Chesapeake Citizens

Out, Damn Rahm!

In Shakespeare’s play MacBeth, Lady MacBeth goes mad after becoming an accomplice to her husband’s murder of a trusting and faithful ally. Lady Macbeth’s famous phrase “Out, Damn Spot!” is a reference to the incriminating blood stain on her hand which she cannot remove.

By Diane Wittner
July 8, 2009

Posted at
www.prosperityagenda.us
www.afterdowningstreet.org

Posted (for two hours on July 10th then mysteriously removed;-) at
www.huffingtonpost.com

As I see it, there is one distinct advantage to all this discussion about prominent governors leaving office before their terms expire.

These surreal developments (OMG, Palin’s gone! LOL, Sanford’s in an embarrassing place!) remind us that public servants ought to serve We The People. If they cannot work effectively for us, they ought to leave office.

It isn’t just governors who need to serve their constituents. Citizens also need people’s legislation from Congress and from the White House - not the standard, predictable, corporate-sponsored crap. In July 2009, big business influence isn’t an excuse anymore, nor are corporate dollars necessarily required for Democratic Congress members to play their assigned roles well. (Welcome to the Senate, Al!)

Obama’s Paulson-like Wall Street bailout, Obama’s abhorrent war supplemental, new [S]hell-sponsored climate change legislation, and the ugly, muddy tenor of the Senate health care meetings ... these just won’t do.

We taxpayers can’t afford to pay the salaries of any politician who prevents, impedes, interferes with, gets in the way of, passing progressive laws.

This common sense standard ought to apply to all federal government officials, including White House workers.

And so, is President Obama quite certain that we should continue employing Clinton-era Democrats, many of whom helped in paving the way to the mess we’re now in? As their employers, we may disagree.

Consider the case of Rahm Emanuel. Really, now, what was the President thinking when he asked Rahm to take the job of White House Chief of Staff?

Was the President actually impressed with Emanuel’s unpleasant skills in getting a handful of republican-lite Democrats elected to the House in 2006 - and with Rahm’s strong-arming House Democrats time and again to vote with Republicans to throw more money at an illegal and unpopular war?

Is President Obama truly proud that he recently relied on Rahm (and Nancy!) to whip Democrats in the House to pass his own administration’s first deadly war supplemental, though Americans have neither appetite nor money for more war?

Then there’s this week’s misstep from this man. Can it be that our President is really not protesting too much in his response to Rahm’s declaration that the White House insists on health care legislation passage this summer, even if it means abandoning the only meaningful proposal for change, i.e. a public plan?

If Obama thinks all of this makes sense for our country, then our President has misunderstood his historic election and the mood of the people.

Fortunately, Obama can choose a different path.

A good starting point would be to replace Rahm Emanuel with a Chief of Staff dedicated to working with progressive members of Congress such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus to take advantage of this obvious opportunity to enact long-overdue patriotic legislation.

Because unlike the still-malleable President Obama, there is not little hope that Rahm will change.

Back in January of 2007, the House had a sizable Democratic majority primarily because of the anti war sentiment in the 2006 mid-term election. Yet Rahm whipped up Democratic votes to team with Republicans to ensure the passage of an abhorrent war supplemental bill. At the time, a group of us joined a 500,000-strong anti war demonstration and a follow up lobbying day in Congress to deliver Backbone Campaign Spineless Citations to Rahm and two other war-mongering powerful Democrats, Steny Hoyer and Joe Lieberman.

Two and half years later, Rahm has obviously not understood that Americans send a message about their worries and their wishes to the politicians in D.C. when they vote (why is this so hard to get?).

Our collective voices for change are finally becoming as loud as the hand-off of billions of influence-peddling dollars.

Rahm Emanuel is preventing what voters demanded in both the mid-term election, and in the last Presidential election: a new direction in government. It is time for him to go.

President Obama can avoid the fate of Lady MacBeth. Out, damn Rahm!