To Orwell Today,

This is possibly just a silly observation, but Obama's pick for Chief of Staff is Rahm Emanuel and in "1984" there was an Emmanuel. Strange.

-Palehorse

Greetings Palehorse,

Now that you mention it, it IS kind of strange - and Orwellian - that there's an "Emanuel" as Chief of Staff to the President of the USA. In "1984" the leader of Big Brother was "Emmanuel Goldstein" and his rulers were members of the Brotherhood (as in Big Brother's little brothers). See EMANUEL GOLDSTEIN CONSPIRACY IN 1984.

This present-day Emmanuel Goldstein (Rahm Emanuel) is, according to what's been written about him, a puppet-maker - having been the force behind William Clinton (a nobody governor from Arkansas) becoming president back in 1993 and now he's the power-broker behind Barack Obama (a nobody senator from Illinois) becoming president in 2009.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

CAIRO — Two days after his historic election as America's first black president, Barack Obama picked up a pro-Israel Jew as his White House chief of staff. Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel was selected as Obama's chief of staff, becoming the first senior level official to join the nascent administration. "I announce this appointment first because the Chief of Staff is central to the ability of a President and Administration to accomplish an agenda," Obama said on Thursday, November 6. "And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel."

Emanuel was a political and policy aide in former President Bill Clinton's administration. Born in Chicago in 1959, Emanuel is the son of an Israeli immigrant, Benjamin Emanuel. His first name "Rahm" means "high" in Hebrew and his last name, "Emanuel" means "God is with us".

Emanuel's father is a pediatrician and a former member of the Irgun, a Zionist militia of former prime minister Menachem Begin, which carried out a series of terrorist attacks against Arabs in Palestine in the 1940s. On April 18, 1948, Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Begin's Irgun militant group, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Zionist militants and 70,000 Palestinians fled. On April 25, Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of Jaffa, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight. On May 14, the day before the creation of Israel, Jaffa completely surrendered to the much better-equipped Zionist militants and only about 4,500 of its population remained.

Dubbed as "Rahmbo" by US media, Emanuel, a father of three, is known for his tough and aggressive style in the political arena. He began his political career, initially specializing in fundraising campaigns in 1980s. He then became the director of the finance committee of then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton presidential primary campaign. When Clinton was elected president, Emanuel became a senior adviser to the Democratic president from 1993 to 1998.

After Clinton left office, Emanuel turned to investment banking before being elected to the House of Representatives. In 2002, Emanuel supported the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq to topple the Saddam Hussein regime. In 2006, he was appointed to serve as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Under his leadership, the Democrats gained 30 seats in the House of Representatives, allowing them to gain control of the House after 12 years of Republican control. In 2007, he was elected to serve as the Democratic Caucus Chair, the fourth highest ranking Member of the House Democratic Leadership. Emanuel is a strong supporter of American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and personally introduced Obama to the group's directors during the 2008 presidential campaign.

In 1991, Emanuel volunteered to serve in Israel's army during the first Gulf War. He has been a vocal critic of the Palestinian intifada against the Israeli occupation, criticizing Arab countries for not pressuring the Palestinians to stop "violence". At a 2003 pro-Israel rally in Chicago, Emanuel said Israel was ready for peace but would not get there until Palestinians "turn away from the path of terror". Emanuel's selection has prompted positive headlines in Israel, where some were concerned earlier in the election campaign about the likely direction of Obama's Middle East policy.

In his White House post, Emanuel is likely to emerge as a key player in implementing Obama's agenda, which includes foreign policy, health care, energy and tax reform and efforts to tackle climate change. Some US Observers have portrayed Emanuel as the "bad cop" to Obama's "good cop".

Barack Obama's first appointment - his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel - has a reputation as a colourful, aggressive and often profane partisan Democrat who likes to win and knows how.

• "I'm an equal opportunity prick to everybody" As Democratic congressional leader, on relations with his party, reported in The Argument, a book by New York Times reporter by Matt Bai

• In the summer of 2005, as reported in The Argument, Emanuel was nettled by suggestions that Democrats stick to a "positive" message. "I have my knee on their vertebrae," the one-time Israeli army volunteer said of the Republicans, "and I'm not going to let up until I hear the vertebrae snap."

• The night the Democrats retook the House of Representatives in 2006, according to Salon.com writer Edward McClelland, Emanuel stood on a table and addressed the exhausted staff with a message for the Republicans: "They can go fuck themselves!"

• After Bill Clinton's first election to the White House in 1992, talk at one meal turned to Republicans, journalists and disloyal Democrats upon whom they were now in a position to exact revenge. According to New York Times reporter Elizabeth Bumiller, Emanuel shouted the name of an enemy and stabbed a steak knife into the table. "Dead!" he screamed.

• As head of the party arm charged with recruiting and electing candidates, he was known to end fundraising calls with the oath: "Fuck you. I love you."

• Emanuel's position has raised concerns among those looking for an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In an interview with the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father was quoted as saying: "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House." The comments raised immediate protests.

The new "golden boy" of the Democrat Party, the Israeli-American congressman Rahm Emanuel, is the son of a terrorist. Really, I am not making this up, the chief power-broker of the Democrat Party, the 5-and-a-half foot foul-mouthed Israeli named Rahm, is the son of terrorist - a real living terrorist. So, what do we do as citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave fighting the War on Terror? Do we run and hide from the foul-mouthed little Israeli who danced ballet and swears for effect - or do we laugh? Or do we demand answers? How can we respect a U.S. Congressman who served in a foreign army and whose father was a terrorist? Rahm was an Israeli citizen until he was 18 years old, when for obvious reasons he hid his Israeli passport in his underwear drawer. In 1991, however, he pulled his Israeli passport out and went and reportedly joined the Israeli Army to defend Zion from Saddam's Scuds...

"I said before the election that if the Democrats win the House, the lion's share of the credit should go to Rahm," says Rep. Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican. "He legitimately can be called the golden boy of the Democratic Party today. He recruited the right candidates, found the money and funded them, and provided issues for them. Rahm did what no one else could do in seven cycles...."

Obama's mad science advisers Emanuel & Holdren, Washington Times, Aug 17, 2009
When it comes to having past views that should frighten every American citizen, Ezekiel Emanuel has nothing on the president's "chief science adviser," John P. Holdren. The combination of Mr. Holdren with Dr. Emanuel should make the public seriously concerned with this administration's moral compass concerning care for the old and weak. Earlier this month, Mr. Holdren served as co-chairman when the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology met for the first time. It's a disgrace that Mr. Holdren is even on the council. In "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," a book he co-authored in 1977 with noted doomsayers Paul R. and Anne H. Erlich, Mr. Holdren wrote: "Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." In case compulsory abortion wasn't enough to diffuse his imaginary population bomb, Mr. Holdren and the Erlichs considered other extremist measures. "A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men," they wrote. "The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control." It gets worse. The Holdren-Erlich book also promotes "Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods." After noting that, well, yes, there were "very difficult political, legal and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems," Mr. Holdren and his co-authors express hope that their idea may still be viable. "To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements," they wrote. "It must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock." Most Americans can be forgiven for thinking that mass sterilization through drinking water is never acceptable and that someone who supported such horrors should have no place on a prestigious White House council. The question naturally arises why President Obama chooses to surround himself with extremists like Mr. Holdren or Dr. Emanuel. No matter how much they claim their views have "evolved," health and science under Obamacare would be a frightening prospect with people like this advising the president.