Given the reputation of Chicago, he is a perfect fit, and Council of Economic Advisers chair Austan Goolsbee gave him the perfect going away present - a dead fish. The story goes that Emanuel sent a dead fish to a pollster he did not much like, an allusion to "The Godfather" movie where a character's vest is delivered to the Corleone's because 'he now sleeps with the fishes.'
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “In Chicago, this is how friends say goodbye.”
Fellow staffers gave him a standing ovation - they're no dummies. He was a vicious thug before he was good friends with Obama and they sure don't want to mess with him now.
Like the departure of Donald Rumsfeld for George Bush, Emanuel's departure will be a good thing for an administration that would probably like to be a lot less polarizing than it has been. Obama said that during the last 20 months, "Rahm has exceeded all of my expectations" and that the White House could not have accomplished what it did without Rahm - which can't be seen as a compliment given the popularity polls and concerns about the mid-term election, but I guess it was.
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