Rahm “Republicans Can Go F’k Themselves” Emanuel Accepts Position As Obama’s Chief Of Staff
Captain F-Bomb has accepted the position as Obama’s chief of staff. Yuval Levin offers this not so rosy picture:
He is smart and tough. But he has been, in both positions [as Clinton staffer and House member], a vicious graceless partisan: narrow, hectic, unremittingly aggressive, vulgar, and impatient. Those who have worked for and with him come away impressed but not inspired, and generally not loyal.
The White House chief of staff is not a chief strategist or a chief advocate. He is a manager of people and of process. Above all else, he sets the tone internally, and shapes the president’s decision process and the feel of the upper tiers of the administration. Obama is especially in need of someone who will lead him to decisions, because he appears to be intensely averse to making difficult choices—which is the essence of what the president does. His inclination is to step back and conceptualize the choice out of existence, looking reasonable but doing nothing. To overcome this, he will need a chief of staff with a sense of the gravity of the choices the president faces, and one capable of moving the staff to decision, keeping big egos satisfied and calm, and resisting the pressure to be purely reactive to momentary distractions. None of this spells Rahm Emanuel.
Allahpundit says that Daschle was on the short list, but Obama went the Chicago way……Now, are you ready for this….Word on the street is that we could be looking at Secretary of State John Kerry by the end of the week.
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November 5, 2008 - 04:53 PM on November 5th, 2008
[...] Rahm “Republicans Can Go F’k Themselves” Emanuel Accepts Position … Captain F-Bomb has accepted the position as Obama’s chief of staff. Yuval Levin offers this not so rosy picture:. He is smart and tough. But he has been, in both positions [as Clinton staffer and House member], a vicious graceless … [...]
November 5, 2008 - 08:20 PM on November 5th, 2008
Well here we go! Obama was a uniter, he was going to bring everyone together! Unity!
And the very first thing he does is bring in Emanuel…so much for the uniter…
November 6, 2008 - 09:32 AM on November 6th, 2008
Despite the fact he is considering two republicans for cabinet positions (Luger and Hagel) and keeping Gates.
November 6, 2008 - 09:41 AM on November 6th, 2008
Rahm Emanuel is a down-and-dirty street fighting vindictive hater. As the article points out, the character of the WH team is much shaped by the Chief of Staff.
So much for the “uniter”…Obama signals with his very first decision that it’s politics as usual. The only “change” is that the Democrites now have complete control.
If you are a partisan, that’s good news, what you wanted. If you are a poor dumb sap (especially working/middle class) who voted for “change we can believe in” this doesn’t bode well.
November 6, 2008 - 10:04 AM on November 6th, 2008
Yeah, if we only took a cue from the Bush team, we could have had someone fair like Karl Rove there, huh Robert.
November 6, 2008 - 10:15 AM on November 6th, 2008
Um Trailhead, Rove wasn’t Chief of Staff, has never carried himself publically or privately like Emanuel does, but don’t let those facts get in your way!
November 6, 2008 - 10:16 AM on November 6th, 2008
No, don’t let facts, reality get in the way of Trailhead’s statements!
November 6, 2008 - 08:20 PM on November 6th, 2008
[...] a loose canon out for himself. He has done some of the most immature things I have ever heard of! Rahm “Republicans Can Go F’k Themselves” Emanuel Accepts Position As Obama’s Chi… FREEDOM EDEN: Who is Rahm Emanuel? __________________ Where’s my [...]
November 7, 2008 - 08:55 PM on November 7th, 2008
Well, FINALLY, the democrats have got a guy who can kick republican ass. We still need to get rid of the stench from the GOP. All those whining rightwing neocon squirrels are about to lose their nuts. LOL
November 8, 2008 - 12:15 AM on November 8th, 2008
Now maybe you can get a guy that has a clue on how to run this country properly. Because he doesn’t, and is surrounding himself with klowns that either caused the problems, stood by and did nothing when they were in positions to prevent or diminish it, or are failures who have run their own States into the ground (example; Granholm).
And don’t worry, Monson. Any remaining stench from GOP control has already been overwhelmed by the horrid stench of the Democrites, the official party of corruption, perjury, and treason.
November 8, 2008 - 02:30 PM on November 8th, 2008
From what I’ve been reading and hearing, Obama’s choice for COS was more about keeping the Congressional Democrats in line than trying to f*ck with Congressional Republicans.
And you righties here should be happy that Rahm is a “fierce supporter of Israel”, going so far as to volunteer there during the first Gulf War back in 91.
Remember Josh Lyman from “The West Wing” TV series? Rumor has it that Rahm was the mold for the character.
November 9, 2008 - 02:31 AM on November 9th, 2008
I can’t wait until the whiney libs on college campuses across the country are shipped off to their 3 months of boot camp at the “request” of The One’s cheif of staff!
November 9, 2008 - 12:14 PM on November 9th, 2008
How could Obama’s Muslim backers allow a Zionist to be appointed Obama’s CoS?
This Obama Civilian Corps thing sounds like the beginning of the brownshirts. Well, actually, the Obama campaign already had their brownshirts. This could just vastly expand it.
November 9, 2008 - 02:47 PM on November 9th, 2008
Who, exactly, are Obama’s Muslim backers and, if they exist, what evidence do you have that they have more clout than his Christian or Jewish backers?
You do know that the Sturmabteilung was a rabidly anti-Communist right-wing group….
November 9, 2008 - 03:26 PM on November 9th, 2008
Known Muslim backers:
1. Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; ever heard of them?
2. Just about every Jihadist enemy of America publicly announced their hopes for the election.
Where do you think some of that $600M+ came from?
What does the Sturmabteilung have to do with Obama?
November 9, 2008 - 04:50 PM on November 9th, 2008
1) If a neo-nazi group endorsed McCain, would you say that McCain was “beholden” to them? You need to show me a real money trail. I’m sure that right-wing and left-wing weirdos donated to both campaigns. That doesn’t tell me anything…
2) Evidence? On the other hand: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/mccain-holds-conference-c_n_136850.html
The Sturmabteilung (that is, the SA, the Brownshirts) have nothing to do with Obama. But you keep bringing them up….
November 9, 2008 - 05:39 PM on November 9th, 2008
AKD- We both know that a neo-nazi group didn’t come out and endorse McCain..and if they did, he would get rid of that quickly..I guess I failed to see the point of you posting about AQ backing McCain…It looks like they backed him, and he immediately took action.
Is this supposed to be funny?
Did you happen to catch this?
There were no leaders from AQ, just people on the blogs..Quite different than what Robert is talking about..
November 10, 2008 - 12:23 AM on November 10th, 2008
Better question: If a McCain’s campaign had been launched in the living room of a neo-nazi group, would you say that it was just a coincidence because they hapen to live in the same neighborhood?
November 10, 2008 - 08:54 AM on November 10th, 2008
If a neo-nazi group endorsed McCain, he most likely would have done the smart political thing: ignored it.
If the press picked it up, he would have done the smart political thing: denounced it.
Did Obama do anything but ignore (or, occasionally, denounce) his more questionable backers?
Robert wrote that “just about every Jihadist enemy of America publicly announced their hopes for the election.” He provided no evidence for this. I provided some evidence that AQ supported McCain.
As for the Ayers comment: Whatever his past, Ayers is now a respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia, and still a member of the Woods Fund Board (as are former Reaganites). This is obviously the only capacity in which Obama ever worked with him.
There’s been a lot of talk about what the right should do after getting creamed so badly in the last election. As someone on the left, I’d like to tell the RV crew to keep up the good work. Keep up the character attacks without ever articulating a positive position; keep relying on scare tactics; keep shrieking “terrorist!” “terrorist!” whenever you see something you don’t like. It worked so beautifully in the last campaign!!
November 10, 2008 - 11:41 AM on November 10th, 2008
The Sturmabteilung were the Nazi brownshirts? My point was the Obama campaign had plenty of thugs, official and unofficial. This “Civilian Security Force” sounds very scary and should never be implemented. If it does, I can see it turning into Obamateilung.
November 13, 2008 - 01:55 AM on November 13th, 2008
Rahm is going to kick Republican ass all the way to a landslide re-election. And he’ll have the majority of America on his side.
Conservatism is a failed theory. Republicans have been banished to the wilderness for a generation–to the land of George Dubya Bush, Sarah the Stewardess Palin, Dan Quayle, Dotty old Ronnie Reagan, bless his alzheimers-deluded presidency, and the rest of the looney-tunes right-wing nuthouse.
You Republicans have nothing to offer this country but angry-white-man’s disease, and America has said ENOUGH!
Just sit down, shut up, and let the Democrats save you from yourselvers.
November 13, 2008 - 10:32 AM on November 13th, 2008
Okay B-Man, now I’ll ask you; you are Liberal democrite #4 to be asked this question. The first 3 were unable or unwilling to answer it, but you stated it is time for Republicans to sit down and shut up, so here is the question:
Why should Obama and the democrites expect any treatment of Obama’s presidency to be any different than what they have done to George Bush over the last 8 years? The day after the 2000 election they began obstructing, undermining, mocking, slandering, and attacking Bush in every way possible. The Democrites set the standard. Why is Obama entitled to anything else? Can you answer that?
November 14, 2008 - 09:08 PM on November 14th, 2008
The people of this country decided their pocketbooks are more important than freedom and rights.
November 18, 2008 - 01:12 PM on November 18th, 2008
Robert,I’ll agree Democrats started in on President Bush right away,well,not right away,but after the Supreme Court decided Florida.Democrats thought he had stolen the election through the court.I know some newspaper or newspapers counted the ballots after and President Bush did win Florida but Democrats never accepted that.Many to this day,and I say wrongly,say Pres. Bush did not win.He won. This is not the same circumstance as that.You should criticize policies you do not like as should we all.But I really think this started long before that.I’m not sure who started it and I don’t really care who started it but I’d like for it to end. We have got to find some common things we can agree on and fix the mess we are in.
November 20, 2008 - 10:58 PM on November 20th, 2008
Today,thursday,Rahm met with congressional republicans to get their ideas or any input they might have to solve the many problems we face in our country. I take this as a good sign.