Thursday, November 06, 2008

I'm actually coming around to Rahm as COS

Because of articles like this. David Corn, who I love personally, is almost a bellwether for myopic beltway thinking and if he thinks Rahm is too "partisan" and too aggressive you can bet your boots that he's a great choice for COS. The only reason David doesn't like the choice is that apparently David thinks that Obama's job is to reassure older white virginian swing voters that he won't actually try to, you know, do shit he'll just throw his arms around his Republican congresspeople and tell them that its ok that they fucked up for the last eight years. G-d forbid Obama and his staff should try to push through an actual legislative agenda.

David, David, David. More... No one in the real world knows what the Chief of Staff Does, let alone who Rahm Emmanual is. Really, no one knows. And no one cares about the whole "bipartisan" shtick. If some older white guys said it to you at a rally in Manassas you know what it means? Nothing. If they actually meant that Obama should try to get legislation passed what they really ought to have said is that they want *more* partisanship, because bipartisanship with republicans really is just a form of date rape and we are perpetually the date who got slipped the roofie. But in any event those dudes in Mannassas don't know how the sausage gets made. Most voters don't.

The fact that Boehner is against it should be enough to make any thinking Democrat lean towards it, even if I personally don't like Rahm or his conventional political instincts, tendency to grandstanding, and anti progressive history. If he faithfully and agressively pursues Obama's legislative agenda that is good enough for me.