Rahm Emanuel and Lindsey Graham: D.C.'s odd couple (remove the tutu, Lindsey!)

Rahm Emanuel regularly swims at 5:30 a.m., sometimes with his children in tow, so that he can get to the office about 7. Lindsey Graham doesn’t do business in the morning. “Nothing good happens before 9:30,” he declares.

Emanuel, a fast-talking Chicago native, made his name as a top aide to President Bill Clinton. Graham, raised in small-town South Carolina, helped manage the Republican effort to remove Clinton from office.

Emanuel is an observant Jew who volunteered at a military supply depot in Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. Graham is a churchgoing Southern Baptist who became an Air Force lawyer.

And yet, at a time when voters are clamoring for bipartisan cooperation in Washington, this unlikely pairing of White House chief of staff and Southern senator represents one of the highest-level conduits between the polarized political parties.

Graham has had more in-person meetings with Emanuel than any other Republican lawmaker, roughly eight or 10 since Obama took office, aides said. The two men also talk regularly by phone.

The main topic these days is Guantanamo Bay — how to close the military prison on the U.S. Navy base there. But their conversations are broader than that, embracing a wide-ranging deal pitched by Graham that would shut down the prison; provide funding to move detainees to Thomson, Ill.; keep the Sept. 11 trials out of civilian courts; and create broad new powers to hold terror suspects indefinitely.

If their odd-couple conversations come to fruition, the two men could chart a course for U.S. detainee policy for years to come. And it starts with two guys who clearly see a little of themselves in each other.

“There are differences between Chicago and South Carolina, but you know there are some similarities, too. He’s pretty good at throwing elbows,” Graham said of Emanuel. “I think he’s smart. ... Everything he’s ever told me about what the administration would do, they did. When he tells me something about where the president stands, I’ve found it to be solid and accurate.”

“I just like Lindsey. I just like him, but it doesn’t blind me to our differences,” Emanuel said in an interview with POLITICO. “What I knew about him and read about him is only half the story. He’s just a very honorable person to work with. He’s easygoing, but clear-eyed about his objectives. Even when you disagree, he doesn’t make it personal.”

Emanuel says the cultural chasm between the two men isn’t much of an obstacle, though he sometimes needles Graham about it, saying, “Senator, a doughnut is not a bagel, even though they both look the same.”

Thus far, Emanuel and the administration have publicly neither endorsed nor rejected Graham’s proposed deal. But Emanuel has been unusually public in declaring Graham to be the linchpin for Obama’s hopes of closing Guantanamo. “You can’t close Guantanamo without Sen. Graham,” Emanuel told The New York Times last month.

Some observers think Graham can ultimately deliver the votes of a bipartisan bloc of centrist senators who have qualms about aspects of Obama’s terrorism policies but also believe the Bush administration snubbed Congress and was too extreme.

Emanuel is reportedly simpatico with Graham on the Guantanamo issue, but others in the Obama administration, such as Attorney General Eric Holder, are not. Where the president will ultimately come down is unknown.

“I think the Guantanamo issue is one where [Emanuel] understands what I’m trying to do,” Graham said. “There are things that I want to do that require the administration’s buy-in. There are things they want to do that require my buy-in. ... He understands you can only go so far by yourself.”

Aides to Graham and Emanuel said the two men had their first substantive dealings during the 2008 presidential campaign, when they were tapped by Obama and the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, to hammer out the rules and formats for the debates.

“They got it done in a very expeditious way,” said GOP lobbyist Charlie Black, who was a top adviser to McCain. “Compared to the way some of these things go, it came out very satisfactory to both campaigns.”

“I just found [Emanuel] good to deal with. ... We formed a relationship that allows us to just pick up the phone,” Graham said.

But Emanuel remembers their first interactions taking place years ago on Capitol Hill. “When I was in the House, I’d walk over to my caucus office building and a lot of times he’d be walking to the Senate and we’d walk and talk for 200, 300, 400 feet,” the Obama aide said.

The chief of staff said the “rancor” between the parties is near an all-time high at the moment but there are still some exchanges like that taking place. “There’s more of it that goes on than you think — and not enough to meet what’s necessary,” he said.

Graham also represents a more centrist voice when it comes to climate change, another topic of his chats with Emanuel. Former presidential adviser David Gergen said some of Emanuel’s dealings with Graham may be more about gathering information about Republicans’ positions than hammering out actual legislation.

“Rahm has a large social network that includes Republicans, and he’s been that way as long as I’ve known him. ... Rahm’s realistic enough to know it also doesn’t lead necessarily to productive legislative outcomes [and] to know a friendship with Lindsey Graham isn’t going to change that,” Gergen said.

“It seems a bit odd at first blush, but it’s really not that mysterious,” said John Podesta, a former chief of staff to Clinton. Emanuel and Graham “are both no-BS kinds of guys, one with a South Carolina accent, one with a Chicago accent.”

Podesta noted that when Obama met McCain in Chicago after the election, Graham and Emanuel flanked the two principals. As it turns out, the two consiglieri seem to have gotten along better than the presidential contenders.

“The outreach to McCain was genuine. I think McCain sort of decided to go on a different track. I don’t begrudge that. It’s just what it is,” Podesta said.

That has led some to wonder whether Graham has stepped into a vacuum left by McCain. “It used to be obviously, in some ways, that McCain played this role on the Republican side,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) “Clearly, for whatever reason, including I’m sure his Republican primary challenge, McCain has done a 180 on a lot of these issues.”

Nearly every report of dealings between Graham and Emanuel elicits scorn and suspicion from liberal observers. “Meet Lindsey Graham, our new attorney general,” liberal blogger and defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt wrote. Scott Horton of Harper’s Magazine slammed Emanuel’s dealings with Graham as “appeasement.”

Conservatives are none too happy with Graham, either. Republican committees in Charleston and Lexington, S.C., have criticized him in recent months for his efforts to make common cause with the White House on climate change and immigration.

While Graham hasn’t been shy about drawing attention to his dealings with the White House, he has continued to join in some of his party’s sharpest attacks on the Obama administration’s national security team — including calling for the depature of Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan. “He has lost my confidence,” Graham said on Fox.

One longtime friend and colleague of Emanuel’s, Bruce Reed of the Democratic Leadership Council, said the Obama adviser is such a unique character that any friendship or negotiation Emanuel enters into is certain to involve sharp contrasts.

“If Rahm could only deal with people on the basis of identity politics, who would he talk to?” Reed quipped.

Rahm Emanuel is an observant Jew.........

Barack Obama has said Rahm Emanuel tells him all he needs to know about Israel. Emanuel's closenesss to the Jewish community was seen as "a tiny factor, if at all" in his hiring as Obama's chief of staff.

November 9, 2008, By Ron Kampeas, JTA
Rahm Emanuel: attack dog, policy wonk, committed Jew

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Political insight, killer in a fight, Yiddishkeit – it’s an inseparable package when it comes to Rahm Emanuel, say those who know President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for White House chief of staff.

Since his days as a fund-raiser and then a "political adviser" – read: enforcer – for President Clinton, Emanuel has earned notoriety as a no-holds-barred politico. Accept the good with the bad because it’s of a piece, said Steve Rabinowitz, who worked with Emanuel in the Clinton White House. "He can be a ‘mamzer,’ but he’s our mamzer," said Rabinowitz, using the Yiddish term for "bastard," speaking both as a Democrat and a Jew. "Sometimes that’s what you need."

The apocrypha is legendary, if somewhat hard to pin down: Jabbing a knife into a table screaming "Dead!" as colleagues shout out the names of political enemies, sending a dead fish to a rival, screaming at friends and enemies alike for no good reason.

Even his allies acknowledge that Emanuel, 48, can be on edge at times. "He’s not running for Miss Congeniality, ever," said US Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill), who has known Emanuel since they worked at Illinois Public Action, a public interest group, in the early 1980s. "He is relentless, he doesn’t give up, but in a strategic way. He’s good at figuring out other people’s self interest and negotiating in a way that comes out in his favor."

Emanuel, an Illinois congressman who boasts strong ties to his local Jewish community and the Jewish state, also can be seen as embodying Obama’s stated commitment to Israeli security and diplomacy: During the first Iraq war, Emanuel flew to Israel as a volunteer to help maintain military vehicles. Two years later he was an aide to Clinton, helping to push along the newly launched Oslo process. Within four months of joining the US House of Representatives in 2003, Emanuel had an impressive command of the issues, said Michael Kotzin, the director of the Chicago Jewish Community Relations Council.

"He gave a thorough and insightful analysis of issues on our agenda," said Kotzin, adding that Emanuel was responsive to his Jewish constituents. Obama chose Emanuel to escort him to a closed-door meeting with leaders of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC in June, a day after the final Democratic primaries. One thing Emanuel is not, all agree, is the president-elect’s conciliatory signal to the Jewish community after a campaign fraught with worries that Obama would tip toward even-handedness in dealing with the Middle East.

Emanuel was chosen strictly for his political skills and his closeness to Obama, said Rabinowitz, whose public relations firms does work with both Jewish groups and the Democratic Party and its affiliates. His closeness to the Jewish community "would be a tiny factor, if at all" in the hiring, Rabinowitz said. The Arab and pro-Arab media have made much of the fact that Emanuel’s father is Israeli, and Benjamin Emanuel didn’t improve matters in an interview with Ma’ariv.

"Obviously," the senior Emanuel told the Israeli daily, "he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House." By the time JTA reached the elder Emanuel, a physician, it was clear his son had asked him to keep away from reporters. Picking up the phone, he said, "This is Benjamin Emanuel, the plumber," and asked a reporter to call back in a week, after he’d spoken in person to Rahm – "if I’m still alive then."

In truth, some observers say, Obama’s Jewish supporters and Emanuel’s Arab critics are oversimplifying by painting the new chief of staff as a guardian of Israeli interests. Emanuel will be a strong voice for Israeli security – but also one with the standing to cast a skeptical eye on some Israeli claims.

"Rahm, precisely because he’s a lover of Israel, will not have much patience with Israeli excuse-making,” Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for The Atlantic, suggested on his blog. “So when the next prime minister tells President Obama that as much as he’d love to, he can’t dismantle the Neve Manyak settlement outpost, or whichever outpost needs dismantling, because of a) domestic politics; b) security concerns; or c) the Bible, Rahm will call out such nonsense, and it will be very hard for right-wing Israelis to come back and accuse him of being a self-hating Jew.”

Tom Dine, a past president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a senior policy adviser to the Israeli Policy Forum, concurred and said that Emanuel’s knowledge of the issue will mean i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. "God help the national security staffer who incorrectly spells an Israel town name," Dine said. "Having said that, he has to be very careful, he can’t step on the toes of the secretary of state, the national security advisers, of Joe Biden," the vice president-elect whose emphasis will be foreign policy.

The significance of Emanuel’s Jewishness is more how unremarkable it is that an unapologetic Jew should rise so far, said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "He has never hesitated to wear it proudly on his sleeve," Foxman said.

During Emanuel’s freshman run for Congress in 2002, a backer of his Democratic primary opponent in the largely Polish district noted his service in Israel during the first Iraq war. Emanuel shrugged off the accusation as true – and won by a wide margin.

Rahm's brother, Hollywood super agent and liberal activist Ari Emanuel, also has been unapologetic about his support for Jewish causes. He sparked headlines when he called on people in the movie industry to blackball Mel Gibson over “The Passion of the Christ.” Both brothers have inspired a television character: Rahm is said to be the model for Josh Lyman on “The West Wing,” and Ari more famously is immortalized as the agent/predator Ari Gold on the HBO series "Entourage.”

A year ago, honoring his Hollywood agent brother for supporting children with learning disabilities, Rahm Emanuel recalled returning from Israel in 1967. More than his brothers, Emanuel remembered, he tended to darken in the Israeli sun. He was scooting around on his bike when a bigger kid grabbed it, saying black kids weren’t welcome in the neighborhood. Ari, Rahm recalled, "beat the crap out of him"—not because of the bike, not to protect his brother, "but because of what he said about black kids." Rahm defended his brother in terms he might have applied to himself: "Where others see fierceness, I see loyalty. Where others see intensity, I see passion."

In general, Emanuel is fiercely loyal to his family, and they were a consideration in his hesitation to take work he’s always dreamed of having – he waited two days to say yes. Obama, in his statement announcing the pick, recognized the pain it would cause Emanuel’s wife, Amy, and “their children, Zach, Ilana and Leah."

Emanuel was born to an Israeli doctor (who was a member of the Irgun terrorist group) who married a local woman after he moved to Chicago in the mid-1950s. Rahm speaks Hebrew and fondly recalls summering each year in Israel as a child – including just after the 1967 Six-Day War. Rahm's wife converted to Judaism.

He and his wife attend Anshe Sholom, a Modern Orthodox synagogoue in Chicago, and send their children to Jewish day school. His rabbi, Asher Lopatin, recalls Emanuel approaching him just before Rosh Hashanah this year, telling him that an effort to put together a bailout package for the hard-hit stock market before the holiday had failed and asking whether it was permissible to take conference calls on the holiday in order to salvage the bill. "I asked, ‘Is it as serious as people say it is?’ " the rabbi recalled. "He said, ‘Without this bill there could be a meltdown of the financial system.’ "

Lopatin considered the effect such a failure would have on children and the poor. "I felt it was a case of ‘pikuach nefesh,’ " the commandment that places the saving of life above all other commandments, Lopatin said, and gave Emanuel the OK. The somberness of the request couldn’t quell Emanuel’s acerbic wit. Lopatin recalled Emanuel’s teasing, wondering whether the status of the rabbi’s 401(k) investments wasn’t also behind the hechsher. "He kibitzed with me about that," the rabbi said.

Emanuel repeated the story, to raucous laughter, in caucus meetings on the Hill – an example of how he will skid in the same sentence from Judaism to a liberal commitment to social reforms to hard-nosed politics, Schakowsky said. "There’s barely a caucus meeting where he doesn’t make some reference to being Jewish, often in a humorous way," she said.

But his Jewishness does more than inform his sense of humor, Emanuel’s rabbi said. “He has a very deep commitment and feel for Yiddishkeit," Lopatin said, "and it’s a Yiddishkeit that’s about ‘tikkun olam,’ having a positive effect on the world."

SOURCE http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/09/1000859/rahm-emanuel-attack-dog-policy-wonk-committed-jew

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January 6, 2010, israelnationalnews.com
Israel Defense Forces Army Radio reported that Rahm Emanuel met with Israel's Consul in Los Angeles, Yaki Dayan, 2 1/2 weeks ago. Et voila.......in no time flat, the US was streaming two ships into the Persian Gulf armed with anti-missile missiles. How's that for quick service?

Yaki Dayan reported to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem that Emanuel said: “ If there is no progress in the diplomatic process, we will reduce our involvement and effort in the conflict, because we have other matters to deal with”.........ROTFL........that Rahm is such a kidder (/snix).

SOME AMERICANS MIGHT ASK Does it seem like Emanuel is over-reaching? Having secret meetings and discussions with foreign diplomats? ANSWER Keep in mind, the Israelis are Rahm's bosom buddies. Rahm doesn't have to ask anybody's "permission" to meet with his friends.

One of Emanuel's proudest moments during his tenure in the Clinton administration was when he directed the details of the "Mideast Peace ceremony" (the 127th "Mideast Peace ceremony" to date). Rahm choreographed the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, in the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony. This event touched Emanuel's political sensibilities due to his lifelong personal and family ties to Israel. No one knows how Emanuel felt when, predictably, war broke out between the "peace partners" shortly thereafter.

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