Thursday, February 04, 2010

Obama Mentor Edley Slams Rahm Emanuel


Gil Ronen
A7 News

One of US President Barack Obama's most respected mentors, his former professor at Harvard Law School, Chris Edley, has issued scathing criticism of the Obama administration, and especially of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “What I fear is that having made history, having won a Nobel prize, having been celebrated around the world, a measure of complacency may have set in,” Professor Edley told The London-based Times Online. “I don’t mean that the effort is not there, but that the discipline of self-criticism has perhaps faded,” he explained.

“I wouldn’t give [Oba as high a grade as President as I gave him when he was my student. I know he can do better,” added Professor Edley, who worked in previous Democratic Administrations and is now Dean of the Law School at the University of California, Berkeley.

He was especially harsh regarding Emanuel: “You’re not going to reinvent Barack into somebody who delights in pummeling a policy opponent, so his staff need to do that for him. And as far as one can tell from the outside, that is precisely what Rahm Emanuel has failed to do,” he said.

As for the possibility that the Democrats would suffer losses in the mid-term elections, Professor Edley added: “It’s almost as if Rahm Emanuel cares more about the re-election prospects of his friends on [Capito Hill than he does about scoring policy victories that reflect Obama’s values.”

Zell: it's Obama's fault

Attorney Mark Zell, Chairman of the Republican Party in Israel, told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service Wednesday that Emanuel is “the strongest Chief of White House Staff in history” and that many see him as responsible for Obama's failures.

However, he said, the real failure is Obama's. “Obama is a man whose character is removed from the people. He tried to connect during the elections but as soon as he entered the White House his character came into play.”

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