Don't let the door hit ya.....

AlexCockburn--Emanuel's exit

""""By the time Obama hired him, Emanuel already had a proven record of toadyism to corporate America and the neocon lobby. Emanuel was a relict of all that was sleazy in the Clinton White House. Among the body blows that have brought the Democrats to their present ebb, the passage of NAFTA in 1993, with consequent destruction of the American industrial economy, must count as among the most lethal. Key to that passage was Emanuel, who directed the Clinton White House operation to get the treaty passed by any means necessary.


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. """"


After the midterm election John Walsh totted up the scorecard achieved by the man hailed as the Democrats’ can-do guy, as efficiently ruthless as the Great Satan himself, Karl Rove.

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.”""""

Amazingly, many corporate "Democrats" seem to consider RE , at least as neo-con-ish as a Lieberman, an authentic liberal--then, many think the same of General Hillary, hardly any different than a McCaint on most foreign policy issues.