Friday, November 07, 2008
Dead fish, enemies lists, plus ça change...
Behold the "five most infamous Rahm Emanuel moments." Tough guy. Good. Obama will need him to keep the hard core House Democrats from wrecking his presidency. He should start by telling John Conyers that if he wants a nickel for General Motors he should cancel plans to go after the Bush administration for war crimes lest he suck the air, not to mention hope and change, out of Barack Obama's honeymoon.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Nov 07, 08:46:00 AM:
I am hoping the Dems lust for power tempers the ideological agenda. They surely don't want a replay of 1992. OTOH, what if Obama wants the same thing the Dem Congressional leaders want? What if Obama/Emanuel have enforcers who can coerce even Blue Dog Dems to vote against their best interests for the goal of embedding left-wing policices and institutions in the government?
By 
TigerHawk, at
Fri Nov 07, 09:40:00 AM:
That would be bad for the country, feeblemind, but the Republicans will roar back to power in the next two elections if the Obama administration goes that way.
By , at
Fri Nov 07, 03:13:00 PM:
A tangential question to the above post. Will Repubs in Congress, and Dems for that matter, who oppose Obama, be branded as racists by the Left/Media?? If so, will their opposition to his initiatives crumble? How does it affect the next election if GOP fingerprints are all over left-wing programs??
By Georg Felis, at
Fri Nov 07, 03:54:00 PM:
As in my previous comment on Rahm Emanuel, it does appear that Obama has picked probably the most loyal, partisan, monomaniac chief of staff that he could have chosen. But you are entirely correct about who Obama’s political opponents are right now. It isn’t the Republicans who are going to stand athwart his policy proposals, it will be the Democrat committee heads who have grown accustomed to their positions of power and privilege who will pick his ideas to pieces and pork them up with piles of excessive spending. In particular he is going to have to watch his back because the Democratic Congress has gotten quite good at passing unpopular legislation, and then pointing the finger of blame at the Executive office when things go badly.
Congress is not the only opponent he has right now, the Press has been sitting on stories for weeks that they could not run until after the election, like the video tape the LA Times is holding that shows him in a farewell party for a PLO operative supposedly quoted as saying “Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine”. Appointing a pro-Israel chief of staff is going to take a little bit of the sting out of that one, but there will be more. The press cannot stand seeing an unhammered nail, and they have just the hammer to pound it flat.
He’s going to have to work like the dickens or he’ll be treated like a baby duck in the shark pool. Welcome to the real Washington, Mr. Obama. Enjoy your swim.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Fri Nov 07, 06:40:00 PM:
the Republicans will roar back to power in the next two elections if the Obama administration goes that way.
In which case (if that is) it would be smart to have an Emanuel protecting you.
He can protect both your left and right flanks.
Anyway, I don't see much of a Republican comeback for another 6-8 years. Too disorganized and too many obstacles against them.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Nov 08, 09:05:00 AM:
I think it's a good idea to disconnect the Presidency from Congress when thinking about this. If he fucks things up as bad as many people fear, then the Presidency will almost certainly swing back to the opposition party no matter what happens in Congress or elsewhere.
The President's party almost always loses seats in the 1st midterm elections, but having seen what I've seen over the last few days (Republicans claiming that they have to 'go back' to 1980 Reagan and freaking Goldwater to win... as if those names or ideas have traction with anyone under the age of 30) I wouldn't bet on a reclamation of Congress until at least 2012.
And if a Republican wins the 2012 Presidential election, that would make 2014 his mid terms and the Republicans (his party) are likely to lose seats then.
Let's see how well 'Reaganism' plays then.
