“Rahm never stabs you in the back. He stabs you in front.”
http://gawker.com/5127128/rahm-emanuel-already-knifing-enemiesYou know it is coming, right? The last administration this ready to throw fellow Democrats under the bus was that of Georgia peanut farmer and nuclear engineer turned president Jimmy Carter--who felt that he owed no one in his own party anything. Carter paid for his indifference to his party by almost losing his own Party nomination (to Ted Kennedy) and then going on to lose his re-election.
Politico reports that "Rahm Emanuel has blamed Coakley, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake for failing to see Brown's surge in time to stop it."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/01/rundown---011910.htmlNow, officially speaking, Rahm is 100% against Democrats criticizing other Democrats. When the Democrats being criticized are Obama and his corporate Dem buddies.
The Politico’s Jonathan Martin reported this morning that Rahm Emanuel warned leaders of liberal groups in a private meeting this week that it was time to stop running ads attacking Blue Dog and “centrist” Dems on health care.
I’m told, however, that Emanuel went quite a bit further than this.
Sources at the meeting tell me that Emanuel really teed off on the Dem-versus-Dem attacks, calling them “f–king stupid.” This was a direct attack on some of the attendees in the room, who are running ads against Dems right now.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/rahm-slammed-dems-attacking-other-dems-as-f-king-stupid-sources-say/On the other hand, if Democrats dare to thwart any of Obama/Emanuel's ambitions--like a sharp move to the political right aka escalating the war in Afghanistan to appease the Military Industrial Complex---they are immediately tossed under the bus. Here is what happened to liberal Congressional Dems who did not want to fund Obama's War.
The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday. "We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/12/16/white_house/index.htmlWhat's that sound?
Screech! "Gah!" Squish! Why, that is the sound of another Democrat being thrown under the bus by Rahm Emanuel.
He has done it to Howard Dean, the true heart and soul of the Democratic left (Obama only played at being a leftist in order to win the nomination from Hillary in a campaign remarkably similar to that of Carter in 1976).
Turn off MSNBC. Tune out Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann. The White House has its liberal wing in hand on health care, says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
“There are no liberals left to get” in the Senate, Emanuel said in an interview, shrugging off some noise from the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) that a few liberals might bolt over the compromises made with conservative Democrats.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/12/18/rahm-emanuel-dont-worry-about-the-left/tab/article/OMG! Did the White House just throw KO under the bus, too? The man who sold his soul ( or at least compromised his integrity) by declaring the Hillary was
bad for not denouncing Geraldine Ferraro (even though she did denounce Ferraro) but who praised Obama for first refusing to denounce his pastor and then later praised him again for changing his mind? The man who aired Obama campaign talking points as if they were real news and not political pr? They are throwing their own media shill under the bus? Pretty short sighted, if you ask me.
And that is my real concern. I don't care if Democrats love each other or not. But they have to work together. Jimmy Carter learned the hard way that if you screw your fellow Democrats, they will screw you in return, where it hurts the most--at re-election, time.
Here are the facts. Massachusetts has the same sorry excuse for universal health care that Obama and the corporate Democrats are trying to shove down our throats. Democrats in that state are not amused by talk of how they must preserve the Dem's 60 vote majority in the Senate so that health insurers nationwide can do to folks in Minnesota and Alabama what they are doing right now in Boston. They were probably hoping that the new Democratic controlled Washington would fix their healthcare mess, not export it to the other 49 states. We all know misery loves company, but misery would
rather have affordable health care.
The problem with Coakley is not that she did not try hard enough. Her troubles began when business as usual Democrats in Washington decided to toss the American people under the bus (it is getting pretty crowded under there) by whipping up a nasty concoction that will require us to purchase insurance at rates that health insurers will be allowed to set (and fix among themselves) with no regulation at any level, state or federal. These crafty politicians stuck a cherry on this mess and labeled it "Health Care Reform"--fooling no one.
Massachusetts should be a warning to the White House. In the midterms, Democrats everywhere are going to do what they appear to be doing in that state---staying home. Of course, that might not bother the Democrats that we have in executive branch right now. They seem to care more for the regard of Republicans than members of their own party...like President Jimmy Carter.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once court historian to the Kennedy's, went so far as to read Carter out of the Democratic Party. "He's a Republican," gruffed Schlesinger. "He has the temperament of a small-business man who happened to become President."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/211854 And we all know where throwing fellow Democrats under the bus got Jimmy Carter.
So, do not be surprised if, sometime tomorrow, Emanuel or some other corporate Democratic clone does not blame the dead Senator Ted Kennedy for this election loss---and for the health care reform fuck up in general.
Why did he let himself get brain cancer and die right when we needed him? What a sorry excuse for a Democratic leader!Oh, by the way, ever wonder what happened to Don Siegelman?
Word in Alabama political circles is that a fix might be in--again--on the case of former Governor Don Siegelman.
What kind of fix is it this time? Word is that Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, Alabama's two Republican U.S. senators, have struck a deal with the Obama administration that would allow Bush-appointed prosecutor Leura Canary to remain in control of the Siegelman case.
Is this for real? Alabama Rep. John Rogers (D-Birmingham) reportedly spoke openly about the deal at a civil-rights breakfast on Sunday and asked those present to contact Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Siegelman is taking it seriously; he sent an e-mail to supporters, urging them to contact Emanuel and demand that Canary be removed from office.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Is-Another-Fix-In-Place-On-by-Roger-Shuler-090714-280.htmlHe is under the bus, too. Pretty soon, it will be a fashionable place to be, like Nixon's enemies list.