Jack & Jill Politics

About 15 years ago, I read an article about Rahm Emmanuel in Newsweek Magazine. It wasn't huge but bigger than a blurb. I was impressed by him immediately and wrote to him and told him. Surprisingly, I received a hand written letter from him very shortly after thanking me for my support. I had a strong feeling that he would go places. A year later, I had a problem with reinstating to the Government (I was an ex-government employee at the time) and I wrote him several letters and while I cannot prove it, I believe his staff worked on behalf to get me reinstated in 1997. I have worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Phoenix AZ ever since. I kept up with Emmanuel's career and remember when he went back to Illiinois after the Clinton scandal and it appeared as if he was frustrated with the whole game and getting out of politics and going back to the neighborhoods to help the people. You cannot imagine my elation when he was named Chief of Staff. This man is brilliant, humble, very low profile, and a very dedicated Government Employee. I, for one, am happy to know that he will have the President's ear. I just hope that President Elect Obama truly knows what a great chioce he made. To Mr. Emmanel, I am sure you get millions of letters and there is no way you could remember me but I just want to say Thank You for anything that you did to help me and also please please please remember our veterans - they need our support so badly.

Sincerely,

Probie123

Obama announced new additions to his staff, and he’ll be relying on their broad and diverse experience in the months ahead as they work together to strengthen our economy, reformUSA, and meet the great challenges of our time.
It seems that it would be stressful on the part of Obama’s team, but its their job and they are paid for it. And let’s admit they are there to gain financial wealth, but in the other hand, it’s their discretion to help Obama in building better country.
Now, Obama administration has begun to emerge. Obama wants to know all about you if you plan to work in his cabinet or staff. Makes sense, doesn’t it? If a person is going to fill a high-responsibility position in America’s federal government, it is in the best interests of the nation and its people that the applicant meets all the requirements and qualifications and will not pose a threat in any form. With all the information Obama asks in his seven-page, 63-question application, you would think the administration would have enough to perform credit repair for everyone who applies. CNN reveals a copy of the questionnaire, which requires all applicants to not only thoroughly elucidate everything they’ve done in the last 10 years or more, but also do the same for their spouse. I hope applicants do indeed get the free credit repair as part of the deal. With that, I’d like to share a few of my favorite questions… (1) Writings: Please list and, if readily available, provide a copy of each book, article, column or publication (including but not limited to any posts or comments on blogs or other Web sites) you have authored, individually or with others. Please list all aliases or “handles” you have used to communicate over the Internet. (2) Electronic communications: If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an E-mail, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe. (3) Please provide the URL address of any Web sites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, etc.) This is only a taste of the how deep the application goes. So remember, if you plan on taking part in the Obama-Biden “Change” Administration, you’ve better get to stepping.

Click to read more on Credit Repair.

There goes any chance for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Why not just appoint the head of Likud.

I must say, Rahm Emmanuel's intense personality is not one I can relate to. But one thing I've always liked about Obama is that he reaches out to ALL KINDS of people. It looks like Obama's White House staff, and cabinet, will be quite "diverse", not only racially and sexually, but also personality-wise. I think this will be a good thing, but from time to time, Obama's specific choices may surprise a lot of us.

I'm not sensing a lot of agreement with my skepticism about the utility of Rahm Emanuel becoming Obama's first chief of staff. Part of it, I'm sure, is that people are in a celebratory, optimistic mood right now, and willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Part of it, I am even more sure, is that I hold a personal antipathy toward Rahm Emanuel because he seems to stand for most of the things that made me want to reform the Democratic Party in the first place. So, we are starting from opposite positions when it comes to giving out the benefit of the doubt on this one.
However, I still want to challenge the two main reasons why many in the blogosphere, including Open Left commenters, are arguing that Emanuel is a strong choice. First, there is a general sense that Emanuel will help Obama "get things done" in the House. Second, a commonly expressed viewpoint is that he will just be taking orders from Obama, and not making any decisions himself. I believe that Emanuel's record fails to support either claim.
More in the extended entry.

Chris Bowers :: What, Exactly, Has Rahm "Gotten Done?"
First, what, exactly, has Emanuel accomplished on the legislative front? Emanuel's website provides a list of his sponsored legislation for the 110th Congress. Every single piece of legislation is one of the following:
Expressing a sense of the House
Electing members to standing committees
Currently tied up in committee
This is the case for every single sponsored. legislation. Every single one. He has no legislative accomplishments to date.
Second, as far as just taking orders hoes, I'd also like to relate a story I heard about Emanuel's s role in the Iraq funding fight back in early 2007. Representative Obey, who was leading the fight, was convinced that Emanuel, who as Caucus Chair was in the on the senior strategy sessions, was leaking their strategy to the press. To test this theory, Obey leaked some inaccurate information to Emanuel and Emanuel only. When that inaccurate information turned up in the media, Emanuel was kicked out of all further strategy sessions on the Iraq supplemental fight. In short, Emanuel was undermining the House leadership he was supposedly working for in the Iraq supplemental fight.

Third, covering both the "get things done" and "just taking orders" charge, keep in mind that Emanuel was organizing Democratic members of the House to vote against their own party on motions to recommit. This both stalled Democratic legislation and undermined the efforts of the rest of the House leadership. It's a double whammy against the "just taking orders" and "knows how to get things done"
charge.

Now, as an example of his accomplishments, I'm sure people will point out that Emanuel had a successful stint as the chairman of the DCCC. This is certainly true, as Democrats picked up 30 net seats during his tenure, and took back the House. However, there is more than one way to win elections, as Chris Van Hollen has since proven during his successful stint as DCCC chair. As I documented in my original post on this subject, I dislike Emanuel's methods, and prefer Van Hollen's way. Further, the Chief of Staff is not an electoral position, and should not be one. We have the political director for electoral concerns, and we should not be running the White House simply to get re-elected. The goal should be to improve people's lives (which will itself result in getting re-elected).

I simply don't accept that Rahm Emanuel is adept at "getting things done," just because I keep hearing big media pundits say he is. Everyone here should hold that same skepticism. I also don't accept that he will simply be a vessel for Obama's decisions and orders, because his history over the last two years includes several examples of undermining the House leadership. If you want to argue that Emanuel is a good choice because he is good at getting stuff done, then please show what his legislative accomplishments actually are. And, if you want to argue that Emanuel will simply be taking orders from Obama, please provide examples where he has been a dutiful soldier of his previous superior officers. If he is going to undermine Pelosi, he might very well undermine Obama, too.

Now, as I said at the start of this essay, I am aware that I am coming from the opposite end of the spectrum on benefit of the doubt on this one. Many progressives want to trust Obama right now, and I understand that urge. However, I don't trust Rahm Emanuel as far as I can throw him, and I am a pretty wimpy dude. I don't know why Obama picked him--I'm sure the Chicago connection helped--but given what I know and have written about Rahm Emanuel, I don't like what it says about Obama.
However, as I said, at the very least, at least Rahm Emanuel will never be Speaker. Also, this does but me in the position to be pleasantly surprised rather than disappointed.

I read on another blog that Rahm Emmanuel is a neo-con, pro-Israel, and this choice signifies that we're going to war with Iran. What's the deal on this guy?

Well, I wouldnt say he's pro-israel....for crying out loud: He served with the IDF (the Israelis equivalent of the U.S Army). Rahm is a good guy to have around if he's going to be pushing for stuff that'll benefit you. However, his whole political life has been about pushing for the interest of corporations and the powerful. He so typifies the clinton folks like Penn, Larry summers (who's a total ass by the way) and others.

I just hope he doesn't put Lawrence Summers in the Treasury Secretary position. Obama can do "bipartisan" elsewhere in the Cabinet; but the Treasury Secretary position is too crucial to entrust to a ReThug, since it were ReThug policies of Deregulation that led to the collapse of Wall Street.

Whoever becomes Treasury Secretary, I hope their first order of business is to attempt to eliminate the Federal Reserve Board, or put that sucker under the Treasury Department, subjecting it to all Federal Government Practices and Congressional Oversight, because right now, they run amok without any accountability, and continue to pump paper money into the economy without enough silver or gold coin to back it up.

Co-signing Big Time!!!

Lawrence Summers is a divisive figure. Just ask Cornel West who had to leave Harvard b/c Summers kept questioning the academic value of Cornel's scholarly works.

Lawrence Summers = Drama....and we know how Barack feels about drama.

I spent countless hours the last few months panicking and, yes, bitchin' about Campaign strategy. It's not easy for a prideful Leo to admit when she is wrong, but it demands that I say thank God they didn't listen to idiots like me. So, at this point, they can nominate Don King as Treasury Secretary, and I'll just say, with my little American flag waving, "only in America."

Seriously, I trust that they will make solid appointments, not based on ideaology and personal feelings, but who can get the job done. That's the Obama standard. That said, however, I'm not feelin' how Rahm impromptu press conference in his driveway looking like a deer in the headlights is giving fodder to Joe Scarborough this morning.

Unless, as Lawrence O'Donnell speculates this is Machiavelian, I'm going to be pissed if Rahm's team leaked this info and it makes President elect Obama look like he's stumbling out of the block!

P.S.: Does Mika Brizinksi annoy anyone else? I can not stand her ass! She has devolved from a serious journalist into someone pretending to be a former beauty queen turned journalist. She's constantly looking into the camera shots to check her appearance and sittin' closer and closer to Joe Scarborough practically with her breasts on his back. And I hope she doesn't think no one has noticed her changing her hair to look like the Wasilla hillbilly. What really trips me out is that all the while she was defending the tactics of the McCain campaign, the Jewish arm of the GOP was mailing literature branding Obama as an anti-semite in part b/c of his association (or lack there of) with HER FATHER.

I'm a leo too and so is Obama.

Mika's trying to hang on to her job. Joe Scar threatened her on the air a few months ago when she and David Shuster were telling him he was blowing it out of his ass about his theory of what activities constituted torture.

It's one of the few mornings I was watching "Morning Joke" and I heard him say, "Mika, do you want to continue working here....j/k!" but Mika toned it down ever since.

I'm sure Daddy's ashamed at what his little girl has turned into, just so she can stay on the air.

"From everything I've read, Emmanuel is a ball-busting, take no prisoners, don't give a damn, cursing gangsta.............works for me!"

I'm down with this type of person shielding and regulatin' ... especially as our POTUS gets his bearings around Washington. Sounds good to me, too.

Not sure at this time whether or not Emmanuel is the right pick... but I know our new president is smart, needs to hit the ground running and also understand fully that now the focus is on who he selects for his cabinet.

Consequently, he has to avoid 'baggage' because "Change'' will not allow too much mixing of the old with the 'new' unless it is strategic and help him in multiplying his efforts a hundred fold.
http://manchestersquare.blogspot.com

I think Rahm is a good choice because his personality is what is needed for Chief of Staff. A COS needs to be a bit of a badass to balance out Obama's cool. And as for Rahm's policy positions, I think it needs to be remember that a COS doesn't make policy. He's given a directive from the Pres and he has to go pull it off.

I trust Obama to make sound decisions. I wouldn't trust Rahm Emmanuel to serve me a meal at a fast-food restaurant. One more thing though. I think it'd be good for all of us to get a copy of Obama's Blue Print for Change. That's going to be the document that'd determine whether BO is successful or not. Let me remind you that there are Black elected officials all across America who arent doing squat. So, it's important that we hold Barack's feet to the fire. His race isnt the reason why he means so much to me. Rather, it is his positions on Iraq, global warming, Energy independence, healthcare....you get the point.

I deeply dislike the Clinton's and their friends. I am greatly disappointed that the man that insisted on the inhumane " welfare reform" is going to be the gatekeeper to our new President. I am actually very upset after being so happy this morning I thought my heart would burst.

I'm not too happy with him, but I will give Emmanuel the benefit of the doubt. In progressive Latino (pro-migrant) blogsphere, this congressman is known as not being proactive or a friend of comprehensive immigration reform. He also comes from the Clinton's administration. I'm hopeful that a more progressive congressperson will take his seat.

But as for being an agressive and qualified, that's great. Hopefully, he will exceed our expectations.

For chief of staff, Emmanuel is plenty qualified, a very good choice. I wouldn't want him anywhere else in the cabinet, though.

I'm really crossing my fingers for Obama's HUD Secretary. Our cities really need some competent help. Alphonso Jackson was a disaster for us here in New Orleans.

Bad choice. To linked to the 8th level of Hell. Carpet bagging holder of Congressional seat in northside lakefront district; not an area known for being broad minded.

From everything I've read, Emmanuel is a ball-busting, take no prisoners, don't give a damn, cursing gangsta.............

works for me!

He can be all of that and more....it's his DLC's style of politics that I dont trust. On a different note: I'm glad it wasnt Tom Daschle.

I'm glad SOMEONE picked up on the DLC style of politics that Emmanuel comes from, cause I'll admit, THAT FACTOR is what worries me about him.

As long as he's not making policy or legislation, but, in fact, is there to protect the President, I'll get used to him being around. I didn't like the fact that he runs the DCCC (yeah, I know, Chris Van Hollen is the "leader", but Rahm did most of the shaking down of Congressional Members to pay dues the equivalent of their annual salaries).

LOL you got me laughing with that one.

This is about governing. This isn't about playing games. Don't like Emmanuel, but I will give him his due - Obama knows what he's getting in him, and, actually, I think his personality is very appropriate for this position.

He's smart, aggressive, understands power, understands getting legislation passed, knows were some skeletons are buried, and he's a raging asshole. That's perfect Chief of Staff!

He's too far to the right for me, but he's not making policy. He can let Obama be Obama--be the hot to Obama's cool.

rikyrah: At this moment, IFFFFF President-Elect Obama selected him, IMHO, that's ENOUGH! for me. :>)

Best wishes!! :>)

I need to read more about Rep. Emmanuel, but it seems like agood choice.

He seems very smart. I think it's a good choice.