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Emanuel, the provocative and profane White House chief of staff…

Emanuel’s philosophy is to put points on the board, to take what you can get and then cut a deal, to make everything negotiable except success.

“Rahm Emanuel is not telling the president what to do,” said Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader. “Rahm is not somebody who is running over the president of the United States. The president is making the decisions.” - this needs to be told loud & clear. so that people don't get ideas. — vs.

Emanuel occupies a unique niche in Obama’s White House. He makes up the rules of the game that others are supposed to follow, and he gets away with what others cannot.

Just weeks after our dinner, Emanuel was in Chicago advising the new president as his incoming chief of staff. The selection rankled many in the greater Obama orbit. For all the work they put in electing an apostle of hope to clean up Washington, now they were handing over the keys to a crass, cynical operator? Even if it was a sensible decision, what message did it send?

- The Limits of Rahmism


comments: «Perhaps what happened was that the public didn't want anything the administration was selling.» — Will

see also Massa: Rahm Emanuel «Would Sell His Own Mother» For Votes

see also The end of the road for Barack Obama? "There was much unconditional love a year or so ago of Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama's Chief of Staff; oleaginous profiles of this Chicago political hack, a veteran of that unlovely team that polluted the Clinton White House, appeared in otherwise respectable journals, praising the combination of his religious devotion, his family-man image, his ruthless operating technique and his command of the vocabulary of profanity."