The Chris Moeller Archives

Chicago, we need your big shoulders

Mayor Daley II of Chicago has announced that he's stepping down, and Washington politicos are suggesting that it's all but certain Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a former Illinois Congressman, will seek the vacant position. I say hurray. If that's the public relations angle that's needed to get Obama to cut this prick loose at the midterm, then I'm all for it.

It's probably wrong to think that all of Obama's lapses as president, both in policy and in ethics, are the fault of a solitary cabinet official-- after all, Obama is a product of the same Chicago Democratic "machine" as Emanuel-- and yet I just can't stop myself from believing it. The New York Times called him the most influential chief of staff in the nation's history. He cautioned against the stimulus, and he pushed for the bank bailouts. He's been behind the Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan since their inceptions. He's used stronger language than "prick" to describe supporters of single-payer health insurance-- I think "fucking retarded" was the phrase exactly. He quashed that winning idea of single-payer before it could even be measured in a national forum, and that led directly to the derailing of meaningful reform.

Emanuel has long been considered a stern partisan, a product of the Windy City political system that has a well-worn reputation for its foul stench, yet I would argue that he's probably been corrupt to his core going back to the cradle. In case you're not aware, that loudmouth douchebag you see strutting around the screen on HBO's "Entourage" is a portrayal of Emanuel's real-life brother, Ari. Why do I somehow picture those same scenes playing out in the Oval Office with Obama as the equally-bland and vapid political version of the fictional Vincent Chase?

Rahm Emanuel is a boil on the presidency, his party, and the nation. In fact, it would be fitting if somebody important named the current so-called "enthusiasm gap" between Republican and Democratic voters in 2010 "the Emanuel Gap" as this baffoon did almost everything humanly possible in just two short years to create it.

The people of Chicago have already been saddled for years with a polluted river and a pair of doormat baseball teams-- and they deserve much, much better-- but they would really be doing us a solid if they could take this guy off our hands. At least make him think you're going to vote for him.

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Green Party candidates nationwide are beginning to pick up endorsements from labor groups during this election cycle, maybe because, not long ago, Rahm Emanuel counseled the president to "fuck the UAW." The cynics may be correct that we're destined to always be a two-party system in the U.S., but nobody said they have to be the two parties we've got.

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Sportswriter Dave Zirin appeared on C-Span's "BookTV" this Labor Day weekend, promoting his new book on a long-ignored subject, "Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love." If you missed his appearance on your television, here it is on your computer.

posted by CM @ 7:43 PM