Open war over Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's master of the dark arts

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Rahm Emanuel, the president's tough backroom operator, has found himself at the centre of a career-threatening row

Paul Harris in New York

The Observer, Sunday 7 March 2010

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's outspoken chief of staff, has become embroiled in a public row with his critics amid accusations that he has damaged the standing of the presidency and undermined his boss.

Emanuel has become the subject of an intense war of words between those who blame him for the failings of Obama's tough first year in office and those who insist that Obama should have listened to him more. If the controversy deepens any further, some feel that he may be forced to resign.

The development has been remarkable for a man in Emanuel's job, which calls for him to adopt a behind-the-scenes role similar to that of a Mafia boss's consigliere, whispering advice in the ear of the president and then strong-arming political targets into obeying his master's will.

But critics say the row shows just how much of a strain Obama's first year of office has taken on his top White House team after a series of political setbacks, especially over healthcare. Officials in Obama's administration, who once appeared so united, now seem to be in siege mode and starting to fight among themselves.

"It was inevitable that this would happen on one level. You have a president with an ambitious agenda and they have not been getting as much done as they had hoped," said John Geer, editor of the Journal of Politics and a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.

The worsening atmosphere could become particularly difficult for Emanuel if November's mid-term elections turn into a Democratic rout. "Rahm Emanuel is burning the candle at both ends. I would not be surprised if he steps down after the mid-terms," Geer said.

By the standards of the Obama White House, the fight around Emanuel has been unusually public and appears to have employed many of the dirty tricks of media manipulation. It began when some public figures on the left of the party, including prominent bloggers and members of thinktanks, began to call for his resignation, accusing him of being a closet conservative who had failed to get meaningful healthcare reform and other liberal policy through Congress. One, the influential Jane Hamsher of the blog Firedoglake, even said the Justice Department should investigate him.

That growing chorus appears to have forced Emanuel – or, more likely, his supporters – to launch a counter-attack. A column in the Washington Post by the highly respected sketch-writer Dana Milbank reported that Emanuel had set up his own press outreach operation, separate to that of other top White House aides such as press secretary Robert Gibbs and top adviser Valerie Jarrett. It also stuck the knife into those aides and other senior Obama advisers, blaming them for Obama's problems.

"Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters," Milbank wrote. The piece concluded bluntly: "Obama needs fewer acolytes and more action. Rahm should stay."

Other pieces followed in which sources attacked Obama's top aides and repeated the line that Emanuel was the spurned saviour of the Obama White House, not its downfall. But there was a backlash, too. Anonymous sources reported that Michelle Obama had been furious at the Milbank column. "A knife in Obama's back?" thundered a headline in the Los Angeles Times.

There was much speculation that the pro-Emanuel pieces had done damage to Obama by undermining his authority in the frank way that they had spelled out that Obama's first year had been a disappointment. "The defence of Rahm favoured by some Washington Democrats is evidence of everything that is wrong with Washington ... no wonder people hate this city," fumed the Washington Post's Ezra Klein.

Indeed, the civil war between pro-Rahm and anti-Rahm forces has also dragged in the Post. Not only did Milbank's column trigger much of the dispute, but soon Post columnists were attacking their newspaper for taking too much of a pro-Rahm line in its news stories.

At the end of last week the Post's longstanding political columnist, David Broder, used his column to attack Milbank and his fellow reporters. Broder called the pro-Rahm argument a "remarkable fiction" and was withering in his critique of his paper's reporting. Not surprisingly that, too, gave the story a fresh burst of life.

It was perhaps inevitable that Emanuel would end up being the centre of attention. "He is clearly a very strong chief of staff. He has very strong preferences for what should be happening," said Geer.

Emanuel's supporters hail him as a master of the political dark arts who gets things done. He is abrasive and renowned for his foul-mouthed tirades, like a real-life American variation on The Thick of It's fictional Malcolm Tucker. "****nutsville" is apparently his preferred nickname for Washington, and he was recently forced to apologise for referring to liberal activists as "retarded".

Emanuel is known for his ability to dominate and intimidate politicians and cabinet members. No wonder he has made enemies. But he has also now broken one of the cardinal rules of his job: to control the story, not be the story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/07/war-rahm-emanuel-barack-obama
 
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