Most aides hem and haw when they disagree with the president. But if Dick Morris is to be believed, Clinton has what Morris calls “a morbid appetite for criticism.” He likes it when people stand up to him. That’s one reason Clinton promoted Emanuel, 37, to replace George Stephanopoulos as senior adviser for policy and strategy. The other reason is that Emanuel has no hesitation about telling other people what to do–or else.
Like Stephanopoulos, Emanuel is both alert and aggressive, an early-warning system that sees everything and forgives nothing. A graduate of the Chicago school of politics, Emanuel once mailed a dead fish to the pollster he blamed for his losing a congressional race. The attached note read, “It was awful working with you. Love, Rahm.” What is less clear is whether Emanuel, an acid-tongued screamer, can replace the smooth Stephanopoulos as a persuader of Washington’s large and tender egos.
As an inside operator Emanuel is famous for browbeating the bureaucracy. Clinton has relied on him to deliver on many of the issues that got him re-elected: crime, immigration and welfare reform. Even though he acknowledges that he has a close relative who is on welfare, Emanuel supported the bill Clinton signed–one that will cut off benefits to millions. It was Emanuel who brought school uniforms to Clinton’s attention. First he sent Clinton a California newspaper clip on the subject. Then he coordinated with officials at the Educa- tion and Justice Departments to come up with a policy. When civil-liberties groups screamed, Emanuel screamed back. Meanwhile, he has sparred with Attorney General Janet Reno over tough immigration and crime proposals and with four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the drug czar Emanuel recruited and later scolded for not defending Clinton’s policies. “My job is to make sure the president’s decisions are carried out,” Emanuel told NEWSWEEK. “If I think someone’s not on the right page, I’m not going to be shy.”
That audacity hasn’t always served Emanuel well. He was demoted from his first White House job as political director after only six months when he offended the very Democratic pooh-bahs he was supposed to charm. For a while Emanuel seemed destined to return to the wards of Chicago, where he raised campaign cash for Mayor Richard M. Daley and worked as a political consultant. Admitting that he was “humbled,” Emanuel learned a little tact and redeemed himself by taking on dirty jobs that no one else wanted, like cobbling together Democratic support for the North American Free Trade Agreement over the opposition of Big Labor and taking on the NRA over the assault-weapons ban.
Emanuel’s rages are epic. As a Chicago operative, Emanuel would leap onto desktops (he is a trained ballet dancer) and scream obscenities at his staff to make them work harder. In Clinton’s Little Rock war room, Emanuel was nicknamed “Rahmbo” for his tabletop tirades. Informed on his first day with the Clinton campaign that the finance staff didn’t work Sundays, Emanuel said, “You do now.”
Is Rahm Emanuel too hot for his own good? “Most people sugarcoat their words, but Rahm salts them,” says White House adviser Bruce Reed. “Those of us who don’t hate him love him a lot.” Emanuel insists he has no pretensions of being George II (“We’re both short, loyal ethnic guys, but that’s about it”). Still, he did insist on getting Stephanopoulos’s old title and his coveted cubbyhole right off the Oval Office. In some ways Emanuel is a better fit for the second Clinton administration. Unlike Stephanopoulos, a diehard liberal, Emanuel is a nonideological pragmatist who cares more about results than dogma. And, Emanuel says cheerfully, “I don’t mind being the enforcer.”
