Why I Loved Dealing With Rahm Emanuel

David Brooks: His reputation as a hothead is 'vastly overstated'
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2010 1:08 PM CDT
Why I Loved Dealing With Rahm Emanuel
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, right, has breakfast with Paul Bryson at Izola's Restaurant as he embarks on his campaign for mayor Monday in Chicago.   (AP)

Rahm Emanuel's larger-than-life caricature as a hot-headed politician prone to throwing temper tantrums and lobbing F-bombs is "vastly overstated," writes David Brooks. Emanuel is actually quite thick-skinned, and while he is a "professional strategist" for sure, "he is not one of these cold-eyed tacticians who is always hedging his bets," writes Brooks in the New York Times. "He speaks the language of loyalty and commitment, not the language of calculations and self-interest."

Conversations with him were always a "headlong rush," writes Brooks in what he describes an as "appreciation." But it was genuine passion for policy ideas, not the fake passion of a political hack. "I interview a lot of politicians," he sums up. "Rahm is unique. Flawed like all of us, he is a full human being, rich and fertile from the inside out." (More Rahm Emanuel stories.)

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