Emanuel: We may now know why he took the demotion after the election

Remember Emanuel just after the election? Remember how Emanuel had offered to take a less powerful position in the new Congress for reasons really unknown? Now we may know why:

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Did Rahm Emanuel lie about his knowledge of Mark Foley? Yes.

Stephanopoulos explicitly asked Emanuel: "I just want to ask you plainly -- did you or your staff know anything about these emails or instant messages before they came out?"

Emanuel interrupted the question with an emphatic "no." Then, once Stephanopoulos was done with the question, this is what Emanuel replied: "George, never saw 'em . . . . "

After that answer, Putnam interjected this question: "Were you aware of them?" Emanuel replied: "Never saw them." A moment later, Stephanopoulos said to Emanuel: "So you were not aware of them, had no involvement?" Emanuel replied: "No. Never saw them. No involvement. . . ." Putnam again asked: "Was there an awareness?" Emanuel replied: "No. Never saw them. The first time I ever saw these things, right here was when Brian Ross broke the story."

When summarizing the reasons why he believed that the GOP House Leadership was guilty of poor judgment and a cover-up in the Foley scandal, this is what Emanuel said:

"As far back as 2002, 2003, there were warning signs . . . . What happened since that time? . . . . In 2005, he's appointed to head the Missing and Abused Children Caucus for the Congress. When he wants to retire, they ask him to run for re-election in 2006, even knowing -- clearly -- that there is something amiss and wrong here. The whole point here -- let's just take one analogy -- if a high school teacher was found doing this with a child, and the principal knew . . . the community and parents would have that principal and teacher out."

On Friday, the House Ethics Committee released its Report (.pdf) on this matter, and it was extremely critical of the Republican Leadership -- including just-elected GOP Minority Leader John Boehner -- for their "negligence" in failing to take steps to investigate Foley's conduct despite having ample signs that something was amiss (in particular, the e-mails Foley sent to pages).

Yes... It appears that Emanuel may have lied. BUT Remember this:

Rep. Emanuel, as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was architect of the 2006 victory. He coveted the third-ranking post of majority whip, but that put Emanuel on a collision course with the Congressional Black Caucus's candidate, Rep. James Clyburn. A ruinous competition was averted when Pelosi brokered a deal whereby Emanuel agreed to replace Clyburn as House Democratic Caucus chairman.

Why did he back off? Do you wonder if maybe, just maybe, Emanuel knew this day of reckoning was coming? He wanted to distance himself from the DCCC. Take the demotion and get the fuck out of there. Regardless, this sort of political hackery cannot be tollerated from the Democratic party anymore than from the Republicans.

I take solace in the fact that he is just another one of those the MSM tout as being supposedly moderate and bipartisan. That is how he raises all of that money from lobbyists. Now we know the definition of "moderate" and "bipartisan"... IMMORAL and INCOMPETENT.

Remember that Rahm Emanuel is one of those mythical moderate bipartisans, and that he is part of the money party that Sirota was talking about.

MONEY PARTY LEADERS
Sen. Chuck Schumer and Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD): All three of these men, now in leadership positions, have made very little effort to conceal that they answer to Big Money interests. Schumer, for instance, recently trumpeted a new report calling for post-Enron corporate reforms to be gutted. Emanuel was the architect of NAFTA who used the prospect of his being in the majority on the Ways and Means Committee to suck corporate cash out of Wall Street. Hoyer bragged on his website about starting his own K Street Project, and, as I documented in Hostile Takeover, one of his top legislative staffers serves simultaneously as an official for his corporate fundraising operation - 'nuff said.

Keep that in mind as you decide wether or not this guy should be punished, I mean seriously punished, for his inactions if these allegations are true. He represents the elite, the rich, the lobbyist fueled greedy politics that are against the workers, the little guys, the poor.

If the allegations are true and Emanuel goes down, as any politician that knew about Foley and did nothing should, I will not shed one tear. If the allegations are true than Emanuel should have acted, and I will be cheerleading as he is chased out the door.