Obama spoke today to employees at the FBI's Washington, D.C., headquarters. When someone in the audience went down, he played it cool and made everyone love him again after that awful 9/11 replay.

Here's a clip compilation of all Obama's fainting ladies from the campaign.

It is curious that the Post couldn't land a single Republican to complain about Emanuel and his heavy-handed tactics. And it may actually undermine the story's point somewhat—if the GOP is too scared to offer routine criticism of the president's right-hand man for a newspaper profile, then clearly his vengeful habits haven't been completely exorcised. He's just become more discreet. And he's probably thrilled to have the Post calling him a namby-pamby valet. It's an information operation! The guy is that good.

But as the Post puts it, "Rahmbo" has taken a more conciliatory tack than many expected in corralling lawmakers to advance the Obama agenda. He was supposed to be a shiv-wielding maniac, but the Post takes a look at how he's actually been going about his job and found a polite, thoughtful, accommodating young man.

Republicans Peter King and Olympia Snowe stepped forward to sing Emanuel's praises—"He always takes my calls," Snowe said—and the Post couldn't find a single GOPer to badmouth him. The only critical quote is from Newt Gingrich, from the Today show last month, comparing Emanuel to H.R. Haldeman.

He's taken to sending batches of cookies to lawmakers to get them through late-night legislative sessions, and even lets a pussy like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid push him around:

During a recent Senate debate, Reid asked Emanuel to lean on three Democratic holdouts. When Emanuel reported back with a single convert, Reid chastised him that "batting .333 isn't good enough for the major leagues" of Congress. Emanuel responded with a string of expletives but tried again and produced a second vote.

The old Rahm would have pushed Reid's eyeballs out with his thumbs for saying something like that.

Sure, this celebrity mashup has been suggested before — but SNL actually made it funny. What if the most powerful person in the world actually flexed his beach-toned muscles instead of staying intellectually detached? Andy Samberg's smirking Rahm Emanuel completes the fantasy — until his "Rahmbo" character snaps out of it and realizes it was just a dream.

The Unification Church-owned Washington Times reports that the same tax rule that nailed Tom Daschle could get Emanuel in trouble. Here's why: The White House chief of staff hasn't paid taxes on the lodging given to him by Rosa DeLauro, a Democratic Congresswoman from Connecticut, and her husband Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who got rich after working for the Clinton White House.

The arrangement looked a little fishy. When Gawker raised questions about whether DeLauro and Greenberg's home was zoned for a rental, DeLauro revealed that she had not been charging Emanuel rent for the past five years. Accepting free rent from DeLauro may not have been a violation of House ethics rules, as long as Emanuel received a waiver from the House Standards Committee. He has not yet produced evidence of such a waiver — but whatever, he might get his wrist spanked.

Here's what has Emanuel-hunting conservatives excited: Even if the House okayed the free-rent deal, the IRS might still consider Emanuel's free rent to be what the tax agency calls "imputed income".

Imputed income is what caught Daschle. A lobbying firm for which he did consulting work provided him with a car and driver; he owed the IRS taxes on the value of that service, but did not pay the bill — around $140,000 — until this month, when the problem was caught in the process of vetting him as Barack Obama's Health and Human Services nominee. Under fire, he withdrew from consideration. Free rent, a perk often extended to corporate executives, is considered income under the same rules. But very few corporate execs get free rent in basements. So good luck with that, conservatives.

(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

DeLauro gave a statement to the Hartford Courant after Gawker reported Emanuel's basement-dwelling habits:

I wanted to make clear: we have no separate apartment in our DC house, no rental apartment; all our bedrooms and living areas are part of the house and accessible. They are often used by close family and friends. In mid-November, I got a call from the DC zoning office indicating that somebody had lodged a complaint and asked to inspect the property, which we welcomed. My husband was there for the inspection, which was uneventful and we did not hear again from the zoning office.

Fair enough. For most of the past five years, while he has stayed with DeLauro, Emanuel was serving as a congressman — and there are no rules against members of the House of Representatives giving each other gifts.

But the house on Capitol Hill is also owned by DeLauro's husband, Stan Greenberg, chairman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a pollster who got paid $4.5 million to do polling and strategy work for the Clinton Administration. DeLauro has said she and Emanuel are friends, and House ethics rules allow gifts, such as free lodging, on the basis of personal friendship. However, gifts over $250 in value require the advance, written approval from the Standards Committee. If such a ruling exists, DeLauro and Emanuel just need to produce it.

Oh, but then, Emanuel is now serving under the supposedly stricter ethics regime of the Obama White House. Free rent from a Democratic pollster? Something doesn't smell right — and it's not just that usual basement mustiness.

But forget about any breaches of minor ethics rules. So Emanuel crashed with DeLauro and Greenberg for five years for free — who cares? What this really tells us is how hopelessly inbred Washington is. We just wish Emanuel had gotten fancier digs in the bargain.

To think, there was a time when late-night comedians fretted that there wasn't anything funny about Barack Hussein Obama. (You couldn't even joke about his middle name without people accusing you of stirring up Islamophobia!)

That was before he became 44. The tightly controlled team which got him elected gave way to the usual cast of Washington goofballs, including some veterans of Clinton's leak-loving administration. Obama plays the straight man to these clowns, always frowning dourly and apologizing for their failings. Completists that we are, let's go through all the fun stories Obama has already given us:

Rod Blagojevich's corrupt attempts to pawn Obama's Senate seat didn't directly involve Obama. But they did remind everyone that Obama and his chief of staff, hunky ex-ballerina Rahm Emanuel, are Chicago politicians.

Bill Richardson withdrew from consideration for the job of Commerce Secretary after a financial scandal in New Mexico erupted. You'd think this would have come up somewhere between the start of the vetting process and Richardson shaving his postcampaign beard.

Speechwriter Jon Favreau groped a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton, raising questions of whether the boy wonder wordsmith was really just an eloquent frat boy.

Then it turned out he was dating Ali Campoverdi, a Maxim model turned White House assistant. Yes, he can act like the 27-year-old male he is.

The First Uterus became fodder for celebrity-magazine pages. Is Michelle Obama pregnant? Doesn't matter. The salient fact here is that America at last has a President and First Lady whom they like to imagine having sex.

Democrats returning from an eight-year exile gave an easy through line to revive all the scandals of the Clinton era. For example: Attorney General Eric Holder turned out to be the one who gave the nod for Bill Clinton's pardon of sleazy financier Marc Rich.

Tim Geithner didn't pay $34,000 in taxes, thanks to a tax loophole about which he delivered detailed testimony to Congress. They appointed him Treasury Secretary anyway. Why? Obama and the Senate both needed to move quickly to appoint someone whose job is to look like he's saving the economy.

Geithner was the last tax cheat Obama could afford, though. Would-be "performance czar" Nancy Killefer withdrew her name over a $946.69 tax lien for employment taxes she didn't pay for her household help.

It had already been revealed that Tom Daschle, who was up for Secretary of Health and Human Services had hadn't paid nearly $140,000 for a car and driver a lobbyist had lent him after he left office. Still, with Killefer gone, he lost his Cabinet job The real scandal here? Daschle and Killefer had tax problems endemic to the wealthy and powerful, reminding the public how out-of-touch Washington insiders run the show.

Save for an Esquire profile, this Barack-inspired office romance never made the national press. But the legal world has been atitter about Obama advisors Cass Sunstein and Samantha Power who romanced on the campaign trail. Not long before they became an item, Sunstein split with longtime girlfriend Martha Nussbaum. (Nussbaum and Sunstein were a power couple on campus at the University of Chicago Law School, where Obama also taught.) Power is now pregnant, gossip has it! Work-obsessed people falling in love on the job are always funny, precisely because they're pathetic and they know it.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's Capitol Hill basement apartment (rented to him by Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and pollster Stanley Greenberg turned out to be an illegal rental unit. Honestly, isn't breaking the law supposed to pay off more than that?

And we're aren't even three weeks into Obama's term! For the wagging tongues of Washington, Barack Obama really is That One — the president who brought hope and change to the once-moribund business of political comedy.

(Photos by AP and Getty Images; photo of Sunstein and Power by bettina_n)

When speaking to a crowd at the New Republic's Inauguration party (everyone in the new White House will be reading that mag, he said), the Chief of Staff mentioned that his kindly old Jewish mother had other hopes for his life:

As a former ballet dancer, let me tell you: For all I’ve done, she still says, ‘You coulda been a dancer.’ No matter what I’ve done: ‘You coulda been a dancer.’ Which is what a Jewish mother instills in a child. A sense of failing at all times.

He promised that he'd do some proper jigging at the various balls and galas being held this week for his new boss, Barack Obama. Though he said his dancing would be "nothing worth watching." We beg to differ. Just look at his form in that photo.

Image via NYT

We want to say, first, that we love Michael Sneed. Just looking at that photo still cracks us up. "And yes," her bio insists, "Michael is her real name." Ok! Also her bio says this: "Whether it's the latest local lore, political probe or Hollywood gossip, Sneed has the scoop and is always eager to share it with her readers."

Her brief mention, at the top of a column, of White House Chief of Staff-to-be Rahm Emanuel's shady doings in the Blago transcripts is especially golden coming, as it does, from a columnist known to be the recipient of politically expedient and misleading leaks from Governor Blago.

Sneed hears rumbles President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is reportedly on 21 different taped conversations by the feds — dealing with his boss' vacant Senate seat!

A lot of chit-chat?

Hot air?

Or trouble?

• • To date: Rahm's been mum. Stay tuned.

Well yes, Emanuel has already been outed as one of the participants in the taped Blago calls. Specifically he is the guy from the White House who won't give Blago anything but fucking appreciation even as he insists Blago appoint the Obama team's preferred candidate to Obama's vacated Senate seat. HOT AIR? TROUBLE? Sure, yes, both of those things. Rahm Emanuel talked on the phone to a criminal!

Bonus: Today's Sneed column features this ITEM:

Gamesmanship in the White House? Sneed hears that Obama is a big fan of the game Scrabble, a trait similar to former President Bill Clinton.

• Background: Clinton used to play a Scrabble-like game called Upwards until the wee hours of the morning with White House guests.

Only in Chicago, kiddies!

Obama comes off mostly clean in the criminal complaint, as he and his staff enrage the governor by refusing to bribe him. Blago wanted the Health and Human Services gig, they quietly gave it to Tom Daschle before making any other cabinet nominations. He wanted something in exchange for appointing Valerie Jarrett, Valerie Jarrett quietly withdrew from consideration. The Obama people played this beautifully, and while the news will be "Chicago Democrat Corruption" for a couple weeks, the Obama team ought to float above it, unless something goes terribly wrong.

This guy named John Wyma used to be Blagojevich's Chief of Staff, and he was the political director of Wyma's gubernatorial campaign. In 2005, he was paid $400,000 by Lehman Brothers(!) to consult on business with the state of Illinois. Then Lehman was "picked to manage a $700 million Illinois tollway bond sale." In 2007, Rod's wife got a $650,000 commission for selling the condo owned by a firm selected to manage the tollways to Wyma, who lobbied for the seller's firm. Hah.

Finally, John Wyma cooperated with the feds in the investigation and wore a wire (because the feds had something on him, probably). Yesterday, Blagojevich issued this veiled threat against both Wyma and Rahm Emanuel:

"No, I consider him a friend. and I don't consider him as anything but a friend. And to someone who, as I've known him, always has been an honest person who's conducted himself in an honest way," Blagojevich said of Wyma. "That's the John Wyma I know and it's the John Wyma that [Obama's incoming chief of staff, Rep.] Rahm Emanuel knows and a lot of other people know."

I.e., Rahm knows this crooked lobbyist too! Everyone knows this crooked lobbyist! It's Chicago!