http://senatoryourenojackkennedy.blogspot.com/2008/05/gangster-of-week-rahm-emanuel.html
I was first introduced to Emanuel by this great profile piece in The Rolling Stone. His gangster status is well documented. While working in the White House, he mailed a dead fish to a pollster he didn't like. Ari Gold from Entourage is based on his brother, Ari Emanuel (In an episode, they are sitting in Ari Emanuel's $2,000 courtside seats). It is rumored that he lost his finger fighting for Israel in Syria, but he actually lost while working at Arby's in high school (I'd stick with the Israel story). My favorite Rahm Emanuel story is how, the night after Clinton's election in '92, he stood up at a celebratory dinner and called out all the Democratic betrayers of Clinton's campaign. After each name he shouted out "Dead...dead...dead...dead..." and stabbed the table with his steak knife after each name. Bad. Ass.
This is the kind of attitude the Democrats need if they are going to remain a force in national politics. His take-no-prisoners attitude is an affront to the notion that Dems are bunch of ninnies and push-overs. He stood up to Clinton and told him that fundraising needed to be his number one priority early in the campaign. Clinton listened and you can make the argument that this won him the nomination (Tsongas, Clinton's chief rival in the primaries, ran out of money cause he had to try to outspend Clinton). His strategic thinking and unbelievable fundraising power provided a net gain of 30 seats in the House when he was the DCCC chair.
He accomplishes the tasks before him, no compromises. He is angry and brash, but that's what this party needs. He's only 48, so he will be a player in Democratic politics for a long time to come. Vice President?
[Note: The youtube video shown at the site has been taken down by the user. Not sure what video that was.]
See also
Rahm Emanuel, President-Elect Obama’s appointed Chief of Staff said: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, told business leaders assembled by the Wall Street Journal in November that the economic crisis facing the country is "an opportunity to do things you could not do before."
That has to be one of the most chilling statements I have ever heard uttered by an American political official in my lifetime.
It ranks right up there with the transparent arrogance of Clinton administration hotshot Paul Begala's July 1998 explanation of the use of executive orders by the president to go over the heads of Congress: "Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool."
But there was even more to this quote from Emanuel. He followed up that scary and yet candid statement with this: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
Every so often, an insider among the power brokers in our establishment elite let's slip an extremely telling remark. I suspect Emanuel meant exactly what he said – though he probably wishes he could take it back.
Why is it that Emanuel and other members of the Obama administration seem downright giddy about the collapse of our economy? Could it be more than the fact that it led them to power? Do they believe they can use this crisis to push through unconstitutional, immoral and draconian anti-freedom measures that will help them maintain control and power under the cover of crisis?
And, if so, is it possible this dire economic calamity was at least partly engineered by insiders from the beginning – for the purpose of enriching the elite and turning the rest of us into serfs?
I'm beginning to open my mind to just such a possibility.
Continue reading here:
http://www.americanideologicalsociety.com/ais/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=821
