All Rahm, all the time
The Sunday New York Times piece describing Rahm Emanuel as the most powerful White House chief of staff in recent memory ("more chief than staff") was getting buzz within hours of its posting Saturday evening.
Here's what is says about Rahm and Israel:
In national security, officials said Mr. Emanuel had been a player on issues central to the Obama presidency — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East and, to some extent, Iraq and Russia. He has been a force behind the administration’s opposition to Israeli settlement expansion, drawing fire from some Israel supporters.
After a last-minute decision to have the president go to Saudi Arabia yielded no tangible results, Mr. Emanuel pushed to ensure that future foreign trips had “deliverables,” or achievements secured in advance.
So, he sounds pissed at just about everyone: Israel, the Arabs, everyone. It's a version of even-handed, I suppose.
Speaking of pissed-off Jews, Emanuel is nicknamed "the Antichrist" in a Secret Service training exercise simulating an attack from white supremacists. (An antichrist named Emanuel? Hmm.) Read all about it in the unmatchable Laura Blumenfeld's heartbreaking account in the Washington Post of what it takes to become an agent.
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Yosef Hartuv
08/17/09 07:17 PM
Rahm Emanuel and the Israel Policy-John Podhoretz -
A revealing article in yesterday’s New York Times about White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel offers a highly problematic view of the Illinois politician—and one, moreover, that he should be concerned about. It’s one of those breathless pieces so besotted with its subject and his power that it makes Emanuel sound less like the chief staffer in the White House and more like the president than the president himself. “The most powerful chief of staff in a quarter century,” the article calls Emanuel, insisting that he is the architect of the administration’s do-everything-all-at-once policy and that he is not only in charge in the West Wing but basically running the House of Representatives as well.
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/08/15/1007273/all-rahm-all-the-time