Many of us were upset with Lanny Davis when he eventually supported candidate Obama... but honestly, he was literally the last dog.. and was very reluctant moving to the O camp.

These days, I read what he writes and move on...  but this article made me get some more insight into Lanny (a side of him that I always sublimally knew existed but was never confirmed), Rahm and even the POTUS (without many words in the article).

Read @ TheHill.com

My take on Rahm

By Lanny Davis - 10/06/10 06:22 PM ET

No, he’s not a shrinking violet, my friend Rahm Emanuel.

I say friend — now. Way back when I started work at the Clinton White House in December 1996, it would not have been the first word I thought of when I thought of Rahm.

Let’s just say, to put it mildly, there were many times, weeks, even months, when we disagreed strongly on political and tactical judgments.

Strong as an adjective in front of the name Rahm Emanuel is a redundancy. Let us say Rahm has strong opinions and expresses himself with strong words when he disagrees. Indeed, the expletives I have heard Rahm invoke to express that disagreement — usually after the word “you” and strung together, one after the other, as adjectives in front of the word “idiot” — were diverse, colorful, creative and never duplicative. Sometimes they were even alliterative. It would often leave the listener — even if you were the “you” in the sentence — in awe, speechless.

So what I am about to write doesn’t come from a person who has always gotten along well with Rahm.

That said, here’s my take on Rahm Emanuel, who resigned last week as President Obama’s chief of staff and now heads for Chicago, allegedly to run for mayor. Three things:

First, he is a mensch.

What is a “mensch”? (Even Jews have a hard time translating that much-used Yiddish word.) Let me define it by giving you an example from one of my memories of Rahm.

As noted, we had a history at the Clinton White House of not exactly exchanging a lot of love. But we fought together in the trenches — and came to at least feel the common alliance those in the trenches feel as missiles arrive virtually every day. Then, on the final day of my service at the White House (Jan. 30, 1998), Rahm showed up — to my surprise — at my going-away reception, hosted by President and Mrs. Clinton in the historic Diplomatic Reception Room on the ground floor of the residence.

After a few nice comments about me by colleagues, Rahm, without warning, stepped up to speak. I am paraphrasing (using some poetic license from my distant memory):

“I was wrong — Lanny stepped up to the line. I am here to say he’s not as bad as I said he was.”

What a compliment!

What a mensch!

Continues @ TheHill.com

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I still had to look up the word mensch.  Anyway.. that put a bit more positive light on this guy.  The other time I felt good about him was when he did a charitable fundraising event (for a children's health care cause) for Axelrod where he let everyone roast him; he was very good to take hits from all sides, most laughing about his half a middle finger salute.

All the more reason why I feel the POTUS really did not communicate all he has done, the whys and what for's very well at all... and did a very poor job of involving and bringing the GOPers to his side.  I honestly feel they could have passed a HCR bill with some kind of public option, a minimum safety net... and that was about the only time they had that chance with 60 votes in the Senate. They, and Sen.Harry Reid and Sen.Max Baucus, really goofed in not including a public option; Speaker Nancy Pelosi majorly goofed by trying to push too much in combination with the public option - in particular, the House bill's punitive measures were excessive for the Senate to consider accepting the bill.  So, it looks like Rahm hatched the mastermind plan - pass something that can be modified later on. Pass a baseline bill.  [Now, dont forget Rahm was in the House and knows the legislative and cloture processes very well.]  Miss this opportunity, nothing will be done and if left to the Republicans people may get tax added on our health insurance benefits (that's what McCain had in the plan, it could still happen in the future as Republicans insisted on having a provision for 1099 reporting of health care benefit value which went into the Senate committee's bill that got passed).

I fault the POTUS for pushing the bill too far into the year, fault the Speaker for trying to be too ambitious in its mandate... with imposition of highly punitive and pushy clauses in the bill that made it go down like a ton of bricks in a barely 60-vote Senate. I fault Sen.Harry Reid and the POTUS for failing to recognize the criticality of the Senate bill - they failed to integrate the public option in the bill that had moderately punitive mandate.  But the biggest failure was of the POTUS.  With so many bills going the same cloture route that the HCR/PPACA did,  he was unable to communicate in layperson terms what was happening and as a result, the whole process felt very stinky.

The POTUS forgot the big principles that Lanny Davis talks about in his earlier 9/30/10 article. Tell it all, tell it early, tell it yourself.
It applies well to what the POTUS failed to do in the case of HCR.  Yes, Rahm was the fall guy in many ways and was loyal enough to take the hit.. but the POTUS lost a big leadership opportunity in not communicating more fully and himself; he ended up leaving the narrative to the GOPers.