Moore, is the prototype for Ari Gold, Jeremy Piven’s character on Entourage, and and Larry’s agent on Gary Shandling’s The Larry Sanders Show.
That’s quite the family, the Emanuels.
You’d think their mom would be so proud, but I’ll bet she wanted them to grow up and become doctors like their dad. Their sister is a research geneticist. The boys probably became such overachievers after years of Thanksgivings hearing how great their sister was doing at med school.
But wait, there’s more! There’s another son who is a renowned medical ethicist.
P.S. Check out this video of Barack Obama’s speech at a Rahm Emanuel roast in 2005. In it he skewers Rahmbo with this: “At a young age, Rahm lost half his middle finger in a restaurant accident thereby rendering him nearly mute.” Heh.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t care for him because he’s a knee-breaker. I don’t care for him because he’s a “centrist”. Can’t have everything, I guess.
Centrists can be knee-breakers, too!
Sure. But they do it just for the sport.
What people fail to understand is that Emanuel is O’Bama’s man.
Left, right, or center, he will move in whatever direction O’Bama wants him to.
Democrats with backbones.
Change we can believe in.
That’s “O’Manuel” to you, sir.
I stand corrected.
I should have known better as the Eugene, Oregon Chair of “Irishmen for O’Bama”.
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