by flory
So for the benefit of anybody who's been off photographing polar bears on an arctic ice floe for the last couple weeks, there been this little inside-the-beltway kerfluffle involving Rahm Emanuel. To wit: do Obama's poll numbers indicate that Rahmbo is incapable of running a policy shop, as opposed to a political campaign? Or is he the lonely oracle of wisdom whose advice is never heeded? (There's a second subsidiary question as to where the Rahm-as-lonely-oracle stories originate -- are the sources really his friends on the Hill or Rahm himself?)
Of such qestions are pundit careers made, and there has been much to-ing and fro-ing on the subject; starting with the Financial Times, running through a couple of the usual suspects, and ending with a (more than a bit surprising) takedown by the Dean his ownself.
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism has an interesting take on the whole drama:
...the one fact not adequately incorporated into this calculus is whether Rahm’s own self-promotion damaged his relationship with Obama...
...So we are left with two possible conclusions:
1. Obama is an even bigger wuss than I thought (and I already gave him very high marks in the wuss department)
2. Obama is on board with this PR campaign
Assume Rahm the devious SOB sold Obama on this. How does making Obama look bad (by attacking his decisions) advance the ball?
Her answer is that the whole drama has been a carefully crafted exercise in freeing Obama from his campaign promises to those dirty fucking hippie pinkos. He tried to close gitmo, he tried to end the military commissions, he tried to pass energy legislation. Rahm the lonely warrior tried to persuade him not to tackle the impossible. Alas and alack! To no avail. Now look what's happened...none of the legislation is/will pass and the hopey changey poll numbers are in the tank.
This is what happens when you try to please the looney lefties....so I'll just move my administration over here to the center/corporatist right where I'm much more comfortable and we'll all just move along. Nothing to see here.
I'm not sure I agree with the argument -- it seems to me there's way too many places where the whole strategy could go disastrously wrong (any strategy that depends on an intersection with Fred Hiatt's WaPo is built on fairly thin ice). But I've been wondering since the whole thing blew up how Rahm, who's supposedly so Rovian and ruthless, could plant such damaging stories in such an obvious way and not expect some pretty serious blowback from his boss. Assuming the boss is in on it is at least an interesting answer.