On November 6, 2008, the day after President-elect Barack Obama chose U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his incoming chief-of-staff, David Swanson, founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, was interviewed by Paul Jay on The Real News about the importance of the hire. Swanson, while happy that we had Obama rather than John McCain as our president, was fairly prescient in some of his predictions, and in his skepticism about what Rahm Emanuel might bring to the White House. Here's the interview:
Interestingly, Swanson didn't bring up the longstanding feud between Emanuel and Gov. Dr. Howard Dean, over what the future of the Democratic Party might be. There's no question that the re-emergance of this emnity (mostly on the part of Emanuel) late Tuesday was another sign that this health care bill stinks so bad it probably deserves to die:
The president might not owe his office to Gov. Dean. But the margin of victory Democrats enjoyed in U. S. House and Senate races in 2008 was Dean's accomplishment. Rahm Emanuel's bitterness over this may be far deeper and more costly to the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2012 than even the most articulate critics of Emanuel's methods and policies, Jane Hamsher and Howie Klein, have yet been able to articulate.
No comments:
Post a Comment