OBAMA'S CHENEY-WANNABE LEAKS HIS BOOK PROPOSAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST?

I'm reading the latest bit of self-promotion dictated by Rahm Emanuel to a Washington Post reporter -- this time the byline is Jason Horowitz -- and I think what we might be seeing is Emanuel's book proposal. I'm not sure he's going to be fired; I think he thinks that's possible, but I think he's preparing for the possibility, even as he tries to make the case for the president to give him even more power even as he betrays the president's secrets. Emanuel's goal, obviously, is to make the case that none of the bad things would have happened in the Obama presidency if everyone had just listened to him -- I'm just not sure who the intended audience for this message is. The president? Future employers on Wall Street, or in the media? Or for now is he just thinking he'll be canned and cope with termination by writing a book, like Staphanopoulos's All Too Human or David Stockman's Triumph of Politics -- or be the voice behind a leaker's book like Ron Suskind's Paul O'Neill book, The Price of Loyalty? In any case, I think he's doing this because he doesn't expect the listing Obama presidency to right itself, and he's hopeful that he'll escape blame when and if it's irreversibly under water.

In this way, I think Emanuel's doing what Dick Cheney's been doing recently. Emanuel is also Dick-like because he clearly doesn't think it's appropriate that his boss -- you know, the president of the United States? -- should be able to overrule him on anything. We know that from the previous bit of self-promotion Emanuel dictated to a Washington Post writer -- the Dana Milbank column from a couple of weeks ago:

... The president would have been better off heeding Emanuel's counsel. For example, Emanuel bitterly opposed former White House counsel Greg Craig's effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year.... Likewise, Emanuel fought fiercely against Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to send Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York for a trial. Emanuel lost, and the result was another political fiasco....

Obama's greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel on health care. Early on, Emanuel argued for a smaller bill....

Parts of the new Horowitz article are clones of Milbank's piece:

... Emanuel grew wary that closing the U.S. military prison in Cuba was possible without opening a slew of other politically sensitive national security problems....

Emanuel made his case to Obama, articulating the political dangers of a civilian trial [for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] to congressional Democrats....

... before Obama and his advisers settled on a policy of expansive scope, Emanuel back in August suggested a smaller bill that would be easier to pass...

The Horowitz article addresses Emanuel's loyalty to the president, but there's a doth-protest-too-much quality about the way that message is presented -- or maybe I'm just reacting to the fact that the message is buried in a passage that's almost absurd in its level of Emanuel puffery:

Emanuel's allies say there is no such thing as Rahm at rest. According to almost everyone who has ever worked with him, he has an insatiable need to be in the mix, and he is deeply concerned with the news of the day. His office is the White House nerve center. "In order to get a final decision, everything needs to go through Rahm's office," said a former administration official who thinks Emanuel should delegate more.

Every morning, Emanuel leads a 7:30 meeting with about 10 senior administration aides, pushing through the president's priorities, all listed on index cards embossed with the title "Chief of Staff." ...

His weighing in on a mind-boggling swath of governmental and political activity adds to his outsize image as chief of staff of everything. As a result, he can be blamed for almost everything, especially as health-care legislation became stuck, the president's approval ratings dipped and widespread angst about the economy fueled a GOP resurgence...

Emanuel's aversion to distractions from the president's agenda has caused conflict, and disappointment, on the Hill....

Suffering ... opprobrium -- what Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Emanuel's friend of three decades, described as "taking flak" for the president -- hasn't visibly bothered the chief of staff....

Yes -- such a loyal egomaniac, that Rahm. (Love those embossed index cards.)

If Emanuel is fired, I fear he's going to be the belle of the Beltway ball, a guy who'll say he could see right away that this presidency was going to fail. I think he really is going to emerge strengthened from all this, just because hating Democratic officeholders is one of the Beltway's favorite sports.