David Broder Tosses Ice-Cold Water on WaPo's Emanuel Love Fest

Washington Post writers Ezra Klein, Dana Milbank, and Jason Horowitz have engaged in public displays of affection for Rahm Emanuel. Last weekend, however, Washington Post writer Colbert King rained on the parade with a scathing critique of Emanuel. Whereas the former portrayed Emanuel as a skillful taskmaster whom President Obama foolishly shunned to accept the counsel of starry-eyed advisers (like Jarrett and Axelrod), King argued that Emanuel was a classic Washington insider who wanted to blunt the possibility of meaningful change.

Today, David Broder joins King and expresses passionate dissent from the Emanuel love fest. Broder's article, "The Fable of Emanuel the Great," criticizes his colleagues who have portrayed Obama "as a weakling and a chronic screw-up who is wrecking his administration despite everything that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, can do to make things right." Broder says that this is a "remarkable fiction" started by his "friend" Milbank.

Broder offers a very different perspective from "others" in the White House who apparently have not been seduced by Emanuel's "distractingly prominent quadriceps." According to that narrative:

The underlying problem . . . is a badly damaged economy that has sunk Obama's poll numbers and emboldened Republicans to blockade his legislative program.

Emanuel, who left a leadership post in the House to serve his fellow Chicagoan, Obama, has worked loyally for the president and is not suspected personally by his colleagues of inspiring these Post pieces.

But, as one White House staffer said to me, "Rahm likes to win," and when the losses began to pile up, he probably vented his frustrations to some of his old pals in Congress. It's clear that some of them are talking to the press.

Finally, Broder contends that the flurry of stories praising Emanuel have emerged because his "friends are so eager to exonerate him," but that in doing so, "they are threatening to undermine the president." Broder, however, argues that Obama should simply ignore Emanuel's media pals:

From too many years of covering politics, I have come to believe as Axiom One that the absolute worst advice politicians ever receive comes from journalists who fancy themselves great campaign strategists.

Broder's article is quite refreshing. I was beginning to suspect that the Washington Post server was taken over by an Emanuel-loving computer virus.

Poor Rahm Emanuel: Misunderstood, Ignored, and Handsome

The New Republic has joined the Washington Post's Rahm Emanuel lovefest. Noam Scheiber's article portrays Emanuel with greater complexity than Dana Milbank and Ezra Klein. Ultimately, however, Scheiber describes Emanuel favorably as a skillful, crude -- yet handsome -- dude:

At 50, Emanuel has the lean, taut look of a lifelong swimmer, with broad shoulders and distractingly prominent quadriceps. But at the heart of the Emanuel mystique is the family patois, which lurches between pronounced curtness and vivid, sometimes scatological, imagery. Emanuel will casually toss off quips like, “You’re in the bowels of nothin,’ man.” One former colleague recalls making two or three requests during a sensitive negotiation, only to have Emanuel respond: “Well, I guess if I can take care of Bill Clinton’s blow jobs, I can take care of that.”

And then there are the f-bombs, which Emanuel reels off like a verbal tic, sometimes embedding them in other words with Germanic aplomb. There is, for example, “Fucknutsville” (his pet name for Washington) and “knucklefuck” (an honorific bestowed on Republican opponents). In administration meetings, Emanuel will occasionally announce, “I think it’s fucking idiotic, but it’s your call.” (That would be Rahm-speak for: “You have more expertise than I do on this subject.”) He’s even been known to use the imprecation as a term of endearment, as when he signs off friendly phone calls: “Fuck you. See you later. I love you.” As Phil Kellam, one of Emanuel’s star recruits from the 2006 election cycle, recently joked to me, “If you could sum up Rahm Emanuel, it would be: big ideas, big mouth, big heart, little finger” (Emanuel lost half his middle finger in a teenage accident.) (emphasis added).

These public displays of Emanuel-affection are becoming too much.

Scheiber also portrays Emanuel as the smart yet ignored Chief of Staff. In doing so, Scheiber comes closer than any of the other Emanuel-lovers to blame Obama for his shortcomings:

[T]he enormity of the challenges Barack Obama faces, and the ambitiousness of his program, mean he has almost no margin for error. Indeed, Emanuel--the grizzled, battle-hardened Washington insider--was brought into the Obama White House for precisely this reason, because Obama was shrewd enough to recognize the chasm between campaigning and governing, and that what works in one domain can be debilitating in the other. Put simply, Emanuel is the chief of staff most presidents turn to when they realize their first chief of staff has failed them. To hire Rahm is to skip right to Leon Panetta without first enduring Mack McLarty.

But what we’re discovering is that Obama wasn’t prepared to give up on his campaign ideals so quickly. Deep down, he didn’t necessarily want a hard-nosed insider to execute his agenda; maybe he just wanted to want such a person. For all of his flaws, Rahm Emanuel was supposed to be the man who helped Barack Obama do things the easy way rather than learn lessons the hard way. But, sometimes, deciding to go the easy way can be the hardest thing of all (emphasis added).

Emanuel continues to cast his spell.

See also on Dissenting Justice:

Update: White House Responds to Washington Post's Adoration of Rahm Emanuel

OK, We Get It: The Washington Post "Hearts" Rahm Emanuel!.

Update: White House Responds to Washington Post's Adoration of Rahm Emanuel

Earlier today, Dissenting Justice examined a series of articles in which Washington Post writers Ezra Klein, Jason Horowitz, and Dana Milbank have lavished praise upon Rahm Emanuel and defended him from his liberal critics. Milbank notoriously argued that other senior White House staff were giving Obama shoddy advice and that Emanuel was the only skilled politician within the group. Horowitz repeated many of Milbank's arguments and portrayed Emanuel as the reasonable -- yet misunderstood and ignored -- member of Obama's staff.

Now, the White House has denied allegations of discord among Obama's senior advisers. According to The Hill, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the Washington Post articles. Gibbs said "I don't subscribe to all of it or a lot of [the reports]" and that Emanuel has the full confidence of the President.

OK, We Get It: The Washington Post "Hearts" Rahm Emanuel!

First, Ezra Klein defended Rahm Emanuel against growing concerns that he was failing President Obama. Next, Dana Milbank/Emanuel infamously argued that Emanuel is the only person with good political skills among Obama's senior White House staff. Now, Jason Horowitz has written the latest love letter from the Washington Post to Rahm Emanuel.

In the article, "Hotheaded Emanuel May Be White House Voice of Reason," Horowitz acknowledges that many commentators blame Emanuel for Obama's declining approval ratings. Horowitz, however, in a very glowing essay, sketches out a "contrarian narrative":

Emanuel is a force of political reason within the White House and could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.

It is a view propounded by lawmakers and early supporters of President Obama who are frustrated because they think the administration has gone for the perfect at the expense of the plausible. They believe Emanuel, the town's leading purveyor of four-letter words, a former Israeli army volunteer and a product of a famously argumentative family, was not aggressive enough in trying to persuade a singularly self-assured president and a coterie of true-believer advisers that "change you can believe in" is best pursued through accomplishments you can pass.

The article does not add much substance to the observations of Milbank and Klein -- except that it provides a lot of pithy quotes from Emanuel's Rolodex of friends, which will raise suspicion (yet again) about his (or his friends') connection to Washington Post writers. Overall, the article portrays Emanuel as a misunderstood and ignored voice of reason. It does not, however, take cheap shots at others in the White House (e.g., Jarrett, Axelrod) like the earlier essay by Milbank. Perhaps this is a sign that the Washington Post and Emanuel are responding to criticism of the earlier chapters in this love story.

Ironically, while Horowitz portrays Obama as ungrounded and Emanuel as a pragmatist, the media have typically portrayed Obama as a pragmatist and his liberal critics as unyielding ideologues. The political landscape has certainly changed.

At least one Washington Post writer is having no part in the Emanuel love fest. Colbert King, a huge Obama supporter, wrote a scathing article regarding Emanuel over the weekend. King basically argues that Obama is reaping what he sowed by picking a Washington insider to serve as Chief of Staff.