Driving Off a Clift

Eleanor Clift, the diva of Newsweek, wastes ink with a schmooze piece about Rahm Emmanuel:

Emmanuel is a centrist Democrat, a former professional ballet dancer and a man in a hurry—attributes that reflect his drive and discipline and that have sparked his rise in the House Democratic ranks in the few short years since his election in November 2002. A veteran of the 1992 Clinton campaign and a top aide in the Clinton White House, Emmanuel now holds forth from a less-visible pedestal as 41st in seniority among the 41 members on the House Ways and Means Committee, and he couldn’t be having a better time. An interview this week was interrupted twice by calls on his cell phone from Clinton-era colleagues James Carville and Paul Begala wanting his take on the Bush budget. Hit Bush hard on the exploding costs of the Medicare prescription-drug bill, he told them. Waiting to be ushered in next to see Emmanuel was John Podesta, Clinton’s former chief of staff and founder of the Center for American Progress, a new liberal think tank.

Emphasis mine. A centrist Democrat? Rahm Emmanuel? Maybe he's centrist when compared to Clift but this guy is a hard core Lib. They keep pushing this guy--along with Barack Obama--as the next great hope of the Donkeys yet he's just not a likeable guy. Watch Chris Matthews interview him, Matthews throws the most hittable of softballs and Emmanuel hits a little dribbler back to the pitcher. He has no charisma and even worse ideas but this is the state of the minority party today.