State of the babble.

[hackthis_archive]

I am not a morning person. No, like, for real, SO not a morning person. I had a thought that was going there, but mostly at this point I am all just blathering. Points of interest:

a) I posted my picfor1000 story, which is Chuck Happiness Was Never Really Our Success, which I apologise madly for if you tried to read it yesterday. There was a bit of a coding snafu, which cut out, like seven lines, which, when dealing with 1000 words, kind of relevant.

b) All Hail Generation Kill people! UK goers, GK started airing on FX like yesterday, so you know, FUCKING WATCH IT. Ahem. And the rest of us are required (yes, by me) to read bluflamingo's Yuletide Resolution story Seagulls and Sand, which takes place when Nate goes to visit Brad in the UK. Ah, GK fen, we do not turn out a lot of work (I have complaints about this), but what we do churn out I enjoy immensely. No lie. Maybe I need to check out the GK-based resolutions myself. Hmmm.

c) Speaking of small but mighty fandoms, Leverage folk, OMG THE ALEC/ELIOT Y'ALL ARE WRITING IS THE BOMB! Naturally, I (biasedly) recommend everything sparky77 has written (Leverage/O11 people), as well as with_a_key's work (esp this story), and this story by merle_p and this story by darkeyedwolf.

d) DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA,

U IZ THE MOST AWESOMEST EVER.

<3,
X

e) Rahm Emanuel continues to be greater than you. (or me). Turns out the NYT has a White House OTP too.

f) I know y'all thought I was bullshitting you about Robert Downey Jr being cracked out in The Kingdom of the Blaggers, but I wasn't. Hell, by this example, I totally didn't apply ENOUGH crack. Gacked from musesfool

g) We now return you to your regularly scheduled Merlin/Burn Notice*/Psych/Gossip Girl/Leverage/BSG** babbling already in progress.

g2*) Burn Notice people, it is not my imagination that Michael got hotter, is it? Yeah, didn't think so. Also, do we all agree that in the Sam & Michael relationship, Sam is the big brother, which is why he gets to call Michael "Mikey" and nobody else does. Do we have fic about that, because we sure as hell need some.

g3) BSG, people, I don't even have words about the last two weeks. Actually, yes I do : OMGWTFBBQSTOPLYING!

Comments

Part 2

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

Mr. Emanuel, who had hopes of becoming House speaker, has stepped into a job characterized by short tenures — just under two and a half years, on average — high burnout rates and the need to subjugate personal ambitions to the service of the president.

He is not accustomed to fading discreetly into the background. As a staff member in the Clinton White House, a three-term House member from Chicago and the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he was viewed by many as a consummate purveyor of a crass, kneecapping brand of politics.

Mr. Obama acknowledged as much at a 2005 roast for Mr. Emanuel, who is a former ballet dancer, during which Mr. Obama credited him with being “the first to adapt Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ for dance” (a number that included “a lot of kicks below the waist”). When Mr. Emanuel lost part of his middle finger while cutting meat at an Arby’s as a teenager, Mr. Obama joked, the accident “rendered him practically mute.”

The video of that roast has become a recent sensation on the Internet and buttressed a view among some Republicans that Mr. Emanuel’s appointment was, in the words of the House minority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, “an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil.”

While acknowledging that he can be something of a showman, friends say Mr. Emanuel has calmed considerably.

“He’s more temperate now,” said David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser and longtime Emanuel friend who dismissed much of his flamboyant reputation as “pure myth.” Mr. Axelrod added, “A lot of it is a reputation he earned as a younger guy.”


On the Go Before Sunrise

Late Friday afternoon, at the end of his first week in the White House, Mr. Emanuel was sitting in his corner office, sick with a cold, baggy-eyed and looking tired. “Everyone keeps saying, ‘Are you having fun?’ ” he said. “Fun is not the first adjective that comes to mind.”

He woke as usual at 5 a.m., swam a mile at the Y, read papers and was in the office at 7 for the senior staff meeting at 7:30. There was a meeting in the Situation Room about Afghanistan; a leadership meeting; a conversation with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada; a meeting with Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah; budget meetings; several conversations with the president.

Mr. Emanuel, in the interview, rejected any notion that he was reinventing himself for his new job. But he is mindful, he said, that he must fit into a culture that was forged over two years on a campaign, “a group that was part of a journey together.”

Mr. Obama had settled on his fellow Chicagoan to be his chief of staff well before he was elected. He was drawn to Mr. Emanuel’s experience in both the White House and Congress and called him “the whole package” of political acumen, policy chops and pragmatism. He is also a skilled compromiser. “He knows there is a time in this business to drop the switchblades and make a deal,” said Representative Adam H. Putnam, Republican of Florida.

Mr. Emanuel initially resisted taking the job. He came around after Mr. Obama insisted, saying these were momentous times and that the awesome tasks he faced required Mr. Emanuel’s help. The president-elect also assured Mr. Emanuel that the position would be the functional equivalent of “a No. 2” or “right-hand man,” according to a person familiar with their exchanges.

After taking the job, Mr. Emanuel spent endless hours reaching out to lawmakers. Mr. Reid gave out Mr. Emanuel’s personal cellphone number, with Mr. Emanuel’s blessing, at a caucus meeting of about 40 Senate Democrats this month. (“He seems to speak to every senator every day,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.)

Part 3

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

Mr. Emanuel has been equally solicitous of Republicans in Congress (who also have been given access to Mr. Emanuel’s private contact information). On days he does not swim, he works out, and conducts business, at the House gym: 25 minutes on the bike, 20 minutes on the elliptical, 120 situps, 55 push-ups and many sweaty conversations with his former colleagues. In a recent encounter there, for instance, with Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, Mr. Emanuel secured his support for Leon E. Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Emanuel has endured, or caused, some early distractions — his conversations with Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois about Mr. Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat; his failure to alert Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to Mr. Panetta’s appointment.

So far, Mr. Emanuel has been more chief than staff in performing his job, according to several officials. He advocated fiercely for posts for fellow Clinton administration alums like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Panetta; not so much for the outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean, with whom he had clashed while at the Congressional Campaign Committee. (“He was never negative about Dean,” said the Obama transition head, John D. Podesta, who added, “I wouldn’t characterize it as the other way, either.”)

Mr. Emanuel has also served as the administration’s chief headhunter. When the Office of Management and Budget director, Peter R. Orszag, had doubts about taking the job, Mr. Emanuel went into his default mode — jackhammering away at him, tracking him down in Hong Kong. “You can’t sit on the sidelines; you’ve got to come inside,” Mr. Emanuel told him.

Asked if “relentless” would be a fair characterization of Mr. Emanuel’s recruitment method, Mr. Orszag said, simply: “He’s Rahm. Come on.”


The selection of Mr. LaHood demonstrates Mr. Emanuel’s sway with Mr. Obama. After Mr. Emanuel sounded out Mr. LaHood about his interest in joining the administration, he was summoned to a meeting in Chicago with the president-elect.

The interview lasted 30 minutes, just Mr. Obama and Mr. LaHood.

“Look, Rahm Emanuel loves you,” Mr. Obama told Mr. LaHood as he prepared to leave. “He is really pressing me and pushing me. And it’s not that I don’t want to do it, but. ...”

A few days later, Mr. LaHood was selected to be transportation secretary.

Banter With the Boss

At a White House gathering with Mr. Obama and a bipartisan team of lawmakers on Friday, the House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, joked that Mr. Emanuel was too busy to talk to him, so he called the president instead. Mr. Obama said he was always happy to take calls for his chief of staff — a reference to an incident a few weeks ago when Mr. Hoyer called Mr. Emanuel, who was in the back of a car and claimed he was too busy to talk, so he handed the phone to Mr. Obama.

In meetings, it is not uncommon for Mr. Obama and Mr. Emanuel to engage in teasing banter. One White House official recalls an exchange last week in which Mr. Obama said something to the effect of, “Well, I was going to do that, but I didn’t want Rahm to mope for a half-hour.”

Part 4

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

But it will not always be so pleasant for Mr. Emanuel. “He’s going to be blamed for a lot of things,” Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, said of his former colleague.

Saying no is a big part of being chief of staff. Infighting is inevitable; so are enemies and rivalries.

In addition to cabinet officials — and the vice president — a cadre of “senior advisers” who have long and varied histories with Mr. Obama will be seeking his attention. They include Pete Rouse (Mr. Obama’s chief of staff in the Senate), Valerie Jarrett (a close Obama family friend) and Mr. Axelrod, whose office is a few feet closer to the Oval Office than is Mr. Emanuel’s. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, one of the Mr. Obama’s closest Senate and campaign aides, will also enjoy walk-in access to the president.

Mr. Emanuel has been in the job four days — and, by day’s end Friday, it looked more like four years.

He is slumped deep in his couch, periodically swatting at a giant fly that keeps orbiting his office. He is hoping to get out of the office to meet some friends for the Jewish Sabbath dinner. He has a physical therapy appointment for a pinched nerve in his neck. He missed his children — 8, 10 and 11 — who are visiting this week but are soon headed back to Chicago, where they are remaining for now. “For me to be the parent I want to be, I think it’s very hard,” he said, referring to the demands of his current job.

Just then, Mr. Orszag arrived at his door.

“Orz, what’s wrong?” Mr. Emanuel said. “Can you give me a minute, or do you need something?”

He needed something.

Mr. Emanuel left, returned and started talking about how his staffs tended to be loyal. “I drive people as hard as I drive myself,” he said.

Then Mr. Obama came to his door.

“Mr. President!” Mr. Emanuel said, jumping from his couch to his feet in something that resembled a dance move, and they walked out together.

Re: Part 4

[lembeau.livejournal.com]

One White House official recalls an exchange last week in which Mr. Obama said something to the effect of, “Well, I was going to do that, but I didn’t want Rahm to mope for a half-hour.”

That's adorable.