Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Good Staffer: Was it Rahm who Dropped the Dahm?

Was it Rahm who dropped the dram on Gov. B?
Local Chicago press is reporting that Rahm Emanuel reported Blago after someone approached the Obama folks about who he wanted for the Senate seat. In other words, yes, Rahm may well be the good guy here.

The good guy is one way of looking at it. Another is that Rahm is smart, and ruthless. Blagojevich is legendarily corrupt and known to be under investigation. His willingness to reach out to the White House and try and embroil them suggested a willingness to compromise Obama and his presidency. So Rahm cut him down. It's reminiscent of nothing so much as Tony Soprano killing Christopher Moltisanti when Chris becomes a liability. Rahm may have been a key figured in getting Blagojevich elected, but he's not going to sit and watch Blagojevich compromise the rest of the party. This sort of strategic ruthlessness, incidentally, was the whole argument for hiring Rahm.
(h/t Firedoglake, via Ezra K.)

2 comments:

  1. If true, it's confirmation of the reason why I've secretly been loving the Rahm pick for CoS. He's the sort of bad cop political operator you want on your side when you need to muscle through your agenda.

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  2. Amen, Wobs.

    There's room for activists AND room for operators in MY (socialist wing of the) Democratic Party.

    Certain of Rahm's ideological tenets bother me way more than his ability to deliver the occasional smackdown. Particularly if he's opening sixpacks of whoop-ass at the pleasure of le President.

    There's nothing less ideological than whoop-ass, after all.

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