Rahm Emanuel must go, part II

by folkbum

Last month, I called for Rahm Emmanuel to get out, based on what he knew and what he concealed--and how much he lied--about the Mark Foley scandal.

Today, I read this, and could barely contain my anger:

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.

Then something happened, something very dark and secretive, something people are just uncovering now. DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel found out something that could- and did- change the dynamics of the race in FL-16 dramatically. Emanuel became aware that Mark Foley- well-known for years Inside-The-Beltway, albeit not among his church-going constituents, as a very active (and very hypocritical) homosexual- was molesting the underage male congressional pages, and that he had been for many years. Did Emanuel call the police? Did he even call the staffers who are charged by Congress with looking out for the welfare of the pages? Doesn't look that way. What it does look like is that he called a fast-and-loose Republican businessman he knew, someone, like Emanuel, with elastic values and an even more elastic code of personal ethics. He offered him a congressional seat and all he'd have to do was switch party registration and become a Democrat. That man is freshman Congressman Tim Mahoney.

Suddenly there was a new DCCC point person, John Vogel, and he had no idea who Dave was. Rushing called and suggested Dave talk to someone named... Tim Mahoney. Dave did. And Mahoney offered him an intricate bribe to drop out of the race and run against Republican Bill Young in FL-10 instead. Dave Lutrin never had a single conversation with Rahm Emanuel. But Emanuel's paw prints are all over this operation. It's the way he worked in district after district, everywhere in the country, seeking to find business-friendly, quasi-Republicans who would soft-peddle their opposition to the war in Iraq and never mention "impeachment." Many of us have experienced first hand Emanuel's tactics in CA-11, FL-13, and IL-06 to name a few. Scared of career-ending retribution, virtually no Democrats have been willing to go on the record about DCCC practices that are at variance with internal party rules.

There's more at the link, and at FireDogLake, where Lutrin has been talking about it. Disgusting.

Rahm Emanuel must go

There are so many reasons not to like Rahm Emanuel. Among the biggest is his refusal to buy into the 50-state strategy that won Democrats so many seats in the House last month--and the man was our elections chair. He wanted to sink a ton of money into just 20 or so seats, hoping to pick up the 15 we needed. Luckily, we ignored him, and won without him. Almost literally--he sank $6 million into the campaigns of two of his hand-selected candidates (people who ran in lieu of netroots favorites) that could have gone into a half-dozen other close races and won them handily.

He made who knows how much money teaming up with Bruce Reed to write The Plan, a book which, apparently offers no plan and is generally designed to distance himself from the party he's supposed to be a leader of.

Now comes word, through Congress's investigation of itself, that Emanuel knew of Mark Foley's emails in 2005, about the same time as Speaker Hastert and others. When asked about his knowledge of these emails, Emanuel repeatedly and forcefully lied to Democrats and the American people. There is no way around it. His choices in 2005, when he learned of the emails, included things like going to the FBI, or demanding a House investigation then into the matter. He didn't do those things; he leaked word of the emails to the Florida press, who refused to run the story.

It was only a year later, when additional emails were leaked to ABC news--by a Republican this time, remember--that any news organizations went after the truth of the matter, and we found that Hastert and other Republican leaders both knew of Foley's problems and helped to cover them up.

But Emanuel's conduct, both in 2005 and in lying to us this year, demands action. He should resign, and, failing that, he should be removed from the Democratic caucus. Should he be expelled? Maybe so. His actions are exactly the oppositie of the kind of leadership Democrats need to provide for the next year or so, the only time we'll have to establish ourselves as the party that can fulfill our promises. We promised no more corruption, voters supported that, and now it's time to be serious.

While we're at it, Democrats should kick the just re-elected William Jefferson out of the caucus, too.