SUPPOSE FOR A SECOND....:

Barack's Enforcer (Martin Sieff, 11/06/08, Daily Beast)

The president-elect's first choice for chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel—a pro business quasi neocon whose middle name is Israel—gives the lie to the wildest myths Obama's opponents spread about him in the campaign.

President-elect Barack Obama’s offer to Rahm Emanuel of the job of chief of staff tells more about how he intends to run the White House than his uplifting campaign rhetoric about post-partisan niceness. The selection of Emanuel signals that he apparently wants to operate with ideological moderation, speed and skull-cracking political toughness. [...]

Making Emanuel chief of staff—and putting the word out the day after his historic election victory—tells Washington that Obama is going to push through his political and policy agenda Chicago-style—not the San Francisco way. For Emanuel is going to be Obama’s Karl Rove and John Sununu, Sr. combined.

...that we can put partisanship aside and hope that an Obama presidency is a success and a good thing for America. Mr. Emmanuel's politics and the signal in that regard are reassuring, but the entirely legitimate comparison to John Sununu is worrisome. He was not a good chief of staff and apponting a guy who not only isn't likely to be good at his own job but who you expect to run Congress from the White House seems a recipe for disaster.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2008 9:08 AM