I have watched both the right and the left attack Rahm for months now, and there is one thing most all of them leave out, he is doing what the President wants him to do. In all things he is the "president" being a Chief of Staff means what Rahm does is exactly what the President wants him to do, if he wasn't the President would FIRE him in a New York minute.
We do not have to like what he is doing, President Obama is the judge and jury or Rahm Emanuael. All of the stories in the press in the past month are just that stories, meant to stir the water, my questions is why?
If you want to attack President Obama attack him not the man he has on point. When ever Rahm speaks he IS speaking with the authority of President Obama, not what he thinks President Obama wants him to say, he is doing the Presidents bidding, his agenda is the Presidnets agenda, wether we like it or not. He is the ultimate team player, more so than any other staff member, all members of the staff report to Rahm and Rahm reports to President Obama, hell most if not all of the Cabinet Secretarys go thru Rahm to get face time with President Obama, they do not just show up and walk into the Presidents office. I doubt even if Joe Biden gets into the Oval office without passing thru the portals of Rahms office, Rahm is the gate keeper, he makes many decisions without ever talking to the President. There is only one person that can over turn a Rahm decision and that person is President Obama.
Rahm was an up and comer in his own right, if he had stayed in the House he more than likely would have been Speaker of the House one day, now that option has been forsaken so he can serve this President, the one we fought to get elected, the one we wanted to transform our nation, to redo health care, to bring our nation fully into the 21st century and to repair the damage of the Bush White House and the destruction of our good name in the world community by the misadventures of a war of choice (Iraq) demanded by the neocons and the members of PNAC, we all remember them, Bill Krystol, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney et al.
this definition comes from wiki
The roles of the Chief of Staff are both managerial and advisory and can include the following
Select key White House staff and supervise them
Structure the White House staff system
Control the flow of people into the Oval Office
Manage the flow of information
Protect the interests of the President
Negotiate with Congress, other members of the executive branch, and extragovernmental political groups to implement the President's agenda
It is possible that a powerful Chief of Staff with a "hands-off" president (who decides not to become involved in the minutiae of government), can become a de facto Prime Minister. Such prime ministers exist in some governmental systems: The prime minister runs the government (operations-wise), while the president remains somewhat aloof from the political process, but personally handling policy matters. Richard Nixon's first Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, garnered a reputation in Washington for the iron hand he wielded in the position—famously referring to himself as "the President's son-of-a-bitch," he was a rigid gatekeeper who would frequently meet with administration officials in place of the President, then report himself to Nixon on the officials' talking points. Journalist Bob Woodward, in his books All the President's Men and The Secret Man, wrote that many of his sources, including the famous Deep Throat, displayed a genuine fear of Haldeman.[5][6]
By contrast, Andrew Card, President George W. Bush's first Chief of Staff, was not regarded as being as powerful. It has been speculated that this was due to Card being "overshadowed" by the influence of Karl Rove, the Senior Adviser and Deputy Chief of Staff who was "the architect" of Bush's political rise
While it is the person in the chair as Chief of Staff to decide which type of COS he is going to be, it is the President who can pull the reins and draw the lines at what his COS can and can NOT do. Is there anyone who really believes that Rahm is doing anything that President Barack Obama does not want him to do?
Rahm had a reputation in the house of being a hard azz, I am under the impression that is one of the very reasons that President elect Obama chose him to be his Chief of Satff, he wanted someone that would not be bull dozed by any of the other powerful people the President was going to surround himself with, Bob Gates, Hillary Clinton to wit Bill Clinton, they do come as a couple, former Presidents do have to be dealt with, Cabinet Secretaries that could not call and demand face time on a daily basis let alone phone time when ever they wanted it, you need a strong person to deal with these types, and Rahm is doing exactly what HIS boss wants him to do.
When Rahm leaves the White House it will because he is either burnt out, or the President has decided Rahm is no longer doing what the President wants him to do, nothing else, all of the WAPO articles, the New York Times and none of the Huffington Post or Daily Kos posts are going to cause Rahm to leave the second most powerful job in this nation, like it or not Rahm answers only to Barack Obama and that is the way it should be, he serves at the pleasure of the President and when he speaks it is just as if the President is speaking and heaven help the person that does NOT realize that. If they are in the military and ignore him they could very well find themselves in the Antartica counting penguin shit.