Rohm Emmanuel - A Man Who Doesn't Believe in Change

So, here we are, at the end of a completely disastrous presidential election cycle. The people were forced to choose between John McCain, whose political ideology is extremely difficult to pin down, and Barrack Obama, a man who gave no clues as to what his political ideology is. Faced with a media that refused to report actual facts and ask questions about the past of Mr. Obama, Americans were forced into a vote that was more like a bad episode of American Idol than anything else in presidential history.

But Mr. Obama won, and congratulations to him. He ran on a platform of change. The single greatest thing that he revealed about himself in the election is that his name is not George Bush. So, we actually know very little about Mr. Obama. However, we can begin to put some things together based upon his recent pick of Rohm Emmanuel as his chief of staff.

In order to understand this, we must know the nature of the job of chief of staff. Mr. Emmanuel will have an office through which anyone who wishes to enter into the oval office and speak to the president will have to pass. They will tell Mr. Emmanuel what they want to speak to the president about, and it will be Mr. Emmanuel's decision wether or not they get their meeting. Since the president really gets his news of the world from meetings such as this, and forms his policies upon these meetings, they are critical to the success or failure of any presidency.

Now, about Mr. Emmanuel. He is famous for three things. First, he got into a disagreement with a member of his own staff, and after that staff member resigned, Mr. Emmanuel mailed him a dead fish. Thats right, a rotten fish corpse, via the US Postal Service. Second, Mr. Emmanuel was an advisor to President Clinton, helping him to formulate his policies. Whenever Congressional Republicans would request a slight change in posture from the Clinton Administration, in order to find common ground and pass a bill, Mr. Emmanuel's favorite saying was "Fuck the Republicans." Needless to say, this did not support an atmosphere of bipartisanship. Third, there was a major incident the night after the 1996 election that goes down in history as one of the most bizarre moments in political history. The Democrats gathered for what was supposed to be a victory celebration. But instead, in the middle of their feast, Mr. Emmanuel stood up with a steak knife and began listing the names of Democrats who he thought had betrayed the President in some way. After every name, he yelled the word "Dead", and plunged his steak knife into the table. Mr. Emmanuel was escorted from the dinner by security and forced to pay to replace the table that he ruined.

After leaving President Clinton's staff, Mr. Emmanuel was named a member of the board of directors of Freddie Mac. He resigned from the board after Freddie Mac was involved in several scandals including alleged illegal campaign contributions and accounting fraud. Just before he resigned, a government body with oversight over Freddie Mac accused the board of directors of "failing in its duties" to investigate the accounting errors.

There is a lot more to be said about Mr. Emmanuel, from the fact that he was the congressman who opensecrets.com reports as receiving the most amount of money in the 2008 election cycle from hedge fund managers, to the fact that his father was a member of an organization called Irgun, which was responsible for several bombings in the palestinian territories (imagine that, Obama being connected to someone who was a terrorist), to the fact that he is a long time supporter of the redistribution of wealth.

At any rate, I would like to congratulate Mr. Obama for naming Mr. Emmanuel as his new chief of staff. It is just one of the recent signs that "change" was merely a campaign slogan which will go unfulfilled.