Rahm Emanuel as WH Chief of Staff. Whaddya think?

By now you've all heard the rumors, and the rumors have turned into solid news reports: Rahm Emanuel has been offered the job of White House Chief of Staff.

There are a couple different ways to evaluate this, of course. Rahm gets mixed reviews around here, to put it mildly, on his record as a member of the House leadership. We know he's a rough-and-tumble type, but he's also shown us a cautious side, as when he resisted for many months in giving his assent to the move to bring contempt of Congress votes against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten to the House floor.

But even in his caution, he was motivated by brass tacks considerations that were never at odds with that rough-and-tumble reputation. He resisted the vote because he was considering it from an electoral perspective, as he appears to consider almost every issue. Will it help or hurt Dems next election day? That was always his bottom line.

The question is whether that was his chief consideration because of the jobs he held in the leadership -- DCCC Chair and Democratic Caucus Chair -- or whether he ended up in those jobs because they themselves require that electoral politics be your chief concern? The related question, as far as speculating on whether or not Rahm will accept the job being offered, is was he doing the job that was required of him if he wanted to move up, or was he doing the job he was best suited to naturally?

In other words, is the next step in Rahm's personal plan for what he wants to do to transition into an institutional player who puts his mind to legislating and the formulation of policy, as the Majority Whip, Majority Leader or Speaker of the House might do? Or is it to take his expertise in formulating electoral strategy to the next level as White House Chief of Staff? Both paths require a deft hand on either side of that divide, to be sure. But both are a conceptually a step above the laser-focused concern with maintaining numbers in the House. Which one does Rahm want more?

While it's true that Emanuel is considerably younger than those who occupy the top leadership slots above him, he may have to wait ten years or more to make his way all the way to the Speakership. And I'm not 100% sure that's where he wants to be, though he'd happily take it if it were offered to him today.

But that's not what's being offered today. Today, it's White House Chief of Staff. And to be honest, from the way he approached the contempt of Congress issues, not to mention his strategies on procedural issues like the use of the motion to recommit -- which was well-suited to our position in the minority prior to 2006, but made it virtually impossible to govern as a majority afterward -- I just don't think Emanuel's got a serious interest in being a lifer in Congress. At least not as an institutionalist like Hoyer (love him or hate him) or Pelosi. Though it took them a while to come around on the contempt votes as well, by all reports they felt the necessity for the vote much more deeply than Emanuel ever did. And I suspect that was because they are institutionalists at heart. Rahm, I always felt, was biding his time between Democratic administrations, happy to have a hand in the power game in the House while he waited, but anxious to get back into the executive branch, where he thought the real power was.

And lo... before I even finished the piece, it was done.

UPDATE: MSNBC now unreporting it:

*** UPDATE *** In an email to NBC News, Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg denies the reporting that Emanuel has accepted the chief of staff job.