Do you really think that Rahm Emanuel whose children go to a Jews only schools would ever end up doing community service along side inner city blacks? No.

I think you are right, SD. If it is compulsory, that is probably how it will eventually develop.

Britain had a National Service until the early 1960s. Universally hated and despised, if you talk to folks of that generation. Of course, those with money had places open for them at Oxbridge, and easily won deferments.

Interesting, though, that Emanuel should favor this. Perhaps he picked up some old school Kibbutz Socialism at some point? Even in Israel today, however, this service is very unpopular.

the left has always been more excited about mandatory volunteer service than the left. My guess is that it would be ruled unconstittuional and you recreate the two Americas where the rich kids get to go community service being interns for Congress and the poor kids are picking up trash.

From Emanuel's book:

“We need a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing for the first time an ethic of universal citizen service. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service.”

Man, the GOP will LOVE Emanuel if he encourages Obama to push for something like this. If he pulls it off, Obama could easily run on the GOP ticket by acclamation!

Hmmmm…maybe Karl Rove is really Rahm Emanuel in a fat suit? Has anyone ever seen the two in the same room at the same time?

Emanuel is one of the most partisan figures in Washington. I've no problem with that. Honest Machiavellianism is to be admired.

He will be Obama's Karl Rove. Like Rove he is absolutely ruthless, and cares about power more than ideology.

BUT . . . the gleeful defense of Emanuel and his ruthlessness is revealing that liberals did not REALLY object to Rove's methods or his ruthless pursuit of power . . . only to the fact of his success in 2000 and 2004.

Long live the new Karl Rove.
May he bring to Obama the same success Rove brought to George Bush.

Another spin is that this is just more of Chicago “mafia” settling into the White House.

From what I've read of Emanuel he might be partisan in that he wants to get the Democratic line accomplished, but he might be even more centrist than Obama (in fact most of the summaries of his time in Clinton's term was about how he got the more liberal Democrats on board).

That's why it's interesting to see this statement contrasted with the (presumed) Minority Leader's statement. My guess is that there is a good chance of the Republicans fracturing to be more like the Democrats where there is 2/3 that carry the same banner and 1/3 that are more concillatory towards Obama…and there will be a power struggle between the two.

If what you say is true Joe, it looks like Emanuel is disliked on both sides of the isle, isn't that a form of bipartisan cred?