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.

"Healthcare Lite": Does The White House Have a Fallback Position?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House has prepared a scaled-down healthcare reform package that would accomplish far less than the Obama administration's current proposal. Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, however, says that this is not true.

Klein chides the Wall Street Journal for pushing the idea that the White House is considering "health-care lite." Klein, however, concedes that since August, the White House has debated the merits of a lighter reform package.

According to Klein, Rahm Emanuel pushed the idea of aiming low, believing that comprehensive reform either could not pass or that it would cost Democrats votes in the midterm elections. The Wall Street Journal also reports that Emanuel pushed a smaller package, but the article states that he did not design the alternative policy. Klein says that Emanuel pushed the idea again after Scott Brown won the Massachusetts senate race. According to Klein, however, advocates of the comprehensive plan won the debate on each occasion.

The Wall Street Journal article relies on anonymous sources. Klein's does too, but Klein's sources are from within the White House, while the Wall Street Journal does not cite White House sources -- even anonymously -- a factor that for Klein raises suspicion of attempted "sabotage."

Query: Dana Milbank's recent Washington Post article that reads like a personal marketing statement for Rahm Emanuel also states that Emanuel pushed a much smaller reform package. According to Milbank/Emanuel, President Obama's failure to listen to Emanuel was a terrible mistake. Could the Wall Street Journal article represent a last-ditch effort by Emanuel's people to bring attention to healthcare lite?

Update: Klein says that the Wall Street Journal has now updated the article without saying so; the new version drops a quote from an anonymous, senior White House official. But the clever Klein made a screen-capture of the original article.

Stunning News: White House Might Actually Release a Specific Position on Healthcare Reform

The White House recently sent out invitations for yet another round of talks regarding healthcare reform. A few bloggers -- and now mainstream media sources -- have noticed that the invitation includes the following language: "[W]e will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package" (emphasis added). If this in fact happens, it would represent the first concrete and specific legislative position on healthcare reform by the White House.

Many critics have faulted the White House for not taking specific positions during earlier stages of the reform process. Other commentators believe that White House leadership is essential to break the deadlock and to reach a compromise between the disparate House and Senate bills.

Perhaps, the White House has now stepped up to the plate. Or maybe this was the strategy all along -- for the White House to remain stealth until all of the "bloodshed" happened in the House and Senate and in public discourse. The merits of this possible strategy are certainly debatable.

Note: I first read about this last week on Nate Silver's blog. Ezra Klein reported it in the Washington Post today.

WaPo's Ezra Klein Defends Rahm Emanuel; Says Growing Criticism Is "Weird"

Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein has defended Rahm Emanuel against a growing number of critics who insist that he is bad news for President Obama. Klein argues that "[i]t's a bit weird to see so much blame accruing to Rahm Emanuel for the administration's woes." More specifically, Klein contends that:

I'm not an Emanuel fan, as it happens. In most of my reporting, he was not particularly pleased with doing a big health-care reform bill in the first place, and at multiple steps along the way, he's argued for scaling it back dramatically. But his personal opinions aside, I'm not sure what else he could've done in shepherding the bill through the process. And if Martha Coakley hadn't insisted on mocking Red Sox fans, health-care reform might well have been signed by now and the White House would've pivoted to a more populist argument about jobs and banks while being able to brag about the largest legislative achievement since Lyndon Johnson.

Bad luck has left them in a very different place than that, and a lot of people want someone to blame. But given the precise contours of Emanuel's job -- keep the White House running smoothly and help craft its strategy with Congress -- I'm not convinced that he's the right guy. What's clearly the case is that his strategy stopped being suited for the circumstances the day Scott Brown won the election. But after a week of readjustment, the White House seems to be doing what it can to take control of the process, and I'd say it's too early to tell whether its new approach will work.

So, "bad luck" explains the series of problems -- not the administration's top political strategist. For contrary opinions, including my own, see: Democrats Offer Scathing Criticism of Obama's Senior Staff.

Earlier this year, Klein defended Obama against liberal critics who argued that by dropping the public plan option during Senate negotiations, President Obama betrayed a campaign promise. Klein made the utterly inaccurate assertion that the Senate bill and Obama's campaign proposals were "remarkably similar." See: Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform.

See also on Dissenting Justice:

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

Rahm Emanuel: Ghostwriter for Dana Milbank?

Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises

Washington Post writer Ezra Klein was apparently priming an argument for President Obama when he claimed yesterday that the Senate healthcare bill matches Obama's campaign promises (on the other hand, see Update IV beloew). Several bloggers have repudiated Klein's argument.

During an interview conducted today with the Washington Post, however, Obama made the same assertion as Klein:

Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill. . . . Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill.

Most shockingly, Obama denies that the public option was ever a part of his presidential campaign -- despite the fact that his campaign literature proudly supports a public plan option:

Obama said the public option "has become a source of ideological contention between the left and right." But, he added, "I didn't campaign on the public option."

Obama, however, definitely supported the public option during his campaign, but the Senate bill does not create it. Obama also dropped drug reimportation as a goal to win pharmaceutical company support. And Obama campaigned against an insurance mandate, but he now supports it as part of the Senate and House bills.

Several other bloggers have analyzed the differences between Obama's promises and the Senate bill in great detail. See here and here. Even Matthew Yglesias, one of Obama's most ardent supporters, cannot accept the proposition that the Senate bill is identical to Obama's campaign promises (see Promises Broken).

Final Thought
I do not have a problem with the idea of compromise. Political compromises happen all the time -- and for good reason. I do have a problem, however, with dishonesty. Claiming that a compromise has not happened when it actually has is dishonest. If the White House expects liberals to accept its political compromises, it cannot pretend that the compromises have not actually occurred.

Update: National Nurses United, the nation's largest union of nurses, opposes the Senate bill. Perhaps its members are impractical ideologues as well.

Update II: I have edited this article to include Obama's language denying that he ever campaigned for a public plan. That is a very remarkable claim.

Update III: Think Progress obliterates the notion that Obama never campaigned for the public plan. See FLASHBACK: Obama Repeatedly Touted Public Option Before Refusing To Push For It In The Final Hours.

Update IV: Even Ezra Klein breaks rank with Obama, saying that it is impossible to defend his claim that he did not campaign on the public option.

Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform

Ezra Klein has joined the list of "liberals," like Nate Silver, who insist upon defending President Obama and the watered-down Senate healthcare bill. Unfortunately, Klein does so by stretching the truth.

In a recent article, Klein defends Obama against liberals who argue that the Senate bill substantially betrays his campaign promises. Klein's analysis employs what I call "pink=blue=colors" logic, for reasons that will soon become apparent. Commenting on liberal anger, Klein says that the Senate bill is basically the same thing that Obama promised to deliver during his presidential campaign:

And there are, to be sure, some differences. The public option did not survive the Senate. The individual mandate, which Obama campaigned against, was added after key members of Congress and the administration realized that the plan wouldn't function in its absence. Drug reimportation was defeated, and a vague effort to have government pick up some catastrophic costs was never really mentioned.

But the basic structure of the proposal is remarkably similar.

The campaign promises=the Senate bill=two proposals to reform healthcare. In substance, however, the Senate bill differs drastically from Obama's campaign promises. Klein's conclusion makes sense only if the heralded public option, drug reimportation, and the individual mandate are irrelevant to the structure of the Senate bill. The controversy surrounding these measures alone indicates their importance on a political level, and an abundance of research demonstrates their importance in concrete economic terms.

Liberal bloggers have not reacted kindly to Klein. TalkLeft says that Klein's analysis is the "type of silly stuff [that] does no one any good - not Obama, not Ezra, and not anyone else." Emptywheel methodically dissects Klein's sloppy analysis. And Firedoglake has compiled a side-by-side analysis of Obama's promises and the Senate bill, concluding that Klein's argument is "absurd."

See also: Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises