Obama Blows His First Personnel Decision

For a guy who just last night proclaimed that he wants to unite the country and work with both sides of the aisle, Barack Obama ain't walkin' the walk. He's hired Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, a bitterly partisan Democrat who wants nothing to do with anyone who disagrees with him. Yuval Levin has some thoughts:

He is smart and tough. But he has been, in both positions [as Clinton staffer and House member], a vicious graceless partisan: narrow, hectic, unremittingly aggressive, vulgar, and impatient. Those who have worked for and with him come away impressed but not inspired, and generally not loyal.

The White House chief of staff is not a chief strategist or a chief advocate. He is a manager of people and of process. Above all else, he sets the tone internally, and shapes the president’s decision process and the feel of the upper tiers of the administration. Obama is especially in need of someone who will lead him to decisions, because he appears to be intensely averse to making difficult choices—which is the essence of what the president does. His inclination is to step back and conceptualize the choice out of existence, looking reasonable but doing nothing. To overcome this, he will need a chief of staff with a sense of the gravity of the choices the president faces, and one capable of moving the staff to decision, keeping big egos satisfied and calm, and resisting the pressure to be purely reactive to momentary distractions. None of this spells Rahm Emanuel.

So, to sum it up, the guy who has absolutely no history of bipartisanship as a U.S. Senator, has hired a chief of staff who has absolutely no history of bipartisanship either in the Clinton Administration or in the House. Does anyone seriously believe Obama will try and govern from the center and work with Republicans?