Graham likes Obama’s 1st pick

Thought y’all might find this interesting:

Graham Statement on Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of
Staff

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham
(R-South Carolina) today made this statement on the news Illinois Congressman
Rahm Emanuel has accepted the job as White House Chief of Staff.  Graham spoke
by phone with Emanuel earlier today.

Graham said:

“This is a wise choice by President-elect Obama. 

“Rahm knows Capitol Hill and has great political
skills.  He can be a tough partisan but also understands the need to work
together.  He is well-suited for the position of White House Chief of Staff. 

“I worked closely with him during the presidential
debate negotiations which were completed in record time.  When we hit a rough
spot, he always looked for a path forward.  I consider Rahm to be a friend and
colleague.  He’s tough but fair.  Honest, direct, and candid.  These qualities
will serve President-elect Obama well. 

“Rahm understands the challenges facing our nation
and will, consistent with the agenda set by President-elect Obama, work to find
common ground where it exists.  I look forward to working with him in his new
position and will continue to do everything I can to help find a pathway forward
on the difficult problems facing our nation.”

            #####

After reading of Mr. Emanuel being a hard-ball operative from Clinton days, and how he was expected to play "bad cop" to Obama’s "good cop," I was prepared not to like him. I mean, didn’t we choose Obama over Hillary Clinton to get away from that stuff? But if Lindsey likes him, I need to reconsider.

By the way, I’d have included a picture of Graham from our recent interview with him, but MY LAPTOP GOT STOLEN, so all those pictures are gone!

Just in case you didn’t know.

29 thoughts on “Graham likes Obama’s 1st pick

  1. Doug Ross

    Uh, yeah… I’m sure that’s what all good Republicans were waiting for Lindsey to say. A nice juicy smooch on Rahm’s backside… if he had any integrity, we would have seen that statement before the election.
    Gotta start greasing the skids for next shot at the amnesty bill. McCain’s got no reason to hold back on granting illegals a free pass now.

  2. Randy E

    If anyone is a member of the Un-Party, it’s Doug!
    It will be fascinating to see McMaverick and President Obama (pm, don’t you love the sound of that) interacting.

  3. david

    Is there any frickin thing Lindsey Graham doesn’t have an opinion about?
    With doddering old loser McCain now reduced to nothing more than an inconsequential footnote in American history, maybe he’ll just go back to the senate, sit down and shut up and take Graham with him. Maybe, but probably not. It is typical of stuffed shirt jackasses like these two that they cannot resist giving us their dipsh*t opinions on everything that happens.
    When Graham starts telling us how he’ll develop a plan and work to build consensus in the senate to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent, maybe I’ll listen. Until then Senator Graham, just shut up.
    David

  4. Ozzie

    A presidents’ chief of staff can’t be some mousy dishrag, can he? Wasn’t Sherman Adams thoroughly disliked by everybody, but Ike stuck with him a long time, anyway? I remember Ike writing about the man’s “craggy exterior.” Chiefs of staff aren’t there to be liked.
    And isn’t Emanuel Jewish? So much for the silly myths of Obama being a hidden Muslim terrorist about to take over our government.

  5. Lee Muller

    Where’s the CHANGE?
    So far, all appointees are hard-core, uncompromising, partisan Democrats, all of them Clinton retreads.
    * Podesta
    * Emmanuel
    * Gibbs

  6. p.m.

    Not one one-thousandth as much as you do, Randy. I liked it back when our country had a future.
    You don’t think we would have let Obama have the presidency unless we knew the train wreck was coming, do you?

  7. wtf

    Poor Lee.
    Someone’s delusional world is crashing down around their feet. Conservatism ala Rush is officially dead politically and has rejected by a wide mandate.
    Besides, it’s only been 24 hours since McCain’s thrashing. The proof that the change is coming is that only 3 out of the 17 positions have been filled unlike Dubya.
    Under Bush, the entire cabinet was full of Bush/Reagan retreads and the whole team was announced BEFORE Bush was officially declared the winner. How quickly the little the ditto-heads remember.
    Once again, Lee is going to eat his words, which, by now must taste like you-know-what.
    Lee, keep dreaming of 2012, but you can join the real world at anytime.

  8. faust

    Nice try wtf, but the delusions are all yours. You are indulging in wishful thinking. Conservatism was NOT beaten Tuesday. It wasn’t on the ballot. What was beaten on Tuesday was McCains “maverick” , collude-with-liberals, watered down “centrism” which has nothing whatsoever to do with conservatism.
    We need about four years to carry out our dead-meaning all of the moderates, centrists and liberals- from within our party.
    Conservatism wins every time it is tried.
    Dave

  9. Barchibald T Barlow

    Conservatism was on the ballot, you just chose to ignore it. The same way the entire Republican party ignores it.

  10. Lee Muller

    Moderate, compromising Republicanism lost on Tuesday:
    McCain
    Elizabeth Dole
    Chris Shays and the rest of New England Representatives
    The extra revenue from the Bush tax cuts stimulation of the economic recovery was enough to balance the budget and pay for the war on terrorism. If the GOP had refused all that excess social welfare spending which created the deficits, the GOP would own the White House and all of Congress today.
    The $1.3 TRILLION deficit in the last 18 months of spending control by Pelosi and Reid is just a glimpse of the rampamt economic debacle promised under Obama.
    We can only hope that they will listen to the economic advisors they select, and wake up for their socialist fantasies.

  11. bud

    The big loser Tuesday, aside for John McCain, was right-wing talk radio. And to a lessor extent the Faux News channel. Despite all their efforts their guys, Romney and Huckabee, faired poorly in the primaries. And their fallback guy, McCain, went down in a stunning repudiation of Republican rule.
    On second thought, Rush, Sean, Coulterguist and others have a target to smear everyday with their dicredited neo-con spin. McCain just would not do for the red-meat conservative idiots. But Obama is ready made for their vitriol.

  12. Lee Muller

    You don’t know what a Neoconservative is.
    You can’t name any criticisms of Obama which have “been discredited”.
    Obama is still mouthing Marxist slogans.
    Pelosi still wants to take away your (oops, OUR) 401-k money.
    The other Democrats still want to raise taxes, spend excessively, and run huge deficits.
    The stock market is still headed down as long as these idiots persist in their ideological agenda.

  13. Ozzie

    Emanuel (from Chicago) seems to be known as a hard-nosed democratic partisan when it comes to “politics” (known to cuss a lot), but centrist democratic on the issues. Apparently, Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican, is good friends with him and they have cooperated in a number of ways since Emanuel was elected to Congress in 2003.
    Obama will probably continue to lead on Illinois folks whom he knows, but that is understandable, and I think that Lindsey Graham is correct in his analysis

  14. Lee Muller

    Rahm Emmanuel is described by most Democrats and reporters as a fierce partisan, obsessed with power, who only compromises to buy his way out of a corner and stab you in the back.

  15. Alicia

    Lee do your read, research or just sit home making stuff up to put on this blog? The down turn of the stock market and the mess we are in is mostly Bush and his administration. BTW Bush’s tax cuts stimulation did nothing for the economy and it certainly would have not been enough to get us out of a multi trillion dollar deficit.

  16. Barchibald T Barlow

    “The down turn of the stock market and the mess we are in is mostly Bush and his administration.”
    I don’t think it’s fair to lay all of our current woes at the feet of the President. Not to say he is without blame, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I think you could fairly blame Bush, Clinton, Congress, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, banks and homeowners and probably others for the housing crisis that caused this downturn.

  17. Lee Muller

    I just downloaded a fresh set of data from the Treasury Dept web site of how much new revenue was generated after his small tax cut for everyone, along with the economic growth, spending increases and deficits.
    Today, the jobless rate hit the highest point since 1996, under Clinton.

  18. p.m.

    Buhd, if I can find you a link to a dictionary of homonyms, will you use it?
    “The lesser lessor with fair hair fared well,” for example.

  19. Michelle

    Let’s see Lee, Clinton turned over the White house to Bush with a budget surplus. How long did it take Bush to squander that and rack up an unprecedented budget deficit and the scorn of the rest of the world? Yep, that’s conservatisim in action there for you. I really believe your anger is misdirected Lee. I think you need to go ahead and assign at least part of the blame for the wrongs of this world on where it rightly belongs: with your own party. See, that’s how the Democrats really won on Tuesday, it wasn’t within the “30 urban cities” you claimed at all. Go check out the NY Times map where you see how almost every single county in the United States voted “bluer” than they did in 2004 except for those deep South states. Now seeing how there’s not a large “urban” population in some of these states, say in. . . Nebraska, North Dakota, etc. where did these blue votes come from? Oh right, ACORN, blah blah blah blah. Rinse, repeat, etc. etc. etc. Funny thing though-haven’t heard a word about voter fraud since the election. The only fraud I’ve heard discussed is the possibly up to $200K and counting Palin racked up on other people’s credit cards and the now missing clothes she absconded with back to Alaska. Honestly, if that’s the “future” of your party, I think y’all need to go back to the drawing board for the next 8 years, consider it your 40 in the desert okay? Better yet, go ahead and bet your money on that particular horse, you’ll be looking at an even more spectacular loss in 2012.

  20. p.m.

    No, of course you haven’t heard anything about voter fraud, Michelle. Obama bought the media. You think they would bite the hand that’s feeding them?
    The voters the Democrats bought with European lies more than a generation out of date won’t get what they want — something for nothing. One stimulus check in the mail won’t satisfy them for four years, and before he can even try for a second term, Obama will be crying “Et tu, Brute?” to Pelosi, Reid, Clinton and Rahm Emanuel.

  21. Lee Muller

    Clinton never had a budget surplus.
    He never proposed one, never signed a balanced budget.
    I will post all the actual deficits from the US Treasury later, with links to the data.
    Unemployment was higher in 1996 under Clinton than in 2008 under Bush (really Pelosi and Reid).

  22. WWB

    Mr. or Ms. Muller,
    Why is it that when we have a Democratic President and a Republican Congress the President gets all the blame and no credit, and when we have a Republican President and a Democratic Congress ( for the past 20 months) the Congress gets all the blame and the President gets a walk? Could it be that your perspective is colored by a political bias? As a native born South Carolinian, a descendant of Confederate veterans, I was proud to cast my vote for Senator Obama. I look forward to his leadership and suggest that this silly flap about remarks made about Nancy Reagan will be redeemed as he reviews previous decisions made about scientific inquiry and medical research, something Ms. Reagan supported.

  23. Lee Muller

    If you can’t be more specific about which issues you think which President or which Congressional leaders is being wrongly blamed, we sure as hell can’t answer you.

  24. WWB

    Try the last sentence of your previous post. In fact just read your previous post and BTW, who is we.

  25. Lee Muller

    You’re not the first cyber punk to make accusations so vague that no one can refute them.
    It’s a safe move for those of you who don’t know enough to discuss any issues, and just vote based on your emotions, after Madison Avenue has sold you a politician like a box of soap.

  26. Lee Muller

    Rahm Emmanuel is already talking about MANDATORY community service for the young and old.
    Apparently, there aren’t enough of the Obama followers willing to volunteer to “make sacrifices”.
    Besides, under socialism, everyone is supposed to be FORCED to work on stupid, useless projects dreamed up by the “rulers” (another word used by Obama staffers to describe Mr. Obama)
    Video clip
    http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/12/audio-the-obligatory-rahm-emanuel-talks-about-compulsory-civil-defense-service-clip/

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