Oppose the employee free choice act (EFCA).
00Publius Contributor
Understanding the Concept of Reform
-By Frank Salvato
Country first. It’s a great concept and one that has been – for all practical purposes – lacking inside the beltway since before the advent of the spin doctor. Truthfully, both major political parties and their elected and appointed leadership have been delinquent in executing the spirit of “country first.” Both have placed the health of their respective political parties before good government and their quest for political power above the needs and demands of their constituents and the good of the nation. Both should be admonished for violating their oaths and betraying the American people.
Politicians make bad Statesmen, perhaps the understatement of the millennium. The ironic point about this truth is that in order to achieve the opportunity to demonstrate statesmanship you must first transverse the political process. Therefore, it is quite rare to experience the clarity of statesmanship in government.
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How Barack Obama Will Ensure His Victory in 2012
-By Selwyn Duke
Even before the election, with the realization that a Barack Obama presidency lay on the horizon, many saw a silver lining in the cloud that drifted into Washington, DC, from the left coast. “The right will be re-energized,” many thought, “and we’ll have a better Republican candidate and improved prospects in 2012.” Moreover, it was figured that Obama will exacerbate a bad situation, causing a meltdown in our economy and emboldening enemies without and within, thereby creating fertile ground for a Republican victory. Of course, the GOP nominee may in fact be better four years hence, although he is far more likely to be so in terms of persona than policy. But his prospects are a different matter.
No one likes the bearer of bad news, but, in this case, to render good news would be to offer bad prognostication. Frankly, I don’t see anything short of divine or devilish intervention (and the latter favors the president-elect) that will prevent Obama from being a two-term president.
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The Barack Obama – King George Connection
-By John Armor
Barrack Obama seems poised, based on his associates and his appointments to date, to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine for American radio programming, If he does that administratively through his naming of a new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he’ll be taking a page out of King George III’s book of policies toward the American colonists.
Say what?
Isn’t that a bit of a stretch since the number of radio stations in 1776 was shockingly low, and King George did not have a Royal Communications Commission? Well, actually he did, and thereon hangs a tale.
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Democrats Really do Despise Religion, Don’t They?
-By Warner Todd Huston
On his November 10 Huffington Post, Nicholas Graham and nearly every commenter thereafter, purposefully distorted what Governor Palin said about prayer and the 2012 presidential race. The universal misconstruction of Palin’s comments was that she was “praying to become president” in 2012 and that somehow God was speaking directly to her. But reality is she did not say that at all.
Graham offhandedly claimed that Palin said that she was waiting “for a sign from God” as to whether she would run in 2012. Further distorting her comments, he claimed she was “confident God would show the way to the White House.” But, once again, she said neither of these things. In fact, what she actually said is rhetoric that is pretty much in accord with what even elected presidents have said at one time or another.
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A Classic Case of Leftist Bias From Reuters on Obama’s Coming Judges
-By Warner Todd Huston
We’ve seen some major cases of left leaning bias in the media, especially during the late presidential campaign. Many of these cases have been blatant and over-the-top in style but, while covering the brazen cases of such bias, it is easy to forget that there are every day cases of the more subtle bias to the left in the media. Today, we have a perfect example of a more subtle left leaning bias in the media with a Reuters story headlined “Obama likely to push courts away from right.” In it there are lies, distortions and tricky wording all used to pat Barack Obama on the back for his assumed sharp turn to the left he’ll take as he appoints judges during his forthcoming presidency. The same tricks of the trade are used to attack George Bush and conservatives for their judicial turn to the right these last eight years.
The headline, of course, is a classic example of leftist bias. Just take a look at the language: “Obama likely to push courts away from right.” More properly this headline should read: “Obama likely to push courts to the left.” But, notice that instead of saying “push to the left,” they say “push away from the right.” This gives Obama cover for what he’s really doing and takes the emotional impact away from the fact that Obama is, indeed, going to veer to the left by placing the negative connotation on the right. Reuters is assuring people that Obama ISN’T going left, no, no, no, he’s only going “away” from the right!
The first paragraph continues to use words that soften Obama’s shift to the left while highlighting Bush’s actions in harsher terms.
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A nation of Peter Pans
-By Michael M. Bates
Author J. M. Barrie gave literature Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up. Government, by encouraging people to not assume the responsibilities of adulthood, is fashioning a nation of Peter Pans.
Many health insurance policies allow parents to carry their children as covered dependents until they turn 19 or, if a full-time student, around 23. That’s changing. Two years ago, New Jersey required health insurance companies to extend coverage to qualifying children up to age 30.
Tony Rezko’s favorite Democratic governor, Illinois’ Milorad Blagojevich, used his amendatory veto authority this year to do the same. The covered “children” need not be students nor even live with their parents.
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The French First Lady: Eye Candy and Air
By Selwyn Duke
It’s hard to shock a man living in a planetary insane asylum, so it doesn’t raise my eyebrows when I watch a people commit suicide. Nevertheless, I had to shake my head when I read about how Barack Obama’s election has inspired France to consider affirmative-action policies to combat their dreaded “white political and social elite.” Weighing in on this pressing problem is none other than singer, esteemed intellectual and French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Writes Cnews.canoe.ca:
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CNN Distorts Palin Comments From Its OWN Interview With Her
-By Warner Todd Huston
What is it about CNN that they have to distort things that Governor Sarah Palin has said in interviews? This time, CNN even distorted what she said in an interview one of its own correspondents conducted. On CNN’s Political Ticker Blog on November 11, CNN had this absurd headline:Palin in Obama’s administration? And followed that up with a paragraph that materially misstated what she told their own commentator, Wolf Blitzer.
Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Wednesday she would be honored to help out President-elect Barack Obama in his new administration, even if he did hang around with an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.”
Yet, the several paragraphs that follow shows that the header and the into paragraph twist what it is she really said. If one were to read just the headline and that first paragraph of the Political Ticker entry, one would get a very distorted view of what the governor said.
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Slate Editor NOW Upset at Constant Obama Fundraising Emails?
-By Warner Todd Huston
Dahlia Lithwick, a Slate senior editor, is newly miffed at the constant Obama fundraising emails she’s received. Oh, she didn’t mind them as the campaign was going on, she says, but now that Big “O” is fairly elected, Lithwick is tired of them. One gets the feeling, of course, that this has been building in her for some time — a sneaking dread mounting with each demand for cash. She even ends her Slate piece telling Obama that as far as she is concerned he should consider himself “cutoff” from her wallet.
Too bad she seems completely clueless that his constant grubbing for donations have moved from the voluntary stage to the mandatory stage now that she has helped elect him. She even mentions that she wants to get back to “panicking about her 401(k)” which is also amusing since the party she supports is now saying that they want to take possession of her 401(k)! Does she even know this?
Lithwick’s Slate posting seems to say a lot about a media that really never did get to truly see Barack past his glitzy exterior. It was all hope-n-change. Only the “change” ends up being that every last penny in her pocket AND her 401(k) is going to go to her email buddy, Barack.
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Auto Bailout Becoming a Sop to Unions?
-By Warner Todd Huston
With the precedent set of a bailout from Washington, the automakers are crawling and sticking their hands out for a new bailout for them. But, will a bailout for the Auto Industry actually go to the Industry or will it be a sop to unions?
Unfortunately, it looks like an auto industry bailout will feature some of those millions going to unions to fund weakly funded and over indulgent union benefit plans. This should not stand as it is no bailout for industry but a propping up of unions that have negotiated benefits that destroy the ability for our nation’s carmakers to be competitive in the world market. These over indulgent benefits are one of the biggest reasons our automakers are failing in the first place. A government prop for these destructive benefits is good money going after bad.
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True Patriots Put Country First
-By Nancy Salvato
Sometimes, I find it hard to stomach reading the headlines in my preferred publication of choice, the New Media Journal. I just finished an article reporting that Osama Bin Laden is planning on attacking the U.S. again –real soon. It’s hard to believe 7 years have passed since our hijacked planes were flown into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. It almost seems surreal. However, we must remember that the terrorists who would do us harm do not adhere to commonly accepted timetables, do not fight a conventional war, do not distinguish between military or civilians, and are not affiliated with any one country. And any westerner or infidel is considered fair game for their next atrocity.
While some citizens have become complacent, others have been vigilant in monitoring the war on terrorism. Most news reported about the war on terror is picked up by the New Media Journal as a courtesy for the readers who don’t want to see another 9/11 befall our civilization in their lifetime or after. For those who have opted not to take a permanent news holiday by burying their heads in the sand (As Andrew Weil recommends) and instead continue to expose their intestines to ulcers and IBS in order to stay informed and to inform others, it will not come as a surprise if there is an electro magnetic pulse explosion in our immediate hemisphere. Terrorists are capable of pulling off such a feat. Needless to say, they won’t have any remorse over such actions. It is all in a days work.
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Preparation: Recession, Depression, or Panic?
-By Don Boys, Ph.D.
It was a fantastic year when the stock market boomed and major U.S. companies made huge profits in domestic and foreign markets. New technology totally changed many industries, and financial pundits told us that we were on the edge of a new level of prosperity. Politicians, business leaders, and economists told us that the future was incredibly bright. No, that was not in recent years but in 1929! From May of 1928 to September of 1929, stocks jumped forty percent! In fact, trading in 1929 was more than twice that of 1928.
Newspaper headlines on Oct. 24, 1929 (Black Thursday) screamed, “Wall Street in Panic as Stocks Crash.” President Hoover (not “President Roosevelt” as our newly elected VP declared!) assured the American public that it was only a little correction, but the prosperous became paupers overnight. The best stock on Wall Street was General Motors, selling for 73 and after the crash, it fell to eight!
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Buffalo News Supporting Silencing of Righty Radio Talkers
-By Warner Todd Huston
Douglas Turner of the Buffalo News wants conservative radio talkers silenced. He calls them “virulent,” “violent” and “coarse” and hopes that starting January 1 the “work of flushing” them will begin. Turner fills his little anti-free speech screed with claims and a few examples of how rotten he thinks righty talkers are and how they need to be shut down, yet can’t seem to find a single cross word to say about the “coarseness” of lefty talkers. In other words, it is plain that “coarseness” or “one-sided” radio isn’t really a concern of his. Only eliminating the free speech of the right is his goal not any leveling of the playing field.
Naturally, his is filled with prosaic generalizations. Turner assumes that all conservative talk show hosts “were fond” of addressing Obama as “Hussein,” his middle name. Yet, Turner offers no list of those that did. He says righty talkers are “violent” but does not offer a single example to prove the allegation. It also seems that Turner can’t understand why radio hosts that call themselves conservative would be “one-sided.” Curiously, he didn’t excoriate Alan Colmes, Randi Rhodes, or Al Franken for being “one-sided.” (I know… Imagine that, huh?)
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Media and Academia, Historical Illiterates du Jour
-By Warner Todd Huston
To show how foolishly hyperbolic the Old Media and the ignorati in our universities are, the Associated Press issued a dire report that breathlessly informed us all that Barack Obama is facing a “nation in crisis” and it’s all “just like Lincoln and FDR.” The AP even gets an historically illiterate university professor to sonorously declare how Obama is “one step away” from Lincoln and FDR. But a review of our nation’s real history shows that the America Obama will inherit is in nowhere near the state of crisis that Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to deal with. But, in the end, this isn’t about real reporting or true historiography but about pumping Obama up and trying to shoehorn him in among what are considered by many our greatest presidents before he’s even taken office.
The absurd hyperbole and wild stretching of the historical record to give gravity to Obama’s reign is transparent for its effort to force readers into imagining that Obama should be given a mandate to do anything he wants. I’d suggest that the reason this foolish overestimate of our state of national “crisis” is being ladled out to an unsuspecting public is because the AP realizes that Obama did not get a mandate vote and the AP fears that Obama might face more resistance than it would like to his starkly socialist policy proscriptions. So, the AP is trying its best to break down those barriers beforehand.
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The Auto Bailout
-By Thomas E. Brewton
Classic socialism in action.
Socialism is characterized by ignoring the free marketplace and empowering intellectual planners to control the economy with a cocoon of regulations and directives. In Europe (and today in China) economically moribund companies are designated national champions and kept alive at taxpayer expense, even when they can’t compete in the free market without government subsidies.
This flows from socialist governments’ belief that full employment can be maintained only by massive deficit spending. J. M. Keynes, the economics guru of the the New Deal era, opined that it would be suitable government policy to hire men to dig holes one day, fill them up the next day, then re-dig them and refill them ad infinitum.
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An Unrepentant Google Basically Taunts DOJ/State AGs to File an Antitrust Suit in the Future
-By Scott Cleland
Google remains its own worst enemy
After dodging a certain DOJ antitrust suit from the most lenient antitrust enforcer in the modern era by withdrawing from the Yahoo ad agreement, Google’s CEO essentially spit at DOJ/State AG prosecutors by publicly and gratuitously saying: Google would have beaten the DOJ in court, nothing has changed, and that they were happy they reached out to Yahoo.
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Flight 93 Update
Tom Burnett Senior: “We have an Islamist design here that can’t go forward, please.”
Powerful video of Tom Burnett Senior and Alec Rawls at the August 2nd Memorial project meeting. The clip below is Part 1 of Alec’s new video exposé, starting with Mr. Burnett ‘s appeal to the American people to please help him stop the Park Service from planting a giant Islamic shaped crescent atop his son’s grave.
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Congrats to Jake Tapper: Now Senior White House Correspondent for ABC!
-By Warner Todd Huston
A richly deserved promotion goes to one of the fairest folks in the Old Media and hearty congratulations from Publius today. Jake Tapper from ABC has been given the plum assignment of Senior White House Correspondent as of this week.
What a great pick by ABC. They couldn’t have found a better guy. Tough, fair minded, on top of the story, web savvy. He has it all. And, at the risk of sounding like I’m playing for the “other team,” not a bad lookin’ fella. OK, that last bit was over the top… but you know. I go caught up in the moment.
So, congrats to Jake Tapper. Imagine, being assigned to the role of Senior White House correspondent at such a time in history! What an opportunity.
Now, some advice, Jakster. Remember how Obama liked to throw people off the plane, how he loved to chuck them under the bus. Remember how Joe Biden punished reporters for their sins during the campaign? Don’t be intimidated, man. We’ve got your back here at Publius. So, if you end up in Obama’s new journalist jail, we’ll try to scrape together some bail money.
And now, we probably just made every other member of the Old Media decide you’re persona non grata because of our praise. Just tell ’em we were off our meds.
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CBS News: Obama Must ‘Win Over’ Media? Is CBS Joking Here?
-By Warner Todd Huston
To answer the question of my headline, no CBS isn’t joking. CBS is actually pretending that the Old Media must be “won over” by a President Obama. It makes one wonder just how much more the press can be in love with The One? As multiple studies have shown, the Old Media has been far more in Obama’s corner than not yet now CBS wants to pretend they are skeptical of Obama? Now CBS wants to act as if they will be tough on him unless he appeases them? I know I said CBS was serious with this report, but it still seems like a joke of epic proportions.
Just catch this absurd CBS headline and subhead: How Obama Can Win Over The Media – MarketWatch Media Columnist Explains What Obama Must Do To Become America’s “Communicator-In-Chief”… I know, I know. When you’ve stopped laughing, you can continue on.
The very beginning of this farce is blind for its inability at introspection. CBS writer Jon Friedman starts his story at what he calls “an election-night party thrown by Time Warner.” But it was not a mere party it was an Obama celebration. At the party, Friedman asks the managing editor of Time magazine what advice he has for Obama and editor Rick Stengel seriously says that Obama must have “a new era of transparency.”
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Post Election Blahs
-By Vince Johnson
Blah #1. Now that the election is over I’m wondering what the News Industry will use to keep their journalists busy. Those reporters who were asked to take early retirement will probably follow Joe Biden around just in case someone asks him a question. They will do this out of habit and an inborn drive to come up with a scoop.
Blah #2. My understanding of the word “enormous” reached new heights when I read the autobiography of William F. Buckley, Jr. I refer to the awesome dimensions of his ego, of course. Despite the vastness, it had something that attracted thoughtful appreciation. Perhaps it was a twinkle from a group of his ordinary genes wishing they could come out of hiding and mingle with the rest of us.
Blah #3. For sixty years whenever I heard the word “scrambled” I always thought of eggs This all changed when the media focused so much attention upon Joe Biden’s untiring efforts to outdo Dan Quayle.
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While A Huge Crowd Gathered
-By Marie Jon’
Being politically correct has its rewards. Nevertheless, I must speak my mind without regard to acceptance or reprisals. I feel the need to express my thoughts.
As the huge crowd gathered at Grant Park in Chicago for a historical celebration, others like myself wept. Deep inside my heart, I knew what was to come. I did not see the stature bestowed upon this man who was not worthy of America’s trust.
While many good Americans were confused, I was not. For more than a year, political pundits had focused on Obama’s past political history, his choice of friends, and his quasi-Christian faith. His choice of Afrocentric Black liberation theology reinforced Obama’s disdain for America. He chose the theme of change and made it part of his ongoing mantra because it reflects his own political social agenda.
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Obama’s Mixed Signals For Pakistan and India
-By Warner Todd Huston
At only five days into his transition period, Barack Obama may have already made several mistakes in his relations with the countries of India and Pakistan that could cloud his relationship with two of the most powerful and influential nations in that part of the world.
Obama’s first odd move was to appoint Google financial adviser Sonal Shah to his transition team. Shah, a well-known 40-year-old economist and Indian American, is controversial in Pakistan for having links to a Hindu nationalist political party as well as a few other extremist groups based in India.
As soon as Obama brought Shah onto his team, tongues in Pakistan began to wag about the “controversial” economist for her connection to VHP-America. The Pakistani news service Daily Times pointed to connections between VHP and a group suspected of sponsoring riots that targeted Muslims and Christians in Gujarat, India.
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Obama Sends Man Linked With Terror Group AND George Soros to Deal With Egypt/Syria
-By Warner Todd Huston
News services in Israel are on fire with talk that Barack Obama has just sent a supporter of the terror group Hamas as his envoy to Syria and Egypt to relay news of his policies to come. Last September Israel’s suspicions were heated up about “former” Obama advisor Robert Malley being sent to Syria with a George Soros funded group. It was then claimed by Egyptian sources that Malley was still working as an advance man for Obama which angered Israelis because six months earlier Malley announced that he had held “regular meetings” with Hamas. At that time, Malley’s comment caused the Obama camp to hurriedly distance the candidate from any connection with Malley. But, with the election over, it seems that Obama’s claims that Malley didn’t really work for him are not quite true. It also seems that we already have the very first example of Obama sticking his finger in the eye of our allies in Israel. Naturally, the U.S. press is not reporting this news.
In September of this year, Robert Malley caused consternation among people that stand against the terror group Hamas when he went to Syria to work for a group called the International Crisis Group — a George Soros funded NGO also chaired by other doyens the far left. Some thought that he was secretly there as an Obama advance man, but there is no real proof that he was there in that capacity at that time so the story died down.
Airline Unions Want Obama’s Help Bankrupting Airlines
-By Warner Todd Huston
During the campaign it came to light that Barack Obama had claimed that he wanted to bankrupt America’s coal industry and make all our electrical rates skyrocket. Well, now that he is president elect Obama, airline unions are hoping that he’ll also come to their aid and help bankrupt the airlines. At least, that is what the things these unions want Obama to help them with will do.
The union that represents American Airlines flight attendants recently announced hopes that Obama would intervene in upcoming negotiations and help the unions rollback previous benefit cuts that they’d agreed to the last negotiations. “Perhaps the time is nigh for righting the wage and benefit cuts which have weighed unevenly on the labor groups,” the union said to its members.
With the costs of fuel falling, some analysts are saying that the airline industry might see profits for the first time in a long while, and this has left labor unions salivating to abscond with these profits for themselves.
But, in a still weak economy and with uncertain fuel prices, this is a recipe for disaster. Unions aren’t willing even to let things settle before making a mad dash for the cash and with Obama in office they assume he will force business to bow to union demands, especially where it concerns strikes in the transportation industry, an area that Federal oversight is thick.
This is more evidence that unions would rather see their own livelihoods destroyed than allow their businesses to be profitable.
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Time to Accentuate the Positive
-By Vince Johnson
You can count me among the 56 million who voted for McCain, but you can’t count me among those who allowed any degree of disappointment to last more than an hour or so. Obama won, that’s reality. Anything else is like drifting around in dreamland. It is time to get on with life and one way to do it is expressed very nicely in a song composed sixty-four years ago.
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Will Republicans Have the Courage to Hit the Reset Button
-By Frank Salvato
So, the voters of the United States have spoken. They have chosen – or we have chosen because it is important to treat the presidency with respect, something the Progressive-Left wouldn’t have understood until now – a 47-year old multiracial man, who had a decidedly “Progressive” upbringing, who taught community activist organizations to pressure financial institutions into embracing bad business practices, whose records when in the Illinois Senate were destroyed and who started campaigning for the presidency almost from the beginning of his US Senate career. Congratulations, President-Elect Obama. You pulled off.
We, as a people, chose Obama, questionable theology and all, to be president over an increasingly inclusive, reach-across-the-aisle, established war hero who proved his love of country through bone-breaking torture at the Hanoi Hilton. We chose Obama, questionable political ideological belief system and all, over a seasoned Senator with a proven track record of getting things done and a man the mainstream media used to adore before he dared to run against the “First Black President,” even though Obama really isn’t all that “Black” (a genealogical examination of Obama’s family line indicates he is 50% Caucasian, 43.75% Arab, and 6.25% African corresponding to the demographic of his Great-Great-Grandparents: 8 Caucasians, 7 Arabs and one African).
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Obama: Only Four Days, Already Two Broken Promises
-By Warner Todd Huston
It has only taken four days into his transition period to discover what Barack Obama’s idea of “change” is. Sadly, we find out that the “change” he had in mind was that of changing his mind on campaign promises because it seems as though he is already stepping back from two of them. By his pick for Chief of Staff he has obviated the new bipartisan Washington he claimed he was to orchestrate and by hiring a lobbyist for head of the FCC as well as signaling that he is softening his resistance to other lobbyists he is stepping back from the idea that lobbyists will be on the outside looking in with his new administration.
Obama’s first broken promise is the fingering of old Clinton administration hack Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. This pick does not bode well for the claim that he is interested in a less rancorous administration because Emanuel is widely known as a pit bull for the left and is not new to Washington in any way. His intemperate language and hard-charging style is not the sort that one would expect for an exercise in bipartisanship. Neither is Emanuel’s close connection with the corrupt Chicago political machine or his long-time connection to the Clinton Administration.
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