Hizzoner, Rico Suave: What? (ap photo)
The rumor that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel wanted to be mayor of Chicago surfaced most bizarrely in January, in an unrelated Sally Quinn column about administration staffers and dinner parties. How very “Washington”!
Disavowals ensued, including from himself, who told MSNBC that he served at the pleasure of the president and would continue to do so, “as long as he has me here.”
Awww! But then on Monday, apparently wilting under the gimlet eye of PBS’ Charlie Rose, Emanuel busted out his true, secret ambition:
“One day I would like to run for mayor of the city of Chicago,” he said.
Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times was among many people wondering just what Rahm was up to. Apparently, the rigors of a PBS interview were too much for the faint-hearted Democrat — Emanuel told Sweet he blundered into it:
Emanuel told me Tuesday night he never intended to go as far as he did with Rose. The question came up at the end of a wide ranging interview. The usually disciplined Emanuel says he slipped up.
Whatever. Note that he didn’t deny it — just that he didn’t mean to say it. As Michael Kinsley famously wrote, “a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.”
