Obama's pick of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff suggests a number of things to me about the direction of the Obama White House on several levels.
Politically, it suggests to me is that Obama might be attempting to nuance himself a bit, something that will not endear him to his far Left supporters. Emanuel is a partisan pit bull, but by Democrat standards he's fairly moderate, an ex-Clintonista connected with the Democratic Leadership council (DLC). There's not much love lost between Emanuel and the nutroots.
Obama's only hope of having a successful presidency is to govern from the center. Is Emanuel a signal he plans to do so? We'll see.
Another political indication given to me by Emanuel's appointment is that the Obama White House is going to resemble the Clinton White House in being in constant campaign mode.Emanuel's chief gifts for the position, aside from his talents as an enforcer is his ability as a political fix-it guy and fundraiser.I have my own opinions on how good that is for the country, but it makes sense from Obama's personal standpoint.
Another thing Obama's pick of Emanuel suggests is that Obama is working towards picking a side in one of the many splits between his supporters, in this case between Israel haters and American Jews.
Rahm Emanuel is an observant Orthodox Jew with a very pro-Israel stance and a Zionist background.Emanuel's father, Benjamin Emanuel is a dual US-Israeli citizen who lives in Israel and is an ex-member of the Irgun, the Zionist group chiefly responsible for kicking the Brits out of what became Israel. According to his father, his son is the namesake of Rahamim, a Lehi combatant who was killed by the Arabs.
Rahm Emanuel himself also had dual US-Israeli citizenship, which he renounced when he was 18, and served with the IDF in the Golan during the Gulf War as a civilian volunteer in Israel.
While Emanuel was a supporter of Oslo during the Clinton years, ( back when people actually thought it would work) he's also been a consistently strong supporter of AIPAC and has an extremely pro-Israel voting record. It's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely that he would be part of an anti-Israel White House,and it may very well be that Obama, noting the support he received from American Jews has decided to reach out to them and adopt a more pro-Israel stance and lean more to that side of his following than was anticipated.
Again, we'll see.
4 comments:
Come on. Just admit that all the fear mongering about the "death of Israel" was political garbage and get on with the next assault. I know you have to spin this as Obama somehow switching positions but it just ain't so. All your Khalidi baiting didn't help during the election so you can drop it now. This post makes it seem as if you had postulated a slightly less pro-Israeli policy rather than a wholesale sell out of the Jewish state. Mea Culpa anyone?
Oh, I don't think it was garbage in the least.
As for Khalidi, people like Khalid al-Mansour, Robert Malley, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers and Zbigniew Brezhinski concern me a lot more than Obama's palling around with Khalidi an dmaking a few expediant statements in front of a bunch of Arab Jew haters.That, and Obama's naive approach to foreign policy questions.
The appointment of Emanuel merely suggests to me that Obama may have had some second thoughts.
We'll see, won't we? Meanwhile, the Israelis had better get their own house in order.
BTW, don't talk to me about `assaults'...not after the way Sarah Palin and her family were vilely asaaulted with the Obama campaign encouraging it...not to mention a certain plumber in Ohio.
ff
constant campaign mode
Sounds more and more like the UK after the election of Blair. Watch out for any constantly announced need to "modernise". An awful lot of not very nice stuff will be hidden in that!
Oh, I agree, Yokel. You may very weel have something there.
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