Fire Dog Lake and Down With Tyanny discuss Lizza's column on Rahm today. [View All]

When Rahm Emanuel went looking for a loyal stenographer to dictate a canonical piece on himself, no surprise his gaze landed on Ryan Lizza, who did the honors for Chuck Schumer in the recent past (wherein Lizza called Russ Feingold "an ass" for proposing a censure resolution against George Bush). This week's New Yorker carries the 5200 word lap dance in which Rahm finds universal praise from sources carefully chosen to heap said praise upon him. Paul Krugman gets bashed by Rahm but sadly, there is no room for him to respond.

There are a few more things that mysteriously did not make their way into what purported to be a comprehensive piece on the President's Chief of staff:

..."• How Rahm as head of the DCCC infuriated immigration rights advocates by haranguing congressional candidates to "move right" on immigration, pushed Heath Shuler into putting forward the enforcement-only SAVE Act and then strong armed freshmen into co-sponsoring it, or how it triggered a revolt of the Hispanic caucus on the House floor that he's now trying to repair in the wake of Hispanic support for Obama in '08.

Two weeks ago he sent a DCCC-connected candidate training a video of himself haranguing congressional candidates to “move right” on immigration or risk defeat at the hands of Republicans. This is similar to the terrible advice he shoved down candidates’ throats last year, although then he was demanding they move to the right on Iraq, dooming the candidacies of Lois Murphy, Francine Busby, Ken Lucas, Tammy Duckworth, Diane Farrell and several others who went along with his demands.

..."It's got to be one or the other, because Rahm Emanuel is behind efforts to build Democratic support for the Shuler/Tancredo "enforcement-only" bill currently winding its way through the House.

Think about it -- our House leadership is strong-arming Democrats into backing a bill which is the central agenda of the biggest racist xenophobe Tom Tancredo.

Greenberg: "He doesn't mind bad publicity. It's part of his cachet, it's part of why he's able to be effective." Depends on who creates the bad publicity; he loves the kind he creates himself-- through naive shills like Lizza-- but when someone throws a little reality in his face, he is quick to lose control of his volatile temper, something that must be devastating for a control freak. In Lizza's only worthwhile moment of the entire drawn out piece, he portrays Emanuel's seething resentment towards someone who actually is an accomplished individual, Paul Krugman.

Now, Mahoney was a millionaire and an admitted Republican and Emanuel, with a little Insider information, persuaded him to switch party registration to run against a popular incumbent in a very Republican district. Once Emanuel forced the actual Democrat, Dave Lutrin, out of the race and Mahoney became the nominee, news broke that the incumbent, Mark Foley, had an ugly sex scandal on his hands. Mahoney-- purely a creature of Rahm Emanuel-- went on to win a convincing victory, the timing of Foley's scandal being so perfect that even though he resigned and withdrew, he couldn't get his name off the ballot. Congressman Mahoney then went on to vote, like Shuler, for the Republican principles and values in his heart. He also cultivated his own ugly little sex scandal and after just two short years was ignominiously defeated for re-election. I bet Lizza hasn't heard of either Shuler or Mahoney. In fact, reading his piece today made me wonder if his trip to visit Emanuel was the first time he'd ever been to Washington, DC.

First a little background on the district and race. FL-16 wasn't exactly a district anyone was really targeting for a Democratic take over. It's a pretty Republican, rural district cutting right across the state from coast to coast, and it was represented by a fairly popular, well-entrenched incumbent, albeit a Bush rubber stamp. When school teacher and union member Dave Lutrin decided to run, it was because of his dismay with the occupation of Iraq and his dismay about how Bush had been running our country into the ground. He wanted something better for his young daughter and, as an idealistic and progressive Democrat, he decided Foley didn't merit a free ride to re-election. Not what you'd call a political insider, and severely un-financed, Dave vowed to give incumbent Mark Foley a grassroots race based on the day's burning issues, the kind of race that swept similar Democratic outsiders like Jerry McNerney, Carol Shea-Porter, John Yarmuth, Nancy Boyda, Chris Murphy, John Hall, Jason Altmire, Chris Carney, Patrick Murphy, Bruce Braley and Paul Hodes into office in November.

Early on in the process– in mid-2005– Dave contacted Democratic Party organizations throughout the district, as well as the state party and the DCCC in Washington. Everyone was enthusiastic and encouraging. Glen Rushing, the DCCC point person for the region, told Dave he was "just the type of candidate we're looking for." He offered to introduce him to Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, the DCCC-appointed mentor for Democratic candidates in the region, who following their first phone conversation offered to help him with his race. Rushing then promised to get him in touch with Florida DCCC chief, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Emanuel's lieutenant for the Southeast.