Black, Jew to Run Nation

America, now you've done it. You just elected an African-American from Chicago President, and traveling with him to the White House will be his good friend Rahm Emanuel. Congressman Emanuel will probably be the new Chief of Staff, which is quietly the most important job in most administrations. Emanuel is the powerful young former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and his reputation is that of a political bruiser. The Emanuel selection demonstrates that unlike Clinton in 1992, Obama is not fucking around.

The Chief of Staff runs the White House internally, and this is a signal that Obama's transition will not be beset with the public infighting and embarrassing selections of the Clinton takeover. Emanuel is perfect for the role, because it's not a particularly public one, and Emanuel is a dirty-mouthed vicious partisan. It also sounds like Obama's going to work hard to get Congress in line with his Administration early on, which he'll need to do, once again, to avoid the mistakes of Bill Clinton, who got pushed around by old Democratic party leaders in the Senate and House.

Also, yes, Hope time is over. All the complaints that Obama's an aloof, vague hope-monger who won't accomplish anything, Jimmy Carter-style? We're going to see those stories switch to "Obama's a mean, hard, Chicago-style hack who'll run the White House with an iron fist."

Rahm's brother is, of course, super-agent Ari Emanuel. The Emanuel brothers are a treat, and we look forward to them enraging Conservatives almost as much as we look forward to four hilarious years of Vice President Joe Biden.

Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.

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