Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Obama Administration President-Elect Obama's First Pick: Rahm Emanuel

Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Congressman who will be President-elect Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, is "dangerous, absolutely relentless when he's got a political kill in sight," according to an admiring Republican colleague, Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole. Emanuel is also, President Clinton once told Fortune, "one of the top political minds in Washington," a former ballet dancer who "favors the counterattack over the attack."

The selection of the hard-nosed, highly partisan Emanuel is Obama's first in filling his new administration . . .

. . . In choosing Emanuel, a veteran of the Clinton White House, Obama signaled that he wants a tough taskmaster to run his White House as well as a steely insider who's able to help push the Obama agenda through Congress, even if it faces opposition from his fellow Democrats, who control both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Emanuel began his career with the consumer rights organization Illinois Public Action. He worked on Paul Simon's 1984 election to the U.S. Senate and in 1989 served as a senior adviser and chief fundraiser for Richard M. Daley.

I think that the selection of Rahm Emanuel is astute. He can be rough as an enforcer, yes, but he is brutally pragmatic as well. Remember it was Emanuel that engineered the Democratic takeover of the House in 2006 by recruiting Dem candidates that could win in conservative districts. That hardly makes him a left-wing ideologue. He knows when to use authority and when to compromise. He is whip-smart.

My view also... and also the view of David Brooks, conservative columnist for the NY Times.

During the campaign, Anny people expressed the view that Obama gives a good speech, but maybe not much more. From what I am seeing, he is assembling a very talented team... and seems well aware that a government is not run by lofty platitudes.

Emanuel is said to have "mailed a rotting fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways."[7] On the night after the 1996 election, "Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! ... Dead! ... Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name."[6] His "take-no-prisoners attitude" earned him the nickname "Rahm-bo".[7]

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

President-elect Barack Obama's newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot "red flags," according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com.

Hey, I thought we were gong to be treated to a bipartisan approach by the Obama administration, that he was going to "reach across the aisle" – what happened to that? Señor Emanuel is known as a street-fightin' Democrat, and that's understating it. A Rolling Stone profile of Emanuel had this to say:

"There's the story of how, the night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name. 'When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape,' one campaign veteran recalls. 'It was like something out of The Godfather.'"

He's mean, he's ultra-partisan, and he's a fully-paid up member in good standing of the War Party: during the Democratic primaries in 2006, when Emanuel headed up the Dems' congressional operation, he backed pro-war candidates over antiwar Democrats every time. As Bill Safire put it on "Meet the Press" just before Tim Russert died:

"What about Rahm Emanuel [for Vice President], the most powerful voice in the House of Representatives that agrees with Hillary Clinton on foreign affairs? He's a hawk. And although he's a rootin' tootin' liberal on domestic affairs, he is a hawk on foreign affairs. I was at the – a roast for him for Epilepsy Association, and Hillary Clinton was there, and I said, quite frankly, here you have the hawkish side of the Democratic Party. If they get together, the bumper sticker will read 'Invade and bomb with Hillary and Rahm.'

Day One: Obama faces Cold War threat, a warning from Israel... Israel warned Obama last night that his claim that he was ready to open talks with Iran could be seen in the Middle East as a sign of weakness.

1. He believes in the Isreali way of making ALL be in the military prior to adulthood.

Obama's chief of staff choice favors compulsory universal service