I'm from Chicago

That night, on the northwest side, Rahm Emanuel was elected to Congress. A former Clinton whiz kid who'd gotten his start as a fundraiser for Mayor Richard M. Daley, Emanuel was connected -- in the three years after leaving the White House (where he'd helped push through NAFTA), he earned $16 million putting together Wall Street mergers. He was also zealously partisan. He had once owned a consulting business devoted to finding skeletons in Republican closets. At a Clinton victory dinner in Little Rock in 1992, Emanuel celebrated by reciting a hoped-for necrology of Democrats who had "fucked" the president-elect. After every name, he stabbed a steak knife into a table and screamed, "Dead man!"

This quote was from a story on the savior of the Democrats in the last election, the Legend of Rahm.

Rahm Emanuel, larger than life.

Saw Rahm interviewed tonight as a representative of the Democrat leadership in Congress. He had a smirk on his face as he talked about denying funding to the troops, just doling it out a month or two at a time.

We've all heard the appeal. Let me repeat it. Don't tie our troops hands. From the leaders of the VFW and the American Legion:

Not funding direct combat operations is the same as having your hands tied in a knife fight. And while some may regard the rhetoric as normal political-speak, our troops are taking it personally, because they know that not being allowed to take the fight directly to the enemy is exactly what happened in Korea and Vietnam. They don't want to repeat history.[snip]

There are finally signs of hope and progress in Iraq, and it's all because of new leadership with a new plan of action. But it's a plan that is totally dependent on a funding package for the proper training, equipping and fielding of our forces. With it, the surge has a chance of succeeding; without it, the surge is doomed to failure, and it will be the common soldier and his or her family who will pay the price.

But Rahm has a smile on his face as he knifes our troops in the back, playing politics with their lives.

I'm from Chicago, he says. I'm from Chicago.

No lifted heads here now singing with pride.

A Democrat profile in courage.

UPDATE: Someone else agrees with me, from an unexpected quarter.