Thread: Stories that could rock the summer

Stories that could rock the summer
David Catanese Mon May 31, 6:21 am ET

On the eve of the summer campaign doldrums, the narrative for the midterm elections seems well-established: Big losses are in store for Democrats in November, incumbents of all stripes ought to be looking over their shoulders and the political establishments in both parties are out of favor.

Yet as fixed as those story lines might seem at the moment, there’s plenty that could still go wrong — or right — to alter the Democratic Party's or Republican Party’s trajectory over the next few months.

Natural disasters could wreak havoc. Crimes might be exposed. Jaw-dropping gaffes that could be committed, and unforeseen political forces could yet be unleashed.

While voters may not completely tune in to the midterm elections until after the Labor Day holiday, here are eight possible issues this summer that could play a role in reshaping the November landscape:

BP's slow bleed

The worst oil spill in U.S. history has dominated the headlines for weeks — and is already turning into a key campaign issue.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, running for the Senate as an independent , is mulling over a special session to write a ban on offshore drilling into the state's constitution. Louisiana Democrats are pummeling Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) for attempting to "limit BP's liability." And Republicans are framing the environmental catastrophe — and President Barack Obama’s approach — as this White House’s equivalent of Hurricane Katrina.

Now, it seems, the White House is “prepared for the worst” — an oil spill that continues flowing until August, according to Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

“There could be oil coming up until August when the relief wells are dug. It’s important to know there’s not just one being dug; there’s two because we insisted, the government insisted, that there be a second one in case something went wrong with the first one,” Browner said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“We are prepared for the worst. We have been prepared from the beginning. We will continue to assume that we move into the worst-case scenario, which is ... some oil leaking up to the surface and then onto the beaches and shorelines. We will continue to prepare for that.”

August?

Hurricane Season

That audible gasp you heard before Memorial Day may have been the reaction to the National Weather Service’s prediction last week that the 2010 hurricane season that begins Tuesday is shaping up to be “very aggressive.”

The long-range forecast suggests as many as 14 hurricanes may form, but it would take only one Category 3 or greater landing in Florida, Louisiana or Texas to again focus the country on the government’s disaster preparedness.

Don’t think political operatives aren’t already gaming out the potential fallout, not just for the Obama administration — which has emphasized its competence after the Bush administration’s epic failed response to Hurricane Katrina — but for candidates and elected officials in the affected states.

“If we get hit by a big storm or several smaller storms, the state of Florida will literally go bankrupt because of some of Crist’s policies. This has been one of the major things against him, and he would get almost all the blame because everyone else in Florida politics has warned about this concept for years,” said a Democratic operative of the Sunshine State’s “dysfunctional” insurance laws.

Palm Beach County GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein, a Marco Rubio supporter, disagreed. He said a hurricane puts Crist in the bunker and provides him with an opportunity to exemplify command and leadership. “Hurricanes are good for incumbent governors,” he said.

Unvetted Candidates Gone Wild

The immediate surge of unflattering attention Rand Paul received after his GOP Senate victory in Kentucky exposed the downside of insurgent candidates powered by anti-establishment volatility: They’re largely unvetted.

Six months ago, little attention was paid to the ophthalmologist’s textbook libertarianism. That all changed when he upended the candidate favored by the minority leader of his own party.

With two Senate incumbents and one House member already downed in primaries and establishment-backed candidates struggling to gain traction elsewhere, there are likely lots of onetime long shots whose backgrounds haven’t been adequately mined. And the slow-news summer months will provide lots of time for the press — and oppo researchers — to go on treasure hunts.

An Attempted Terrorist Attack

For the first time in nearly four years, a majority of Americans think a terrorist attack is likely to occur in the United States in the next few weeks, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research survey.

That statistic alone demonstrates how edgy the electorate remains after the attempted car bombing of Times Square in New York on May 1.

There’s good cause for worry: In 2007, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged that “summertime seems to be appealing to” Al Qaeda.

With Americans jet-setting to vacation destinations and the symbolic Fourth of July holiday looming, even the hint of another plot could jolt national security issues back onto center stage.

The Blago Trial

The political class yukked it up over his appearances on “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” and, more recently, on “Celebrity Apprentice.” But Rod Blagojevich’s shenanigans are about to become considerably less humorous for those who used to operate in the same circles as the disgraced former Illinois governor.

His trial on corruption charges is expected to start this week and last at least four months. It’s timed perfectly for Republicans, who will seize on any scintilla of evidence from the proceedings that ties Blago to the White House, Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn or Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias, who has already been hobbled by his own family’s bank woes.

Quinn has been paired on a ticket with Blagojevich twice and has already sought to inoculate himself by highlighting their awkward relationship. But a daily drip of colorful testimony and classic Blago sound bites could provide the GOP with plenty of ammunition to use in Illinois campaigns, not to mention against the White House and its Chicago inner circle.

Chicago-based political consultant Thom Serafin, who has advised both Republicans and Democrats in the past, said the GOP will turn statements coming out of the courthouse into its campaign mantra.

“Expect good-government groups and the GOP to make sure this long trial will be the measure of how the governor and the Democratic Party really work. On trial, Blago will ask, ‘What has changed in Springfield since I was impeached?’ A very valid question with very painful answers,” said Serafin. “The irony [is] a real-life federal jury becomes Quinn’s most important focus group.”

The Rise of Bill Halter

A week before the Arkansas Democratic Senate runoff, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter appears to have two-term Sen. Blanche Lincoln on the ropes, vaulting ahead of her in May fundraising and taking a narrow lead in polling.
Armed with the support of the progressive left, Halter is poised to send a powerful message to centrist Democrats, particularly those in the South.

Adam Green of the liberal group Bold Progressives said a Halter victory would have the impact of Ned Lamont’s upset victory over Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary.

“Just as the Lieberman primary victory shocked Democrats into talking about Iraq, this will shock Democrats into being more populist and anti-corporate,” said Green. “If Halter wins, it will prove to thousands of activists, donors and voters that defeating corporate Democrats is possible — and [will] likely lead to a huge infusion of energy into other progressive campaigns across the country.”

August Unemployment

The rule is almost ironclad: If unemployment hits double digits, it’s difficult to see the party in power having a successful election year. Despite predictions last fall that the jobless rate would peak at around 10.5 percent this summer, the current 9.9 percent rate is sitting just under the critical threshold.

The August rate will be significant because it will be unveiled just as campaigns hone their messages in preparation for the post-Labor Day homestretch. Political analysts note that even if other economic signs are encouraging, Americans’ psyches are most affected by unemployment.

The long, hot Summer of Corruption
By Michelle Malkin • June 2, 2010 09:40 AM

We’ve had the Summer of Love and the Summer of the Shark. Now, are you ready for the Summer of Corruption? On Thursday, jury selection begins in the federal trial of disgraced former Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. The timing couldn’t be worse for Blago’s old Chicago pals in the White House. Just as Team Obama tries to bury one job-trading scandal, another one resurfaces.

It’s a useful reminder that Washington didn’t turn Obama into a business-as-usual politician. He was born and bred among the slimiest in their class.

At the center of the Blago trial is the convergence of the Chicago political machine – the corrupt Democratic Party establishment, Big Labor heavies at the Services Employees International Union, and Team Obama.

In December 2008, the political ties that bind them all came under national scrutiny when federal prosecutors publicly released their criminal complaint against Blagojevich. SEIU figured prominently in Blago’s secretly taped musings on how to profit from his power to appoint Obama’s Senate replacement. So did a larger union umbrella federation, Change to Win, led by SEIU secretary-treasurer Anna Burger. Blago hatched a plan to snag a $300,000-a-year job as head of Change to Win in exchange for appointing a union-friendly successor to Obama.

Like Obama, Blago enjoyed massive campaign donations and on-the-ground support from the SEIU’s Purple Army. Like Obama, Blago repaid his Big Labor backers with labor-friendly executive orders and legislative largesse to facilitate union organizing and carve out major portions of the health care industry for them. At the time of his arrest, Blago was preparing another executive order to expand the union power grab over an even larger portion of home health care workers targeted by the SEIU.

Blagojevich did the country an extraordinary unintended favor. As health care analyst David Catron wrote: “He has made it clear to the meanest intelligence that Obama emerged from a hopelessly corrupt political culture. Barack Obama oozed from the same stinking Chicago swamp that produced Blagojevich, and a man whose formative years were spent wallowing in the muck with such creatures isn’t likely to be long in White House before the stench of pay-to-play politics begins to pervade the place.”

Fast-forward. Nearly two years later, Obama’s legal fixers can’t mask the Chicago-esque odor of Sestak-gate. The president’s legal team, led by chief fixer and legal counsel Bob Bauer, orchestrated a Memorial Day weekend document dump intended to squash mounting public criticism of the administration’s alleged government job offer to Pennsylvania Democrat senatorial candidate Joe Sestak. Bauer’s memo acknowledged that “options for Executive Branch service were raised with him” through former President Bill Clinton, whom White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel enlisted to woo Sestak.

Blago knows all about working with Team Obama through intermediaries to explore, ahem, “options.” Blago’s then-chief of staff, John Harris, allegedly mapped out “three-way deal” to give the White House a “buffer” obscuring the obvious quid pro quo. SEIU would assist Obama with Blago’s appointment of a union-friendly candidate; Blago would get his cushy union job; and SEIU would be rewarded down the road with favors from the White House. Team Blago reached out to the SEIU. An unnamed SEIU official agreed to float their plan and “see where it goes.”

The Senate candidate Blago allegedly approached was top Obama adviser and Chicago political godmother Valerie Jarrett, who removed herself from the running when she took a top White House adviser post instead. Who was the “SEIU official” Team Blago spoke with and met? Internal communications in December 2008 fingered President Obama’s longtime Chicago pal, SEIU Local 1 president Tom Balanoff. Balanoff, not coincidentally had been appointed by Blago to the llinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

Two days before Christmas 2008, legal counsel Greg Craig released an official, self-exonerating report outlining contacts between Team Obama and Team Blago. Balanoff, it turns out, had indeed spoken with Jarrett. The Obama defense? Despite her much-touted political brilliance, the legal team argued, Jarrett “did not understand the conversation to suggest that the Governor wanted the cabinet seat as a quid pro quo for selecting any specific candidate to be the President-Elect’s replacement.” The Blago subpoena of the president filed last month begs to differ – and directly implicates Obama:

“…despite President Obama stating that no representatives of his had any part of any deals, labor union president [presumably SEIU’s Andy Stern] told the FBI and the United States Attorneys that he spoke to labor union official on November 3, 2008 who received a phone message from Obama that evening. After labor union official listened to the message labor union official told labor union president “I’m the one”. Labor union president took that to mean that labor union official was to be the one to deliver the message on behalf of Obama that Senate Candidate B was his pick.”

It’s going to be a long, hot summer of Chicago corruption.

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/06/02...of-corruption/


comments

And yesterday Holder declared that the DOJ will target global corruption. I think he meant that Team Obama wants their cut of that pie too.

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Unfortunately, the corruption will continue as long as Holder is AG. AND, if he leaves, another corruptocrat will take his place. That is all Obama knows…he has no friends or cronies who aren’t corrupt. That is the pool he is pulling his administration out of. It is not going to stop until Obama is toast. Hopefully in November, we can at least slow him down!

There will come a day when Obama will be completely “outed” and the whole world will see everything about him, tied up in one neat package and irrefutable. Even then, some idiots will STILL deny his corruption. The veil over some eyes is too thick to penetrate and those are the lost.

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The witnesses for the state have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption – the evil assumption – that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted around women, black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Speech to the jury by Atticus Finch, Chapter 20.

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“I’m plugging in the pop corn popper. This is better than The Young and Restless.”
Roger that! This is better than “The Godfather.” I’m getting pumped. The entertainment value of the Dear Leader crash and burn is outstanding, and we are no where near the climax.

At least in the old days, Chicago/Mob/Machine slimeballs like Blago had some semblance of honor – like DeNiro’s classic… “You got pinched, but they got nuthin. Always remember, keep your mouth shut and never rat on your friends.”

Blago would rat on his mother in a heartbeat, for a buck. Team Barry is toast.

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Blago would rat on his mother in a heartbeat, for a buck. Team Barry is toast.

He’ll sing like a canary. What about Mrs. Blago? What does she know and will she shop it to the highest bidder?

Would it be too unbelievable if they find Blago with his veins opened in the bath? Oh the possibilities.

Senate candidate says White House discussed 3 jobs
By Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 5 mins ago

WASHINGTON – One of President Barack Obama's top advisers suggested to a Colorado Democrat that he forgo a primary challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet and instead apply for one of three international development jobs.

The disclosure came just days after the White House admitted orchestrating a job offer in the Pennsylvania Senate race with the similar goal of avoiding a messy or divisive Democratic primary.

The back-room deals — former President Bill Clinton led the Pennsylvania effort and White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina worked with former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff — called into question Obama's repeated promises to run an open government.

Romanoff said in a statement Wednesday night that he was contacted by Messina last fall and told that the White House would support Bennet in the primary. When he said he would seek the nomination anyway, Messina "suggested three positions that might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race," Romanoff said. "He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions."

Romanoff added: "At no time was I promised a job, nor did I request Mr. Messina's assistance in obtaining one."

Earlier Wednesday, a White House official insisted nothing inappropriate or illegal took place but didn't provide the details Romanoff offered in his statement and a copy of an e-mail he had received from Messina.

"Mr. Romanoff was recommended to the White House from Democrats in Colorado for a position in the administration," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said. "There were some initial conversations with him, but no job was ever offered."

Yet even the appearance of trading taxpayer-funded jobs to ease an ally's political path left questions for an administration that was the most transparent in history.

Messina, a tough-minded veteran of Senate politics and one of the president's best fixers, spoke with Romanoff on Sept. 11, 2009, and suggested that Romanoff might better use his time at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Messina sent Romanoff job descriptions for three positions: an administrator for Latin America and Caribbean; the chief of the Office of Democracy and Governance; and the director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

Romanoff said he later left a message on Messina's voice mail saying he would continue his Senate campaign.

The Colorado episode follows a similar controversy in Pennsylvania. An embarrassed White House admitted last Friday that it turned to Clinton last year to approach Rep. Joe Sestak about backing out of the primary in favor of an unpaid position on a federal advisory board.

Sestak declined the offer and defeated Sen. Arlen Specter late last month for the Democratic nomination after disclosing the job discussions. His supporters highlighted it as evidence of Sestak's antiestablishment political credentials. He said last week he rejected Clinton's feeler in less than a minute.

In a two-page report on the Sestak case, the White House counsel said the administration did nothing illegal or unethical.

Republicans have strongly criticized the offer to Sestak and challenged the White House's ethics.

"Just how deep does the Obama White House's effort to invoke Chicago-style politics for the purpose of manipulating elections really go?" said Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who unsuccessfully sought a Justice Department investigation into Sestak and showed no sign of slowing.

"Clearly, Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff aren't isolated incidents and are indicative of a culture that embraces the politics-as-usual mentality that the American people are sick and tired of. Whatever the Obama brand use to stand for has been irrevocably shattered by the activities going on inside Barack Obama's White House," Issa said.

Unlike Sestak, Romanoff had ducked questions on the subject until issuing his statement Wednesday night. Also unlike Sestak, Romanoff was out of office and looking for his next act after being forced from his job because of term limits.

Romanoff had sought appointment to the Senate seat that eventually went to Bennet, publicly griped he had been passed over and then discussed possible appointment possibilities inside the administration, one of the officials said.

After being passed over for the Senate appointment, the out-of-power Romanoff made little secret of shopping for a political job. Romanoff also applied to be Colorado secretary of state, a job that came open when Republican Mike Coffman was elected to Congress. Gov. Bill Ritter again appointed a replacement, and again passed over Romanoff.

Next, according to several Colorado Democrats speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal negotiations, Romanoff also approached Ritter about being Ritter's running mate for Ritter's re-election bid. It was only after that attempt failed, the Colorado Democrats said, that Romanoff joined the Senate contest.

Romanoff still wasn't settled on the Senate race. When Ritter announced in January that he wouldn't seek a second term after all, Romanoff publicly talked about leaving the Senate race to seek the governor's office, though he ended up staying in the Senate contest.

Bennet has outpaced Romanoff in fundraising and support from Washington, although party activists attending the state party assembly last month favored the challenger by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent. The primary is Aug. 10.

Bennet was appointed by Ritter to fill out the final two years of the term of Ken Salazar, who resigned to become interior secretary.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/...NsawNwcmludA--

According to Politico, Andrew Romanoff has confirmed that Joe Sestak’s “unpaid job offer” was just the tip of the iceberg: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38064.html

Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff confirmed Wednesday that Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s deputy chief of staff, suggested three administration jobs that would be available to him last September if he dropped his plans to run against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who had the support of the White House.

Romanoff said he informed the White House that he would stay in the race. The revelation comes days after the White House confirmed that Rep. Joe Sestak was approached about an unpaid position in the administration if he dropped his campaign against Sen. Arlen Specter. But in this case, Romanoff was offered paid positions in the administration, a clear difference from the Sestak case.

Here are the three job offers (or “openings”) that Politico reports Messina sent to Romanoff. http://www.politico.com/static/PPM153_messina.html All the job listings appear to be verbose, semi-useless, mostly idiotic and uber-bureaucratic cluster-hump make-work positions — which leads me to believe the email is authentic.

You’ll notice, if you read the details of both the Messina and Sestak offers, there’s a heavy “wink wink, nudge nudge” factor involved in the offers, but still, is this transparency? Is this Hope? Is this Change? Is this legal?

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

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Flashbacks from Michelle:

First noted the Romanoff bribe story back in February here http://michellemalkin.com/2010/02/23...-pay-for-play/ ; column on Sestak, Romanoff and Mary Patrice Brown job offers in March here http://michellemalkin.com/2010/03/05...r-bully-bribe/ ; and on the White House pattern of stonewalling here http://michellemalkin.com/2010/05/26...tak-stonewall/

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Update: Gibbs responds, fairly unconvincingly. http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/0..._source=co2hog

Robert Gibbs offered a new written statement on the allegation from Andrew Romanoff that the White House had attempted to get him out of the primary contest against Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) by offering him a job. Gibbs denied that the Obama administration did anything wrong. And then he more or less admitted that White House staffer Jim Messina made the offer to stop Romanoff’s primary run: http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal...s_start_21.php

Last year, the deputy WH CoS discussed 2 USAID posts and a US Trade and Development Agency job with ex-CO House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D), if only Romanoff would drop his challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet (D), Romanoff said in a statement last night. It is the second time in as many weeks that the WH will have to answer questions about using the offer of admin posts to clear a Senate primary field.
In a statement released early this morning, WH Press Sec. Robert Gibbs said the WH had done nothing wrong. “Andrew Romanoff applied for a position at USAID during the Presidential transition. He filed this application through the Transition on-line process. After the new administration took office, he followed up by phone with White House personnel,” Gibbs said. “Jim Messina called and emailed Romanoff last September to see if he was still interested in a position at USAID, or if, as had been reported, he was running for the US Senate. … Messina wanted to determine if it was possible to avoid a costly battle between two supporters [emphasis mine -- Ed].”

Er, isn’t that exactly the problem? If the White House has been offering people paid jobs in the administration in order to “avoid costly battles” in primaries, then that breaks the law. The allegations surrounding their dealings with Joe Sestak and Romanoff have been all along that the White House attempted to buy off primary challengers to Democratic incumbents in Senate races. Far from establishing that there has been no wrongdoing, the statement confirms the allegations.
With that said, what is the likelihood of prosecution? I’d say minimal, but that’s not the big problem for the White House. Instead, these explosions of scandal expose the Obama administration as corrupt. Those expressing surprise that a survivor of Daley Machine politics is less than squeaky clean should be considered intellectually suspect anyway, but Barack Obama managed to fool a lot of people in 2008 with his expressions of Hope and Change. The media refused to vet Obama in the context of his Chicago politics and the backers that propelled him onto the national stage, but they’ll be interested in this scandal, especially because they tie into electoral issues.
Worse, this plays into the growing sense that this administration is incompetent. Even for those who saw Obama as a Chicago Machine pol instead of an agent of change and reform, no one expected him to be so bad at Chicago-style politics.

White House Faces Fresh Questions Over Back-Room Dealmaking
Published June 03, 2010| FOXNews.com

WASHINGTON - The White House faced fresh questions over back-room dealmaking after it acknowledged one of President Obama's top advisers had suggested to a Democratic candidate the potential for an administration job in lieu of challenging the candidate whom the president favored in the Colorado Senate race.

Former Colorado House of Representatives Speaker Andrew Romanoff on Wednesday night released a copy of an e-mail in which White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina described three federal international development jobs that might be available to him if he were not challenging Sen. Michael Bennet for the Democratic nomination.

Click here to read the e-mail from Messina to Romanoff. http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/...noff_Email.pdf

"He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions," Romanoff said in a statement. "At no time was I promised a job, nor did I request Mr. Messina's assistance in obtaining one."

Earlier in the day, a White House official said no formal offer was ever made and insisted there was nothing inappropriate in the contacts -- rhetoric similar to the explanation given last week when the White House admitted it orchestrated a job offer to Senate candidate Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania primary.

Intervention in Colorado Race Could Cast Pall Over Obama Transparency Message

"Mr. Romanoff was recommended to the White House from Democrats in Colorado for a position in the administration," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said. "There were some initial conversations with him but no job was ever offered."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs added that Romanoff had applied for a position at USAID during the president's transition and Messina was following up on that application when he called the lawmaker.

Last September, Romanoff told the Denver Post he declined the offer. The White House denied to the paper that it had made any deal. The day after Romanoff entered the race, Obama endorsed Bennet. Two weeks ago, Romanoff won the Democratic Party endorsement against Bennet, which offers a big boost heading into the Aug. 10 primary.

Still, the newest revelation calls into question repeated promises by Obama to run an open government that was above private political horse-trading. In appealing to voters this election year, Republicans charge that Obama's promise to change the ways of Washington has given way to the craven politics he campaigned against.

An embarrassed White House said last Friday that it asked former President Bill Clinton last year to approach Sestak about backing out of the Senate primary against party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter in favor of an unpaid position on a federal advisory board.

Sestak declined the offer and defeated Specter late last month for the Democratic nomination after disclosing the job discussions and highlighting it as evidence of his anti-establishment political credentials. He said last week he rejected Clinton's feeler in less than a minute.

In a two-page report on the Sestak case, the White House counsel said the administration did nothing illegal or unethical.

Unlike Sestak, Romanoff had ducked questions on the subject before issuing his statement Wednesday night. Also unlike Sestak, Romanoff was out of office and looking for his next act after being forced from his job because of term limits.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...o-sources-say/

The Telegraph reported yesterday that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would quit in six to eight months due to growing rifts with Obama’s inner circle. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ite-House.html

According to Fox News, the White House has denied that story: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...est=latestnews

The White House Monday dismissed reports that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel plans to leave his post after becoming frustrated with the Obama administration as “ludicrous.”

Citing Washington insiders, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph said Emanuel was fed up with the “idealism” of President Barack Obama’s closest advisers and was concerned about burning out and losing touch with his three children due to the pressure of the job.

In response to the report, a senior White House official told Fox News the “ludicrous” story was “not worth looking into.”

I don’t doubt that having to do things like highlighting the BP CEO’s lack of public relations talent for going yachting during the oil crisis http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...out-of-pr.html while your own boss is on the golf course http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...-humid-weekend would add a bit of frustration and stress to the job, but Rahm doesn’t seem to have much trouble unwinding. http://gawker.com/5556730/rahm-emanu...ight-yesterday