[NixonsAngryGhost]

Emmanuel epitomizes two traits- agressiveness and psychological intensity:

"He's got this big old pair of brass balls, and you can just hear 'em clanking when he walks down the halls of Congress," says Paul Begala, who served with Emanuel on Clinton's staff. "The Democratic Party is full of Rhodes scholars -- Rahm is a road warrior. He's just what the Democrats need to fight back."

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." . . .

In person, Emanuel projects the hyperactivity of an attack dog straining at the leash. Although he swims and works out several mornings each week before most of his colleagues are out of bed, the exercise evidently does little to drain his energy -- he is constantly fidgeting, gesturing, spinning, always on the move. He's notorious for driving those around him mercilessly: When he joined Clinton's campaign team, he reportedly introduced himself by standing on a table and yelling at the staff for forty-five minutes. "We joke that someone should open a special trauma ward in Washington for people who've worked for Rahm," says Jose Cerda, a veteran staffer. Emanuel, who was reared in the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics, makes no apologies for his style. "If I got worried about that, I'd sit beneath my desk all day," he says. "I don't."

[Lancey Howard]

Figures - - a long-time bag boy for the Daley mob is the perfect choice for the Democrats.
Actually, I'm surprised that Fitzie hasn't thrown the little scumbag in jail yet.

[jmaroneps37]

Look, every even year spring, the ratmedia runs stories about how the rats will take back the Congress. Aint happened. Won't happen. Rahm who? is just the latest rat to come out of a safe district talking tough. Big deal.
What's he going to campaign on? 200 rat candidates saying "I'm the Democrat and he's not", just won't get it done.

[metalurgist]

"We're the party of change," Emanuel tells me.

crats are the party of change alright. When they get their way with taxes and regulation all you have left is change.

[rdb3]

"He's got this big old pair of brass balls, and you can just hear 'em clanking when he walks down the halls of Congress," says Paul Begala, who served with Emanuel on Clinton's staff.

That sounds so... so... gay!

If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
Also, please see The Backside of American History
You'll love this 187 page .pdf (1.99 MB)

[montag813]

Paul Begala: "He's got this big old pair of brass balls, and you can just hear 'em clanking when he walks down the halls of Congress,"...."The Democratic Party is full of Rhodes scholars -- Rahm is a road warrior.

Whatever else you may think of him, Begala is always good for clever quotes.

[Non-Sequitur]

"We're the party of change," Emanuel tells me. "We're the party of a new direction -- a break from rampant cronyism and the status quo. Period."

That's no more true of the Democrats than it is of the Republicans. Try another line, Rahm.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

BUMP