Patterico's Pontifications

10/30/2008

Obama’s Transition Team Up and Running

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 8:07 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Hot Air links a Chicago Sun-Times report that Obama has been raising money for his transition via the “Obama Transition Project” and now the AP reports the Obama campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel to serve as White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel is known for his intensity as profiled in this Rolling Stone article entitled “The Enforcer”:

“Friends and enemies agree that the key to Emanuel’s success is his legendary intensity. There’s the story about the time he sent a rotting fish to a pollster who had angered him. There’s the story about how his right middle finger was blown off by a Syrian tank when he was in the Israeli army. And there’s the story of how, the night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting “Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!” and plunging the knife into the table after every name. “When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape,” one campaign veteran recalls. “It was like something out of The Godfather. But that’s Rahm for you.”

Of the three stories, only the second is a myth — Emanuel lost the finger to a meat slicer as a teenager and never served in the Israeli army. But it’s a measure of his considerable reputation as the enforcer in Clinton’s White House that so many people believe it to be true. You don’t earn the nickname “Rahmbo” being timid.”

So much for bipartisanship. It sounds like Obama’s idea of change is to replace Washington business-as-usual with Chicago business-as-usual.

— DRJ

15 Responses to “Obama’s Transition Team Up and Running”

  1. Does anyone remember that video of Sadddam Hussein naming off “enemies of the regime,” while those “enemies” were still in the room? And, of course, they were all soon executed. I’m not saying “Rahmbo” or Obama would do that… at least not the execution part… but…

    PDizzle (cb6b9b)

  2. But Baracky is new and hopey and changey and post-partisan and post-racial and yadda yadda yadda.

    JD (5b4781)

  3. Racists.

    JD (5b4781)

  4. Where is our transition team going to be? We are going to need counselors to help us overcome the shock of watching Obama and his leftist illuminati ideals change America into Islamica.

    Jeff (7ff0a7)

  5. I know, Jeff. But we can bitterly cling to our guns and religion in recompense.

    At least I think we can.

    Eric Blair (51924c)

  6. Just today in Sarasota, Fla., the Democratic presidential nominee said that he’d:

    “give a tax break to 95 percent of Americans who work every day and get taxes taken out of their paycheck every week”;
    “eliminate income taxes on Social Security for seniors making under $50,000”;
    “give homeowners and working parents additional tax breaks”;
    not increase taxes on anyone if they “make under $250,000; you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime –- not your income taxes, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax”;
    “end those breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas”;
    “give tax breaks to companies that invest right here in the United States”;
    “eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-up companies that are the engine of job creation in this country”;
    “create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, and bridges, and schools — by laying broadband lines to reach every corner of the country”;
    “invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade”;
    “reopen old factories, old plants, to build solar panels, and wind turbines”;
    build “a new electricity grid”;
    “build the fuel efficient cars of tomorrow”;
    “eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in 10 years”;
    “lower premiums” for those who already have health insurance;
    “if you don’t have health insurance, you’ll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress give themselves”;
    “end discrimination by insurance companies to the sick and those who need care the most”;
    “invest in early childhood education”;
    “recruit an army of new teachers”;
    “pay our teachers higher salaries, give them more support. But … also demand higher standards and more accountability”;
    “make a deal with every young person who’s here and every young person in America: If you are willing to commit yourself to national service, whether it’s serving in our military or in the Peace Corps, working in a veterans home or a homeless shelter, then we will guarantee that you can afford to go to college no ifs ands or buts”;
    “stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq whole the Iraqis have a huge surplus”;
    “end this war in Iraq”;
    “finish the fight and snuff out al Qaeda and bin Laden”;
    “increase our ground troops and our investments in the finest fighting force in the world”;
    “invest in 21st century technologies so that our men and women have the best training and equipment when they deploy into combat and the care and benefits they have earned when they come home”;
    “No more homeless veterans”; and
    “no more fighting for disability payments.”
    This on top of his 30-minute infomercial last night, and the myriad other pledges and promises he’s made throughout the last 21 months.

    It’s quite a list!

    He does call for some sacrifices, though nothing that would equal the cost of these measures.

    “Washington is going to have to tighten its belt. It’s going to have to put off spending on things we don’t need. As president, I’m gonna go through the federal budget, line-by-line, and we’re going to end programs that we don’t need. We’re gonna have to make the ones we do need work better and cost less.”
    Of course, he’ll soon be “asking folks who are making more than a quarter million dollars a year to go back to the tax rate they were paying in the 1990s before the Bush tax cuts.”
    And in a way of attempting to head off at the pass any criticisms that there’s no way the U.S. can afford all this, he says supporters should tell skeptics that ending the war will save the U.S. $10 billion a month.

    I thought that the Left was up in arms because the money for the war was not in the budget, and was being borrowed from future generations?

    The idea that he can say with a straight face that he will decrease net spending without laughing is a testament to how good of a politician Baracky and his comrades in the media are.

    JD (5b4781)

  7. Forget steak knives. Rahm will be shouting “meathooks” if this goes according to the Obamakin plan. Ugliest potential scenario I’ve ever seen. Don’t forget to vote.

    driver (56cdca)

  8. Sorry, should have included a [object]

    JD (5b4781)

  9. I am pretty sure my attempts to link to that failed, miserably. I am trying again …

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/obama-claus.html

    JD (5b4781)

  10. the thing i remember about rahm was his appearance on meet the press when russert asked him about the foley memos and rahm kept dis combobulating-as in
    “no-i have not SEEN the memos” etc/
    truly a clinton dodge-i blame russert/tho he did ask him three times
    what a weasel

    pdbuttons (359493)

  11. ps-if that pussy could break eggs with a baseball bat..
    i’ll take bets..

    pdbuttons (359493)

  12. Nixon had a list of enemies

    As a young attorney on the committee to impeach Nixon – Hillary used Nixons list of enemies to justify her essays/memos/screeds on why Nixon should not get legal representation during Watergate

    Then in Washington – cooler heads prevailed and she was fired

    Cooler heads are far gone now

    This is the chnage weekend – this is where the people change their minds

    this is when 4 pts swings one way or another

    either we are going to barely elect McCain or give Obama a landslide

    EricPWJohnson (47b9ab)

  13. EPWJ–

    And if we could see a tape of Obama sitting next to Dohrn & Ayers, listening to a series of anti-Semitic speakers then stepping to the microphone to praise a PLO spokesman, we might get that 4 point swing.

    But no. The times puts their “honor” before country. As if.

    Kevin (0b2493)

  14. It sounds like Obama’s idea of change is to replace Washington business-as-usual with Chicago business-as-usual.

    Just like the “most ethical Congress ever” promise.

    Patricia (ee5c9d)

  15. “But Baracky is new and hopey and changey and post-partisan and post-racial and yadda yadda yadda.”

    I think he’s already post partisan. I mean, isn’t reagan’s chief of staff endorsing him?

    imdw (c990d8)


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