Rahm Emanuel

Emanuel and Lincoln

This is big, big news (if true):

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

Andrew Malcolm writes:

Many political observers are coming to see that the ex-state senator from the South Side is running his federal administration in Washington much the way they run things back home: with a small....

...claque of clout-laden people from the same school who learned their political trade back in the nation's No. 3 city, named for an Indian word for a smelly wild onion.

That style is tough, focused, immune to any distractions but cosmetic niceties. And did we mention tough. A portly, veteran Chicago alderman once confided only about 40% jokingly, that he had taken up jogging to lose weight but quickly gave it up as boring because "you can't knock anyone down." That's politics the Chicago way.

Obama and his top advisers Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, and David Axelrod all hail from the Chicago school. Press secretary Robert Gibbs is an Alabaman who worked for North Carolinian Democrats, but he's adapted to the Chicago method with ease. Together, this band of operatives has not deviated from the themes and goals of Obama's 2008 campaign. They do not admit errors of substance. Faced with a troublesome midterm election, Obama did not search out new figures and guides for his party. He reached back to his 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe.

How serious a document is the president's budget proposal? The establishment media do not seem to like it. The budget's long-term projections are enough to drive you to drink. No political faction is satisfied with the administration's proposals. Liberals do not like the freeze on their favorite part of the budget; conservatives do not like the budget's tax hikes and massive deficits. Even the White House has reason to be disappointed. According to its own budget, unemployment will be at 7.9 percent when Obama stands for reelection in 2012. Only a huge, unanticipated economic boom will produce enough tax revenues to delay the fiscal reckoning and improve Obama's political standing.

The New York Times reports: "With Mr.