Buh-Bye

Hell, we figger running the City of the Big Shoulders is maybe better suited to his talents. Running the White House ... not so much.

The character Josh Lyman in "The West Wing" is said to be based on Rahm. We'd be so much better off right now if Rahm had based his style in the White House on Josh Lyman.

We blame him for the loss of the public option. Up until recently, we were blaming all the ineptitude of the Obama White House on him, but we're not so sure any more. From the appointment of all those Goldman Sachs budget boys/girls to the Tin Ears in the political operation, seems like the man at the top might bear the blame.

We're reading about Rahm's likely successor, Pete Rouse. A strike against him is that he was Tom Daschle's right hand when Daschle was Majority Leader. Daschle's style was a lot like Obama's, too conciliatory for his own good. In Rouse's favor is that he apparently knows the location of every buried body for the last four decades of Life&Death in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac. That kind of knowledge can come in handy for a president about to make a move. Rouse became Obama's chief of staff when he was first elected to the Senate. It was apparently Rouse who turned Obama around on his vote on the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama was evidently planning to vote for the confirmation. Rouse warned him that a yes vote would come back to haunt him.

That was some good political advice right there.