Rahm Emanuel’s Political Pirouettes

God help me, but I had to laugh when I heard the news that Barack Obama had named Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff. What else could I do? Without even so much as a symbolic gesture in support of reform, the great agent of “change” immediately selected as his chief political enforcer a figure who epitomizes the Washington consensus of the past two decades — pro-“free trade,” pro-Iraq invasion/occupation and, perhaps most importantly, pro-pork barrel.