"In between his stints in Washington, Emanuel got rich working as an investment banker. He once sat on the board of Freddie Mac and recuses himself from any Congressional votes on the mortgage giant."
"Has been known to send out cheesecakes from Eli's Bakery in Chicago to campaign donors and the many Democratic candidates he has recruited over the years. Once, when a pollster made him angry, Emanuel sent him a dead fish."
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1856965,00.html
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(Sonny opens a package to find two fish wrapped in Luca's bulletproof vest.)
Sonny: What the hell is this?
Pete Clemenza: It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Godfather
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YouTube video clip: "Leave the gun. Take the cheesecake cannoli" (8 second clip)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EJnEXuUR54&NR=1
MANIFESTATIONS OF RAHM: BALLETOMANE, ISRAELI MILITARY VOLUNTEER, CHICAGO POLITICO, CLINTON ADVISOR and GOLDMAN SACHS "ADVISOR," WALL STREET MULTI-MILLIONAIRE, CONGRESSMAN (FOUNDED RAHM EMANUEL CHARITABLE TRUST TAX DODGE), WHITE HOUSE COS (and he wasn't even voted "Most Likely to Succeed")
RAHM TIMELINE
1991 Rahm volunteered for “Sar’el”——a three-week Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) training program (like US boot camp) where civilians are trained to assist the Israeli military. Civilians like Rahm lived on an IDF military base to get the proper training. A civilian volunteer, Rahm assisted the IDF during the 1991 Gulf War, repairing truck brakes in one of Israel’s northern bases.
Rahm's father was an Israeli who was part of the Irgun--the underground resistance movement under the British Mandate. Obama has stated that Rahm tells him "everything he needs to know about Israel." As a dual Israeli-American citizen, it is not clear whether a dual citizen is permitted to serve in a high level US govt job that makes policy decisions for Americans. Rahm also gets to sit in on top national security briefings next to Obama.
1992 Emanuel's knowledge of the top Dem donors, and his affinity rapport with potential donors within the Jewish community (who were luckily making zillions "investing" with Bernie Madoff), helped Clinton amass a then-unheard-of sum of $72 million which nailed his victory.
1993 Emanuel became a senior advisor to Clinton 1993-1998. Emanuel was initially Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy. He was a leading strategist in the unsuccessful White House efforts to institute universal healthcare and many other Clinton initiatives.
1993 One of Rahm's proudest moments was an event that touched his political sensibilities and his personal ties to Israel as a dual citizen and a volunteer in the Israeli military: the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony after the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO which cost US taxpayers several hundred billion dollars. Emanuel directed the details of the ceremony, down to the choreography of the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat (as terrorism resumed shortly thereafter).
1998 While official Washington was in the throes of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Rahm Emanuel, a senior political aide to Pres Bill Clinton, ventured out to an elegant restaurant in Dupont Circle for something of a job interview, The New York Times’s Michael Luo writes.
John Simpson, who ran the Chicago office of the investment banking boutique Wasserstein Perella & Company, had flown to Washington to meet with Mr. Emanuel at the behest of Mr. Simpson’s boss, Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor and renowned Wall Street dealmaker who had gotten to know Mr. Emanuel.
“I had this idea that this could work and that it had upside,” Mr. Wasserstein, now chairman and chief executive of Lazard, the investment bank, told The Times. “It worked out better than I could have hoped.” And better than Mr. Emanuel could have imagined as well.
Over the course of a three-hour-plus dinner, Mr. Simpson and Mr. Emanuel discussed how they might work together. Shortly afterward, Mr. Emanuel accepted an offer, nudging him down what has by now become a well-trodden gilded path out of politics and into the lucrative world of business.
1998 Wonder Boy Rahm resigned his position as an advisor to Bill Clinton, to become a Wall Street investment banker with Wasserstein Perella, (now Dresdner Kleinwort), where he worked until 2002.
1999 Just like that (snaps fingers)----in 1999, Rahm became managing director at their Chicago office. According to Congressional disclosures, Emanuel made $16.2 million in his 2 1/2 year stint as a Wasserstein Perella banker (AND probably paid all his taxes).
Amazingly, with those contacts, Rahm became a multi-millioniare overnight----and he wasn't even voted "Most Likely To Succeed."
At Wasserstein Perella, Rahm worked on eight deals, including the acquisition by Commonwealth Edison of Peco Energy and the purchase by GTCR Golder Rauner of the SecurityLink home security unit from SBC.
2002 Rahm then ran for Congress (successfully, OF COURSE). Luckily (/snic) members of the securities and investment industry became Rahm's biggest backers, donating more than $1.5M up to 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
2006 Rahm also leaned heavily upon the financial industry as 2006 Dem Congressional Campaign Committee Chair. Financial industry donors contributed more than $5.8M to the Dem committee (behind only retirees).
Remember, the point of Obama bringing Rahm in was so that "tolerant and compassionate bi-partisan Rahm" could work constructively w/ Congress to pass an ambitious agenda.......
Here's tolerant Rahm expressing his feelings for America on Obama's inauguration day.