Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s Rough-Edged Mayor, Tries the Sandpaper

CHICAGO — Alderman Scott Waguespack was in a conference room at City Hall in the spring of 2011 for a formal sit-down with this city’s newly elected mayor, Rahm Emanuel. Mr. Waguespack attempted some small talk, he said, but Mr. Emanuel was not much interested.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’” recalled Mr. Waguespack, now a chief adversary of the mayor. “Then he said, ‘Let me tell you something,’ and he went off at me. Just started yelling and swearing. He went so far off the handle that I almost got up and walked out.”

Mr. Emanuel, in an interview, remembered it quite differently. “If he’s claiming that, then why didn’t he say it when it happened, or a day afterwards, a week afterwards?” he said. “Four years after the fact? It never happened.”

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“They say your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness,” Mr. Emanuel said, his deep-set eyes staring into the camera. “I’m living proof of that. I can rub people the wrong way, or talk when I should listen.”

In an interview, Mr. Emanuel pointed out that in the February election, he won 36 of the city’s 50 wards and has pushed through a difficult agenda of education and pension reform.

More: NY Times