In Praise of Rahm Emanuel

It’s no surprise that The Washington Post thinks Rahm Emanuel is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Here is a paper so fixated on access that it would praise Jack the Ripper for his feminism if it gained it greater access.

In a fluff piece by Dana Milbank we are told that Emanuel is a realist who mission is to bring the “cult of Obama” down to earth and to introduce them to the realities of Beltway politics, which is to do little other than an occasional exercise in meaningless window dressing. The problem is that the Beltway is a closed system with its own warped view of reality driven by an amorality that cares only about the checks its corporate handlers write.

This is why Emanuel was bitterly opposed to closing the Guantanamo Bay prison because “it wasn’t politically feasible.” He also opposed including a public option in the healthcare reform bill because it was “a needless distraction.”

But then, it seems every president needs a handler who acts as ballast to keep the status quo on an even keel. Cheney was Bush’s handler, Emanuel is Obama’s. And Milbank argues that Obama isn’t in trouble because of Emanuel; he’s in trouble because he ignored Emanuel’s advice.

One of the most hysterically funny statements in the Milbank article tells us that, “Emanuel, schooled by Bill Clinton, knew what the true believers [members of the cult of Obama] didn’t: that bite size proposals add up to big things.”

Such as?

Let’s get real! Bite size proposals add up to diddly-squat! One of Congress’s favorite scams when it passes a watered-down bill is to promise the public that “We’ll revisit the legislation later,” which it never does. So, if Emanuel had had his way, Congress would have passed a bland healthcare reform bill that did little other than increase coverage for children, and that would have been it.

Now some might argue that Emanuel’s approach was necessary given the lunacy that permeates the Beltway, and, all things being equal, that might make sense. But things aren’t equal. The country is in deep shit. We’ve got a crumbling economy, our states are in financial distress and we’re up to our necks in two-plus wars that are bankrupting us. Public money is bailing out the financial retards that tanked the economy and all our leaders can talk about is a “jobless recovery,” surely one of the foulest oxymorons ever uttered by a public official.

This is not a time for “small bites.” Rather it’s the time to tear a big chunk out of the corporate ass.

Good lord, if Emanuel had been FDR’s chief of staff, there never would have been a New Deal. That could be why conservatives love him so; he is keeping the ship of state on an even keel while it is sinking.