I like this. Regarding 2006, I think there has been too much navel gazing and not enough recognition that Rom Emanuel beat the R’s.
One of his proudest moments during the Clinton Administration “was an event that touched his political sensibilities and his personal ties to Israel: the 1993 Rose Garden signing ceremony after the Oslo accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Rahm directed the details of the ceremony, down to the choreography of the famous handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.”
At this point of his political career he was known for his intensity. Notably, he reportedly told British Prime Minister Tony Blair, “This is important. Don’t fuck it up,” prior to Blair appearing in public with Clinton for the first time after the Lewinsky scandal emerged. Emanuel is said to have “mailed a rotting fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways.” On the night after the Clinton election, “Emanuel was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting ‘Dead! ... Dead! ... Dead!’ and plunging the knife into the table after every name.” His “take-no-prisoners attitude” earned him the nickname “Rahm-bo”.
— Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel
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