Emanuel In Washington

bSo Rahm Emanuel will be the White House Chief of Staff. As long as that job solely entails him calling up lawmakers and yelling at them like Ari on Entourage (who is modeled on his brother) until they support Obama's agenda, I'm OK with it. However, that's probably not the job, and thus we're going to have to push harder from the outside so that Rahm's manner of thinking, to ignore immigrants because "they can't vote" and to never move forward on anything if Republicans can make up an ad about it, doesn't become White House conventional wisdom.

But the idea that this is some shift in tone is ridiculous. If you look at the choice in its best light, Obama is choosing someone who can shepherd his agenda in the Congress. To the grand poohbahs in the media, that's not allowable? I mean, Karl Rove aside, the campaign was fought on ideological grounds, almost exclusively so. I know that the traditional media wants to reframe a progressive victory as a triumph for center-right post-partisanship, but that's not going to fly. Meanwhile, Emanuel himself is talking the language of post-partisanship:

Emanuel accepted Obama's offer with a gesture of bipartisanship, addressing part of his statement to Republicans. "We often disagree, but I respect their motives," Emanuel said. "Now is a time for unity, and, Mr. President-elect, I will do everything in my power to help you stitch together the frayed fabric of our politics, and help summon Americans of both parties to unite in common purpose."

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Hopefully, this is just language, but it certainly feeds this beast of bipartisanship. God help Obama if he actually passes an agenda item. The media will feel so betrayed.

Meanwhile, this sounds much better.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who spoke with Mr. Obama by phone on Wednesday morning, said that they had made plans to discuss coordinated efforts for the transition and the new Congress, but that a more ambitious agenda would unfold next year.

“Our priorities have tracked the Obama campaign priorities for a very long time,” Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference where she cited the economy, health care, energy and the Iraq war as topping the agenda.

She said Democrats were talking with the Bush White House about a potential $61 billion economic stimulus that could be approved in a lame-duck session.

The first thing they're going to do is pass those measures which Bush vetoed. And I think they'll have no problem doing that. Anything further will be met with a push from both conservatives and the media (redundant). The question is whether a grassroots movement can push back.