Obama, Emanuel, and Foreign Policy

Rahm Emanual has accepted Barack Obama's invitation to join his administration as White House Chief of Staff, a position that has been described in the past by many as "The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington", or The Gatekeeper who controls access to and the flow of information to the president.

Emanual voted for and has been extremely active in the past with Nancy Pelosi in Congressional arm twisting getting Democrats onside to support the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq, and has acquired the nicknames The Enforcer and "Rahmbo" in Congress.

In a profile of Emanual a few days ago, The Telegraph noted that:

Mr Emanuel, who received training in ballet as a boy, has shown no lightness of step in his political career: would-be enemies are advised to heed the story of a pollster who wronged him and promptly received a large, decomposing fish in the post.

Reflecting on his own foul-mouthed, attack-dog style, Mr Emanuel has said: "I wake up some mornings hating me too."

Ben Joravsky of The American Prospect asks: Does Rahm Emanuel's Pick Mean the Chicago Machine Is Coming to Washington?

So why is Obama hiring Emanuel as chief of staff? Probably for the same reason [Chicago's mayor Richard M.] Daley hired him way back in 1989. He's ruthless, cunning, and absolutely unafraid to be a jerk. In fact, I think Emanuel enjoys being a jerk. Moreover, by being a jerk, I predict Emanuel will do a great service for Obama. By the time Emanuel is finished irritating, humiliating, and infuriating folks in Washington, Obama will look like an angel. People will probably like him even more just because he's not Emanuel.

What will his appointment as Chief of Staff mean for Obama's foreign policies, particularly in the Middle East? Should Rahm Emanual be the prime target for progressive pressuring and advocacy from left wing bloggers, rather than Obama directly?

Real News Ceo Paul Jay talks with Consortium News founder Bob Parry about Obama's "partnering" with Emanual.

November 9, 2008 - 8 min 52 sec

Barack Obama's position on the Mideast conflict will be a strong indicator of his foreign policy agenda. After his speech at the AIPAC conference, Mr Obama left many doubts about the prospect for real change in US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Real News Network Senior Editor Paul Jay talks with Robert Parry about the appointment of Rahm Emanuel, and whether this selection is symptomatic of things to come.

Andrew Sullivan this morning describes Emanual and his appointment this way:

If you were expecting Kumbaya from Obama, do try to remember where he learnt politics. It’s Chicago, where Emanuel also practised the dark arts of twisting arms, yelling in people’s faces and counting votes. As one wag put it, Emanuel as Obama’s chief of staff is “Change you can f****** believe in”.

Rahm comes from a remarkable family. One brother, Ari, is the Hollywood agent for Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Wahlberg and Larry David. If you’ve watched the television series Entourage, he’s the model for the character of Ari Gold, played by Jeremy Piven. His other brother, Zeke, is a Harvard bioethicist (and an old classmate of mine) who also manages to make the nuances of healthcare reform sound like a fax machine transmitting. None of them, it is fair to say, is known for pouring oil on troubled waters.

Rahm Emanuel himself explodes amusingly at regular intervals and uses language that might have made Richard Nixon blush. But as his friend Todd Purdum, the Vanity Fair journalist, has noted, he also lives by the Franklin D Roosevelt truism: “Keep all the balls in the air without losing your own.”

He gets things done. As the fourth highest ranking member of the Democratic leadership in the House, he has a very good idea of where the votes are, who the problem congressmen will be and how to corral, bully and pinion the wayward to get his way.
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As Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times reported more than a decade ago: “Emanuel grabbed his steak knife and, as those who were there remember it, shouted out the name of another enemy, lifted the knife, then brought it down with full force into the table. ‘Dead!’ he screamed. The group immediately joined in the cathartic release: ‘Nat Landow! Dead! Cliff Jackson! Dead! Bill Schaefer! Dead!’”

Quite how his appointment will go down in the Middle East is an interesting question. The Emanuel family hails from Israel. They were originally the Auerbachs, but after their uncle Emanuel was killed in a clash with Arabs in Jerusalem in 1933, the family adopted his first name as their last. Emanuel, in other words, has serious Jewish and Israeli cred. But that doesn’t mean he’s a Likudnik.
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In other words: he’s a sign of Obama’s seriousness about governing. He’s no suck-up like Andy Card, George Bush’s former chief of staff; and he’s no patsy. People will be scared of him – which can be helpful when you’re as congenial, if aloof, a man as Obama.

Who will be running who in the White House, especially where Foreign Policy is concerned?

There's more: "Obama, Emanuel, and Foreign Policy" >>

The Gatekeeper

In his essay at Docudharma Friday A Progressive/Liberal Agenda Buhdydharma initiated some discussion of what changes would be considered and desired to be included by progressives as an agenda to be lobbied for to Barack Obama as he takes up his new job as President, and people offered a range of ideas, many based on rolling back things that George Bush had instituted during his eight years in office.

As distasteful as it may be to many quite possibly the most important thing to be considered in developing such an agenda is not what people might want, but what is going to be politically possible to achieve with an Obama presidency. The dark spirit of political pragmatism rears its ugly head here, since there is little point, though I'd be the last to say no point, in asking for things that are not politically likely.

Which raises the questions, what or who will determine politically what is possible to achieve? What are the roadblocks? Who will be standing in the road fending off or screening all comers to Obama with requests?

Who do you have to please? Who do you have to get past? Who will decide whether Obama even hears your pleas? Who will set the tone, at least initially, for Obamas presidency?

The White House Chief of Staff is the second highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President. Some individuals who have held the position, including Sherman Adams, have been dubbed "The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington" due to the nature of the job.

The duties of the White House Chief of Staff vary greatly from one administration to another. However, the chief of staff has been responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the president's schedule, and deciding who is allowed to meet with the president. Because of these duties, the Chief of Staff has at various times been dubbed "The Gatekeeper" and "The Co-President". (wikipedia)

In a WSJ article this morning a story about Obama's incoming White House Chief of Staff makes it clear what to expect initially from Obama, and by omission what not to expect as he makes it clear that he will do his utmost too keep Obama reined in as a center right Democrat.

Basically a play it safe non progressive administration. And perhaps much worse that that.

In Rahm Emanuel's telling, the Democratic victories on Tuesday were a continuum of what began in the 2006 midterm elections, when his party won majorities in the House and the Senate for the first time in 12 years.
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Recently, I spoke with Mr. Emanuel during a short layover at the Detroit airport. Officially, he hadn't yet been offered the new post, and when queried about the prospect of serving in the Obama White House he demurred. But Mr. Emanuel, who turns 49 later this month, was eager to discuss Congress's agenda going forward. He explained how Democrats can avoid the mistakes that felled the Republican majority, and he reflected on the lessons learned as a high-ranking member of President Clinton's brain trust in the 1990s.

Asked what Barack Obama was elected to do, and what legislation he's likely to find on his Oval Office desk soonest, Mr. Emanuel didn't hesitate. "Bucket one would have children's health care, Schip," he said. "It has bipartisan agreement in the House and Senate. It's something President-elect Obama expects to see. Second would be [ending current restrictions on federally funded] stem-cell research. And third would be an economic recovery package focused on the two principles of job creation and tax relief for middle-class families."

The last time a Democratic president's party also ran Congress was 1992. Just two years later, however, voters changed their mind about that arrangement and gave the GOP control of the House and Senate. Mr. Emanuel said he's not at all concerned that the party will overplay its hand this time. He insisted that his caucus is mindful of what happened to Democrats in 1994 and the Republican Congress in 2006.
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"the lesson is to do what you got elected to do," said Mr. Emanuel. "Do what you talked about on the campaign. If you got elected, that's what people expect. Don't go off on tangents where part of your party is demanding an ideological litmus test. Neither of those things was part of the campaign."
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So I asked Mr. Emanuel if the election of an unabashed liberal like Mr. Obama has made the New Democrat strategy obsolete. Perhaps what we witnessed on Tuesday means that liberalism is ascendant and the U.S. is no longer a center-right nation. "I think the country is incredibly pragmatic," he responded. "Pragmatic and progressive. But you still have to mix and match different approaches to reach your objectives. You have to be flexible."

He said the similarities between Barack Obama and the last Democratic president matter more than the differences. "Both Barack and Bill Clinton have an incredible connection to the public," he said. "Both ran on a message of hope. Both ran against failed policies that let the country down prior to them being elected. I don't think the country is yearning for an ideological answer. If anything it's the opposite. They want real solutions to real problems. And if we do an ideological test, we will fail. Our challenge is to work to solve the actual problems that the country is facing, not work to satisfy any constituency or ideological wing of the party."

So who is this guy? Who is Rahm Emanual? What does he want and stand for? What is his vision of an Obama presidency? What has he done in the past that will give some clues as to how he will operate as "Co-President"?

David Swanson is the creator of ImpeachCheney.org, the Washington Director of Democrats.com and co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition; a board member of Progressive Democrats of America; of the Backbone Campaign; and of Voters for Peace. He serves on a working group of United for Peace and Justice. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign.

A couple of days ago he spoke with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the ramifications of Emanual in the Chief of Staff position.

You may not much like what he had to say.

There's more: "The Gatekeeper" >>