Mark Schmitt reminds us that conservative Democrats are not Rahm Emanuel‘s invention:
A surprising number of people seem to have strong opinions about whether Rahm Emanuel should stay or go as White House chief of staff. It’s surprising because chief of staff is kind of a black-box job — or should be, anyway — not a public performance. To find another chief of staff who evoked such strong opinions, one would have to go back 20 years, to the imperious John H. Sununu in the George H.W. Bush White House.
In part, the case against Emanuel can be based on trace evidence of his performance on the job. There are the reports that Emanuel and Sen. Lindsey Graham have been working together on the effort to switch the administration’s position on civilian trials for terrorist defendants. And the transparently planted defenses of Emanuel, notably Dana Milbank‘s in The Washington Post, are littered with disparagements of his intramural rivals, and even of the president, that are disconcerting coming from someone whose primary obligation is to maintain order.
