Leadership according to Rahm Emmanuel
by digby
Read and learn:
A lot of people look for leadership today, OK? What is leadership?
On the Race to the Top, the president of the United States took on a very powerful constituency of his own party to see through an education goal for the country. I say that because Bill Gates said to me, he says, when I was speaking at something, he applauded when I talked about Race to the Top only because he says that's where he thought the president most put nation above party. Name me one thing a Republican nominee has ever spoken against the base of their party. One. Gay marriage. Gun control. Taxes. I mean, 100 percent correct on everything.
OK, two. The president's own party was against what he said on Afghanistan. Showed leadership.
Third, auto industry. A lot of people advocated bankruptcy. A lot of people advocated Chrysler. He picked a different course and then stuck to it.
Health care, even though I advocated different, he doubled down, even when the chips were down, to get something that had been elusive to other presidents for 80 years.
In the financial area, people were advocating nationalizing banks. People were advocating breaking up banks. Picked a different course.
Leadership is about willing to put the chips down and lead a country even though [there are] adverse political consequences. And time and again he has shown that. That's what leadership is.
And I say it's in direct contrast many times with people in the Republican Party who have yet to in one area, find fault or difference with parts of their own party. And there can't be one party absolutely right 100 percent of the time. Not possible.
I would laugh if I wasn't crying.
Rahm expresses perfectly the Village Democrats' attitude: Democrats show leadership when they abandon their principles, while Republicans are stubborn for clinging to theirs.
I don't suppose it ever occurs to any of them that as long as the Democrats are doing the Republicans' work for them, they don't have to do anything but up the ante and throw red meat at their base.
That excerpt is from interviews for tonight's Frontline. There are a whole bunch of good ones which will be providing fodder for much bloggering to come, I'm sure.
Update: Also too, this, from the same interview:
Look, there's a bigger change. It's not about Washington. Washington is a mirror reflection sometimes of what goes on in the country. There has been a dramatic shift in the Republican Party in the center of gravity, OK? The most dramatic way of saying it is I don't think Ronald Reagan would be nominated by the Republican Party today. It's moved that far. If you look at his record as governor, there's no way today that he'd ever become the nominee of their party. That's one.
Not that I disagree that there's been a dramatic shift in the GOP's center of gravity. It's obvious that the country is polarized and has some fundamental disagreements about how their government should operate. (It isn't the first time.)
But why would a party that has just nominated a wishy-washy Governor of Taxachusetts who passed the antecedent to Obamacare not nominate Ronald Reagan? Clearly, as wingnutty as they are, they are capable of nominating someone who has a "checkered" political past as a moderate. And Reagan's past was far more palatable that Mitt's should be. After all, he cracked some heads, and that's always a good thing.
Maybe Rahm was just being sloppy and/or trite, but the truth is that this far right freakshow is more sophisticated than Rahm's giving them credit for. Which is also typical of Democratic politicians.
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