Obama's Dud Svengali

[yurbud]

Rahm may be gone, but there isn't any indication that the corporate branch of the party he represents has been sent to the back of the bus (or thrown under it) yet.

It's worth this reminder that these guys aren't pragmatically ''moderate'' so they can win, they are pragmatically corporate so they can reap the wealthy donors now and the jobs as CEO's, hedge fund managers, lobbyists, and do nothing board members when they leave public life.

Rahm and what he represents is a cancer on the party and I hope Chicago gives him the boot in the ass he deserves.

Following his departure from the White House in 1998, Emanuel headed to a well upholstered post in a Chicago banking firm before he won election to Dan Rostenkowski's old Chicago seat. By 2005 he headed the Democratic National Campaign Committee. As such, he decided which candidates for the House should get money and other support from the national party. As Andrew Cockburn and later John Walsh described on this site at that time, Emanuel did his best to recruit candidates, preferably rich ones, guaranteed to eschew vocal opposition to the Iraq war, which Emanuel, a veteran of the Israeli army strongly favored.

Emanuel had chosen chose 22 key races, open or Republican seats, where Democrats might win. “By any reasonable criteria,” Walsh wrote, “ all the candidates chosen by Emanuel, save perhaps for one, were pro-war as Emanuel himself. In two cases Rahm had to put in considerable dollars and effort in the primaries to drive out antiwar candidates. He drove out Cegelis in Illinois's 6th CD, at the cost of one million dollars, in favor of Tammy ("Stay the course") Duckworth who lost in the general election. In California's 11th CD primary, Emanuel backed the prowar Steven Filson who lost to the antiwar candidate, Jerry McNerney, who went on to win in the general election.”

Looking at all 22 candidates hand-picked by Rahm,Walsh found that 13 were defeated, and only 8 won! And remember that this was the year of the Democratic tsunami and that Emanuel’s favorites were handsomely financed by the DCCC.

Emanuel’s political profile was scarcely a secret , and so the fact that Obama picked him as his chief of staff was a painful kick in the stomach for all those foolish souls who thought Obama’s victory presaged exciting changes in America’s course.

http://counterpunch.org/cockburn10012010.html

[Me.]

1. 59% Of His Picks Lost

And he had the nerve to blame it on Dean and claim credit for ALL the other wins

[yurbud]

2. he knows how to suck up to the rich and shit on the rest.