Gaurav Sikka

Hugging it out will become a new diplomatic strategy. - Dan Hsiao

Anyone deluded into thinking that Obama's would be a different, kinder, more positive or more unified politics should take note of this. Love him or hate him, it is an undeniable fact that Rahm is as bitter a hyper-partisan as exists in either house of Congress. - Forrest Cox

that will make Asif Ali Zardari happy. he'll finally get to hug Palin! - Gaurav Sikka

Why would expect positive unified politics? When was there any honest indication we would see a different brand of politics when cutthroat Chicago politics has been the name of the game all along? - Charles LePage

"Emanuel is said to have "mailed a rotting fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways."[8] On the night after the Clinton election, "Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! ... Dead! ... Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name."[1]" - ⓞnor

"In Congress, Emanuel has been a consistent and vocal pro-Israel hardliner, sometimes more so than President Bush. In June 2003, for example, he signed a letter criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of Israel. "We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of Israel for fighting acts of terror," Emanuel, along with 33 other Democrats wrote to Bush. The letter said that Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian political leaders "was clearly justified as an application of Israel's right to self-defense" ("Pelosi supports Israel's attacks on Hamas group," San Francisco Chronicle, 14 June 2003)." http://electronicintifada.net/... - Sean McBride

So Rahm Emanuel is to the right of George W. Bush on Mideast politics. Is the Obama administration going to be a replay of the Bush 43 administration in terms of being an instrument of neocon schemes for military aggression in the Mideast? What kind of message is Obama sending with this appointment? Emanuel was a key enabler of the Iraq War in the Democratic Party. - Sean McBride

"Obama's Pick for Chief of Staff Tops Recipients of Wall Street Money" http://tinyurl.com/5so2mz "A day after being elected president and acknowledging "the worst financial crisis in a century," Barack Obama asked one of the biggest recipients of Wall Street campaign contributions to be his chief of staff. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman who was an aide in the Clinton White House, was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry--not the most popular of industries in the current economy. Since being elected to Congress in 2002, after working as an investment banker, Emanuel has received more money from individuals and PACs in the securities and investment business than any other industry." - Sean McBride

I'd rather have someone in the position who knows Washington b/c Obama cannot afford the bumpy start Clinton had. - Ruth Ferguson

He's earned my benefit of the doubt for another week or so, at least. - ⓞnor

Rahm Emanuel belongs to the same political network which drove the Bush 43 administration into the Iraq War. I am now predicting that you may see a collapse of support for Barack Obama so sudden that it will make your head spin. If this appointment goes through, Obama can kiss much of his base goodbye. Do a quick and dirty analysis of the blogosphere to see how this news is going down. - Sean McBride

"Obama's AIPAC Speech, Rahm's Endorsement" http://tinyurl.com/55tkfp "Right after Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC this morning he was endorsed by Rahm Emanuel, a leading member of the House. Emanuel, who belongs to an Orthodox Jewish congregation in Chicago, then accompanied Obama to a meeting with AIPAC's executive board, Mark Halperin reports." Obama has just sent a message to the world that AIPAC will be in charge of the Obama White House. How serious a matter is this? AIPAC has been lobbying hard for an American military attack on Iran. Americans keep falling for the same con games over and over again. - Sean McBride

Sean: chill out. He is not a one-issue president. Let's just wait and see how things play out. - Bret Taylor

Sean, it turns out the election was yesterday, and your "blogosphere" can pretty much put a sock in it for the next few days as far as I'm concerned. You're making it sound like he picked Newt Gingrich to be his Chief of Staff or something. A lot of Dems supported the war, and that's unfortunate, but if he wants to actually get things done -- and that does seem to be his plan, to actually get the things done we've been talking about for decades -- he's going to have to engage the establishment. - ⓞnor

You know, that's what many people did with Bush 43 -- they just waited to see how things played out. And once things got under way, it was much too late to stop the juggernaut. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's choice for chief of staff (one of the most powerful positions in any administration) played a key role in enabling that juggernaut from the Democratic side. Political insiders understand what this appointment is all about. - Sean McBride

Nor - on Mideast politics Rahm Emanuel is more militant than Newt Gingrich, and in general he is better connected to real power centers than Gingrich. He is also arguably more ruthless than Gingrich. I urge you and others here to do some homework on this subject. - Sean McBride

Wait, what's your theory, exactly? That Obama has some secret plan to nuke Iran, so he hired a known war-enabler to work in his White House? His whole anti-Iraq-war stance has been some kind of complicated charade? Anyway, I'm saying "wait and see what they actually do", not "let's drop a bunch of bombs and see what happens". If they do start making insane policy I'll complain along with you, but I'm not getting my panties in a twist over this pick, even if he and I disagree about Middle East policy. - ⓞnor

What appears to be happening is that Obama is being heavily pressured by powerful interests in the Democratic Party to pursue a course that contradicts the positions he promoted last spring and which won him much of his progressive support. There were signs that something like this might happen a few months ago, in his AIPAC speech and his support for FISA. No one is doing Obama any favors in rolling over on this appointment. - Sean McBride

Dude, after the last 24 months, I am totally not worried about him being pressured by some kind of party establishment. He has pretty much laid them out to dry and he has got a bully pulpit like no Democratic POTUS in decades. Obama has always been very pro-Israel and in favor of coming down hard in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even in his anti-war speech he said he wasn't against war, he was against a *dumb* war. Some progressives might be under the delusion he's a flower child, but I'm not. - ⓞnor

hug it out - peter

Nor - believe me, Obama can be pressured in powerful ways that you possibly can't imagine. He's just a guy, an individual, a politician -- nothing more. Rahm Emanuel's political network (Including AIPAC) has its eye on Iran much more than on Afghanistan or Pakistan. Do some research on the history of Woodrow Wilson's attitudes towards WWI to understand how easily it is for powerful interests to control mere presidents and turn them around on issues they care about. - Sean McBride

Okay, Sean, make me a testable prediction, like "we will be at war with Iran within two years" or whatever (not sure what you actually think will happen), and let's make us a bet. I'm not buying this whole grand Zionist conspiracy thing, but you know maybe I'm wrong, so what's it going to be? - ⓞnor

Nor - I am suggesting that Americans should not be passive recipients of whatever policy decisions Obama makes, but instead exercise their critical intelligence on those decisions and speak out against them when they appear to be bad decisions. In my opinion, appointing Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff is an exceptionally bad decision because Emanuel promoted the pro-Iraq War policies that Obama supposedly opposed. Next on AIPAC's target list after Iraq: Iran. Their agenda is on the public record. - Sean McBride

Sean, what ⓞnor said was 'make me a testable prediction, like "we will be at war with Iran within two years" or whatever (not sure what you actually think will happen), and let's make us a bet' - j1m

Why don't we compare predictions about events that have already occurred. Long before the war occurred, I predicted that neoconservatives would drive the Bush administration into a war with Iraq and that it would be a disaster. No psychic ability was required. I simply read neoconservative policy documents and noted the positioning of neoconservatives at high levels in the Bush administration. This stuff isn't rocket science: just pay attention to the players and their policy positions. - Sean McBride

Can you all debate this on someone else's feed? Thanks. - Bret Taylor

If anyone here feels motivated to pull together the facts about Rahm Emanuel, feel free to contribute your research in my feed. I've already posted five or six articles on the subject from highly reliable sources. (Also feel free to make the case that this is a good appointment for Obama and America.) - Sean McBride