MSNBC is reporting that Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., has decided to accept Barack Obama’s offer and become the new White House chief of staff when Obama is sworn in as president next January.
Emanuel brings quite a reputation with him. Known as “Rahmbo,” the former Clinton administration official is legendary for being a no-holds-barred political operative. In a 2005 article for Rolling Stone, Joshua Green related this famous tale:
The night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting “Dead! … Dead! … Dead!” and plunging the knife into the table after every name. “When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape,” one campaign veteran recalls. “It was like something out of The Godfather. But that’s Rahm for you.”
