November 5th, 2008 // comments (Comments)

Introducing: Chief Of Staff Emanuel

ABC News has learned that President-elect Obama has offered the White House chief of staff job to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.

Emanuel, a knowledgeable source tells ABC News, has not yet given his answer. The sharp-tongued, sharp-elbowed, keenly intelligent veteran of the Clinton White House is said to have ambitions to some day be Speaker of the House. But he also has a keen sense of “duty.”

Change? Not so much…

48-year-old Rahm Emanuel is a vicious politician who has said some offensive things about Republicans in the past. He’s far from a uniter and proof that Obama is going to use his new mandate to staff the White House as he sees fit. Emanuel said ‘Republicans can go f*#$ themselves‘ after the Democratic congressional gains in 2006, showing his outwardly despise for those with whom he disagrees. Rahm’s father was a militant Jew and a member of the Haganah in the 60’s — yet Palestine is celebrating his candidate’s victory today.

Some interesting facts about Rahm Emanuel; His brother, a successful talent agent in Los Angeles, was the inspiration for the character ‘Ari’ on the HBO series Entourage. He’s also a fan of ballet, he studied the art quite a bit in his younger years. Emanuel brings in big cash from big-money donors and he made his bones doing this for the former Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daly, and former President Bill Clinton. He remained a Senior Advisor for Clinton from 1993-1998.

Again, Change? Not so much…

One of Obama’s priorities is universal health care-lite. Rahm Emanuel knows quite a bit about universal health care, he was the leading strategist for Bill Clinton’s attempt (an unsuccessful attempt) to do the same. He also supported the Iraq war joint-resolution in 2002. Whoops.

Rahm Emanuel likes to flip people ‘the bird’ but he lost half of his middle finger in a random slicing accident that occurred at the Arby’s he worked at when he was a teenager.

In 2006, Rahm Emanuel attacked the organization Moveon.org as being ‘ineffective’ and labeled George Soros as a ’stingy’ political contributer. Needless to say, the guy makes things happen.

Rahm Emanuel also tried to cover up Tim Mahoney’s sexual affairs in an effort to save a seat in the House. Rahm-bo, as they call him, knew about the issue in 2007.

Friends and enemies agree that the key to Emanuel’s success is his legendary intensity. There’s the story about the time he sent a rotting fish to a pollster who had angered him. There’s the story about how his right middle finger was blown off by a Syrian tank when he was in the Israeli army. And there’s the story of how, the night after Clinton was elected, 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. “When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape,” one campaign veteran recalls. “It was like something out of The Godfather. But that’s Rahm for you.”

Barack Obama picks ‘The Enforcer‘ as his Chief of Staff? Change? Not so much…

Update: Rahm Emanuel accepts COS offer from Barack Obama…

Update: Hot Air looks into Rahm Emanuel’s Freddie Mac problem…

Related:

• November 13, 2008 -- Rahm Already Pissing People Off
• December 31, 2009 -- AGING BARACK OBAMA
• April 19, 2009 -- Sunday Show Roundup: Emanuel, Summers and More
• April 18, 2009 -- The Gift: Hugo Chavez Gave Obama This Book
• April 1, 2009 -- Barack Obama Sucks At Gift-Giving
• March 24, 2009 -- Flashback: Emanuel On Gun Control
• March 10, 2009 -- A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy?
• January 20, 2009 -- Inauguration Watch: Rahm Emanuel
• December 22, 2008 -- Obama Report ‘Clears’ Emanuel
• December 17, 2008 -- Send Obama An Inauguration Memo