I'm watching Rahm Emanuel on Meet The Press, and I'm reminded of why Triple P dislikes the man so intently. Emanuel is coming as close as I've ever seen to a guest on MTP telling the host to go (as crass as it sounds) screw himself.
I was particularly incensed by his response to Gregory vis a vis Roland Burris. Gregory brought up the hypocrisy of Obama's , followed by Burris' being sworn in a week later. Emanuel parroted (repeatedly) that Secretary of State White had signed the papers, so the last roadblocks to now Senator Burris' inauguration had passed. He very carefully avoided acknowledging that Burris was seated specifically because President-elect Obama told Senator Reid to, in essence, hurry up and roll over, as the Democrats are so notoriously good at doing. He proceeded to point out that he wasn't qualified to offer an opinion on whether Governor Blagoevich may be a tad corrupt. He then got angry when Gregory pushed him on the Burris issue.
I keep contrasting the political styles alongside, presumably, the philosophical underpinnings and base-level emotional states of the President-elect and his Chief of Staff, and am surprised by the degree to which I deeply respect the one and abhor the other. On the flip side, President-elect Obama undoubtedly needs hard-nosed men and women to help push his agenda, and now that Emanuel seems to have dropped his quest to find a placeholder for his congressional seat allowing him to return to the House in two to four years, he can be a very effective head of the administration and pointed tool in the Presidential arsenal.
At the great risk of rambling (now known, I've decided, as mission creep) perhaps my distaste for Emanuel is simply a result of the man's embodying two of the qualities I personally find so disquieting; his purposeful lack of civility and tendency to demonize his opponents, alongside his support for a man, Senator Burris, whom I hold in complete and total contempt due not to his unimpressive record in public office, but rather to his decision to accept the Senatorial appointment, apparently, simply because he so very much wanted to be able to add the honor "Senator" to his resume. I respect Rep. Danny Davis a great deal for refusing that same appointment due to Blagoevich's corruption and imminent impeachment.
