Sixteen years ago, when Bill Clinton was moving into the White House, good-government liberals were disheartened that the president-elect named his campaign’s top fundraiser, Rahm Emanuel, as White House political director. They read this as a sign that cash would be king in the Clinton administration. They were right.

Four elections later, after getting rich in a brief stint in finance, Emanuel is the favorite congressman of Wall Street, measuring by campaign contributions. In the midst of a financial crisis that President-elect Barack Obama blames on Wall Street’s greed and excessive influence in Washington, Emanuel is once again headed to a perch of power in a Democratic White House, this time as chief of staff.