My favorite viral sig line on Daily Kos of late is, "Show me on the doll where Rahm touched you."
The frothing madness must stop.
Here are a few choice bon mots from Froomkin's HuffPo piece:
The fact is that after a campaign that appealed so successfully to idealism, Obama hired a bunch of saboteurs of hope and change.
Rahm was simply their chief of staff.
The Rahm Emanuel that Obama hired is the poster child for the timid, pseudo-pragmatism that is inimical to the idealistic Obama agenda so many excited voters responded to last November.
Emanuel is a Bush Democrat - but not in that he has learned the lesson about the value of holding firmly to core values. He is a Bush Democrat in that he has allowed Republicans to traumatize him into submission. Emanuel operates on a battlefield as defined by Republicans, where the terrain is littered with the specter of imaginary but profoundly terrifying GOP attack ads. His reflexive approach is the strategic retreat.
Oh, to see his media speed-dial, and its collection of nattering process junkies, smug contrarians, split-the-difference stenographers, center-worshipping priests of High Broderism and corporatist cocktail-partiers who enable Emanuel's brand of soulless political gamesmanship.
To Emanuel, victory is the only thing, and rather than recognize the error of his ways and recalibrate, he is publicly declaring that the now widely-recognized enfeeblement of his boss's presidency is not his failure, but his vindication. Hail Emanuel triumphant.
I like Froomkin, and every so often, I poetically rend my own garments too. But this Rahm shit is around the bend.
Emanuel is a convenient excuse for progressives caught flat-footed by Obama's policy profile. Period.
If you have beef with what Obama's doing and what Obama is not doing, then place the blame where it belongs: on Obama's shoulders.
You know better than to imagine Obama as an absentee president. You know damn well he's in the details.
Dan (et al): What is it you want? You want Rahm's head on a platter?
Fine. Let's imagine what the White House looks like, post-Rahm.
Let's imagine David Axelrod gets his job, tomorrow. In February of a midterm election year.
Now, stand there with a straight face and tell me that Obama magically becomes the president you always hoped he would be. Tell me that you really believe that with the blocking sled that is Rahm Emanuel removed from Obama's left flank that he will careen away from the center and into the loving arms of the netroots. Tell me that with Emanuel sidelined, Congressional politics, Blue Dog Democrats, and internecine Capitol Hill bullshit evaporates. Tell me that only Rahm Emanuel stands between us and:
- HCR including a robust public option
- A world without DADT and DOMA
- Wall Street reform
- Cap and trade legislation
- An Afghanistan exit strategy
- insert progressive plank here
Get real.
This diary will generate all manner of breathless response, and I will be accused early in the comments of being a fan of Rahm Emanuel. That is inaccurate. Then I will be accused of being ignorant of Rahm's tactics and influence on this president. That is accurate.
I don't know much about how Rahm operates, and neither does Froomkin, and neither (I'm guessing) do 99.9% of those with their hair on fire. This whole rhetorical hamster wheel is greased with enough ignorance to fertilize the North Lawn.
But I do know this: Obama is responsible. Nobody else. He'd tell you the same damn thing.
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Rahm Emanuel isn't going anywhere, folks. So put your eyes back on the ball, and change the things you can.