It is a little known fact that I am in love with Rahm Emanuel.   Initially, this seems alarming, as America’s chief of staff is almost exclusively known for being a combative, political attack dog, prone to unhinged outbursts and oppressive work habits.  In one interview, DCCC executive director Brian Wolff gave this advice to incoming White House staff working with Emanuel:

Develop a thick skin; cancel your vacations, weddings and personal appointments.  Learn what the term 25/8 means - 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.  He expects you to be available every single second and he calls you constantly. Don’t bother coming up with reasons why you can’t be available.  He goes nuts.

Admittedly, he sounds repellent.  But delve further and the best part of Rahm is revealed.  From an old but terrific profile in Rolling Stone:

When Rahm was a boy, his mother forced him to take ballet lessons, and he threw himself into it with the same intensity he would later bring to politics, winning a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet.

This week, as a subtle nod to his past, the Christian Science Monitor (oddly enough) praised Rahm as having “a political choreography [that] is not only prescient but perfectly followed.”

Be still my beating heart.  Rahmbo, the Democratic Golden Boy; Obama’s right hand man; the former political brains of Bill Clinton’s White House is also a professionally trained ballet dancer.  How is this not featured in every interview he does?  He should be meeting the press and facing the nation as “White House chief of staff AND classical ballet dancer,” Rahm Emanuel.  Credit is not being paid where due!  At the very least, standard mention would put his legendary intensity into context.  After all, isn’t “explosiveness” required for executing fouettés?

Veteran staffer Jose Cerda has joked that there should be a special trauma ward in Washington for people who have worked for Rahm.  But close friends have added that his toughness is merely an outgrowth of being a ballet dancer: With professional ballet on your resume, you had better be ready to fight if you hope to survive in politics. In any case, Senator Lindsey Graham offers a word of caution:

You can be on the other side of the room and in one graceful leap he’s on you like a cross between Baryshnikov and Bruce Lee. Expect a swift, classically executed kick in the crotch. You’ll be stunned, doubled over and dry heaving…but three minutes later you’re marveling at the speed and exquisite precision of his footwork.

In spite of the ballistics and because of the ballet, my one way love affair continues.

To my D.C. dancing friends: It is rumored that Rahm takes private lessons at one of Margaret Townsends’s studios.  If I were you, I’d start watching for the 6:00 AM car service, rolling up at the back door.  Take pictures, take notes then report back to me.

This entry was posted Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 6:01 am and is filed under Observed, Personal, The Pros. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.