When President Obama counts his disappointments, he must trace many of them to a man just down the hall from the Oval Office: Rahm Emanuel.
But if Obama is tempted to blame his current quagmire on his lieutenant — as many of his fellow Democrats are already doing — the president should remember that he bears the blame for picking the wrong person for the job.
Emanuel was Obama’s first hire. His elevation to chief of staff was heralded from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal to the corridors of lefty think tanks as proof that Obama was going to get tough and be serious about governing.
“Obambi” would have backup from “Rahmbo.”
While Obama tends to rhetorical rhapsodies and academic solutions, Emanuel is a hard-nosed vote counter who inhabits the world of the possible. As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he showed his pragmatism by forcing liberal Democrats to back moderates for House races in conservative districts. His reputation for profane tirades while in the Clinton administration was seen by knock-kneed lefties as evidence of real toughness, not just flamboyance.
But rather than being the president’s enforcer, Emanuel has become a sideshow in the White House carnival.
Does Emanuel berate congressmen naked in the showers of the House gym? Did he leak the existence of a “Plan B” on health care in an effort to sabotage the president’s effort to lead Democrats on a kamikaze mission? Are he and David Axelrod at odds? What office will Emanuel run for when he leaves the White House?
These are not questions that anyone should ever be asking about the White House chief of staff.
The most effective of Emanuel’s predecessors, men like James Baker, Leon Panetta and Andy Card, were little seen or heard outside the West Wing but were a constant presence inside the administration — steadily pushing the president’s agenda and holding Cabinet members accountable.
It’s the ultimate insider job: Endless work, lots of blame and, if you do it right, no glory.
Emanuel certainly talks a lot about how much he works. None of the beat-sweetening stories about him and his team would be complete without some detail about 5 a.m. gym workouts and 7 a.m. staff meetings.
But as for taking the blame and shunning the glory, Emanuel makes a lousy chief of staff. Whether he’s cooing at Timesman David Brooks, questioning the cognitive development of liberal activists or striking another cross-armed pose for another profile story, it’s all about Rahm.
One of the complaints from the paranoid Left about Emanuel is that he is a Clintonian triangulator who persuaded Obama to compromise on big-ticket items like the Afghan war and health care. Some may see him as Hillary Clinton’s mole in the West Wing, but the only team on which Emanuel reliably plays is his own.
None of that should be news to Obama, who sprang from the same murky pond of Chicago politics as Emanuel. Nor should it have been a surprise for Hill Democrats who watched him claw his way to the top.
But for some reason, Obama and other Democrats expected Emanuel to be something different from what he had always been. They wanted a Tom DeLay-style character to do and say all of the bad things for them. They wanted Emanuel to threaten, cajole, entice and bully all the way to victory so that Obama and other leaders could keep their hands clean enough to accept the credit.
But Emanuel means to return to elective office and has no interest in being the fall guy for the wicked impulses of the Left.
DeLay may be content to ham it up on “Dancing With the Stars” and tell wistful tales about the good old days, but Emanuel doesn’t want to put his ballet training to use just yet. He sees himself as House speaker one day, or maybe mayor of Chicago, but not a footnote in the story of Obama.
One of the reasons liberals hate Emanuel so much is that they believe he has perverted Obama’s impulse to be a crusader. Obama has no record as a crusader for anything other than his own success, but he would be wise to let Emanuel take the blame for the muddled policies of his administration.
And, if in his impending flame-out, Emanuel manages to buy a period of detente with the Left for Obama, he will have rendered his first selfless service to the president.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected].
