The Softening of Rahm

Rahm Emanuel didn’t take on the job as White House chief of staff to be labeled a nice guy.  If this hadn’t been obvious for the first fourteen months of the Obama presidency, "Retardedgate", in which Sarah Palin called for Emanuel to be fired after he alledgedly called participants of a White House strategy session, "fucking retarded", certainly made this clear. The media has loved using Emanuel as news, and have been fast to heap criticism –rather than praise– on him.  But are the times changing? An article in yesterdays Washington Post, made a very strong case that if Obama and his closest aides would have listened to Emanuel on several pressing issues, the administration wouldn’t be facing some of the criticism it’s dealing with today:  "in the search for what has gone wrong, influential Democrats are — in unusually frank terms — blaming Obama and his closest campaign aides for not listening to Emanuel." And in the newest issue of The New Republic, a piece on Emanuel plays devils advocate for the politician nicknamed "Rahmbo": "Contrary to his cut-throat reputation, Emanuel has generally been a team player during his time as chief of staff. He tends to resist cooperation with the dozens of profiles that are written about him. He is quick to defend colleagues from the kvetching of journalists and pundits, and he has thrown himself into major initiatives whose logic he disagrees with."