A bit of nasty, political infighting going on:
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has become a reluctant central figure in the battle between liberals and centrists in the Democratic Party.
A spate of recent reports have portrayed Emanuel, known for his aggressive brand of Washington politics, as either the voice of reason in a weak, liberal White House or the wet blanket preventing President Barack Obama from pursuing the kind of change he promised as a candidate…
…The culprits behind those stories are not Emanuel or those who support him, Democratic strategists say, but instead the liberal Netroots crowd disgusted by what they view as appeasement to the center.
Some of those efforts to weaken Emanuel are coming from inside the building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, one Democratic strategist said.
“There are people in the White House who are trying to get rid of Rahm, and they are leaking everything they can,” said the strategist, who is close to Emanuel. “Some of it’s personal, some of it’s professional[ly] judgmental, but there is no doubt there’s an effort.”…
A lot of things are coming together here:
1. Emanuel is not a proper Chief of Staff. The man who once sent a letter to a colleague stating, “I hate you very much”, and including a dead fish, is not the man to bring everyone together in a loving embrace. A CoS does need to have a hard edge about him (its the CoS who must say “no”, while the President is allowed to say “yes” when ever the CoS thinks it a good idea) but there also needs to be an ability to smooth over differences and get massive egos to work together. Emanuel isn’t that kind of guy.
2. Centrist Democrats – especially those in GOP districts – are getting increasingly frightened about November. Its all well and good for party liberals to say, “lets do this, win or lose”, but when you’re the guy who will almost certainly lose if it happens, its not quite as cut and dried as all that.
3. The liberal netroots was out there fighting hard for a very leftist candidate in 2008. Given the way that netroots is a gigantic, mindless echo-chamber, it probably didn’t (and doesn’t) occur to them that while they knew Obama was far left, Obama was running as a centrist. The American people did not vote for what the liberal base was fighting for. Now the liberal base – still entirely clueless about the realities of American politics – is getting furious that what they fought for is not being enacted. Even simple – in liberal-think, at least – things such as closing Gitmo and repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” aren’t being moved on.
4. Obama is proving to be that worst sort of leader imaginable – a weak yet stubborn man. He’s not got the raw courage to either tell his base to shut up or tell the GOP to jump in a lake, but he’s also blind to realities and simply will not retreat from a position, once taken. He doesn’t know how to lose gracefully, or even beat a tactical retreat in preparation for a renewed offensive at a more propitious time.
5. The various corrupt elements of the Democrat party complicate things a thousand different ways – no matter what happens, they want their usual piece of the pie and as they do their normal looting of the Treasury for personal gain, its causing all sorts of headaches for Democrats who want to get things done. Used to be, this sort of thing never came up as the MSM could be relied upon to cover up things – but with the New Media, its become impossible to keep a lid on it.
This has all resulted in a complete breakdown on message and, resulting from that, a sort of “you first” attitude where everyone is waiting for everyone else to walk the plank, first. Untangling the knot is still possible, but only if the corrupt give up their payoffs, liberals give up their more leftwing dreams and Obama learns how to ruthlessly take charge and give clear, crisp orders to be obeyed or get out.
I don’t think they can do it. Disaster impends for the Democrats. I’m quite happy about that.
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