Rahm bomb

Isaac Chotiner: Your predecessor held this job—

Rahm Emanuel: My predecessor?

IC: Yes, Richard Daley, who was in office for twenty-two years. What was it like taking over a city when one man had so much control for so long?

RE: I am here to build a future. You know he is a friend.

IC: I am not demanding you say anything bad about him.

RE: I am not going to. I would never do that. He was a great mayor. There are things he did that I would do differently. He acknowledged the public was ready for a change. Millennium Park used to be railroad tracks. He built it. It is one of the greatest public spaces built in the last fifty years in the developed world. That said, it was time for a change. His presence is such a part of the city. My goal is to ensure we have a future and to make the changes that I think people voted for...

IC: Let me ask you about your own image—sending people dead fish and so forth. To what degree have you tried to create this image yourself?

RE: Maybe I should ask the question to you. Look, I did send the fish. I and four other people. In 1986. [Pauses for several seconds.] We are coming up to almost thirty years. It is time for people to freshen up their anecdotes. You aren’t the same person you were when you graduated college. I didn’t say I didn’t do it. But where I was at twenty or thirty versus fifty-four, where I am a father of three—I’m just a different person.

IC: But you still have this reputation. You must have seen what Robert Gates called you in his book: “a whirling dervish with attention deficit disorder.”

RE: Yeah, so? What are you wondering?

IC: Well—

RE: Finish your question.

IC: Do you pursue this style and image because it has advantages in governing?

RE: The assumption is that I only have one gear.

IC: OK, I am asking about that gear.

RE: Well, first of all, I am interested in telling you I have more than one gear. Here is what I think about you guys...