Word: emanuel
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Though they hail from the same state, the new President and his chief of staff are an unusual pair. Two years before Barack Obama was elected President, Emanuel jokingly noted as much in a speech at Washington's annual white-tie Gridiron Club dinner: "Senator Obama and I don't just share a home state. We also share exotic names that were given to us by our fathers--Barack, which in Swahili means 'blessed,' and Rahm, which, roughly translated from Hebrew, means 'go screw yourself...
...foulmouthed showman and backroom infighter, Emanuel has been known to manage, motivate and intimidate by standing on a table and screaming. And yet the early signs of how he will be running things at the no-drama Obama White House are auspicious: Emanuel, 49, has run the smoothest presidential transition in modern history. Obama "is thrilled with him," says David Axelrod, the President's chief political strategist. "He has said he's sure he made the right decision on this...
...York Federal Reserve chief Timothy Geithner, who had been intricately involved in devising last year's $700 billion financial-bailout package. But he also wanted the expertise of the ferociously brainy Larry Summers, who had held the Treasury job and wanted it again. So Obama and Emanuel worked out a deal to get both by convincing Summers to take a post inside the White House as director of the National Economic Council. As a top Obama White House aide put it, "A lot of this was making people understand that there was a lot of work to go around...
...there were those--including Summers--who advised Obama not to get too heavily involved in economic policymaking before his Inauguration. Better to let George W. Bush take ownership of the worst recession since the Great Depression so that the new President would be viewed as a fresh start. Emanuel believed, however, that Obama couldn't wait. He was adamant that the President-elect lay out not only his plan but also a specific goal--up to 4 million new jobs...
While Republicans greeted the news that Emanuel would take the White House helm with some trepidation, he has since surprised many of the worried by courting them. One of his first meetings on Capitol Hill after taking the job was with the Senate GOP leadership. "He gave us all his personal cell-phone" number, said Nevada Senator John Ensign. "He said he promised to get back to us on issues within 24 hours." But Emanuel cannot count on these moments of goodwill to last for long. The position is not one for anybody who craves job security. Typically, chiefs...