I take the criticisms with a grain of salt, since obviously Obama must be signing off on whatever Rahm is doing. That said, when Obama does speak he is much closer to my POV than when Rahm speaks.

The stories I've read of Rahm trying to shut down Eric Holder's investigations of Bush war crimes are enough to align me against him. Plus, the fact that he is supposed to be an epic arm-twister and yet Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman and the rest of the conservative Dem senators have run circles around him.

The only time you hear the WH making strong threats is against liberal Dems and House Dems. I don't like that.

What we still don't know is what carrots and sticks were on the table when Rahm asked for the cloture votes from Nelson, Lieberman and the handful of others who were seriously considering joining a republican filibuster.  Even then though, we're back in the debate of whether Rahm's a bad guy or just bad at twisting arms.   Few people in this world are really qualified to judge the latter, but I think we all know that Nelson and Lieberman are monsters. In the end, I imagine Rahm will go the route that Harry Reid went and claim he was betrayed by Lieberman and Nelson.  Still, begs the question though, if that was the case, what did he do about it?  

Rahm Emmanuel is the designated hit man b/c he has enemies to his left and to his right.

This whole thing is going down b/c Harry Reid didn't know what he was doing when the President told him to go for a trigger and Snowe's vote. He went left and got burned. Now, he has a do nothing senate on his hands and he's burned his bridges with Snowe and Collins (the later who has reacted by going hard at the Administration and democrats on terror issues). This is a failure of progressives and by progressives and it's stalled the president's agenda and hurt them going into the 2010 campaign season.

It's dead simple.

The White House didn't take progressives to the woodshed or abandon them; in point of fact the White House echoed progressive messaging on health care to this day despite whatever negotiations where going on or what they were willing to give up.

Progressives, however, when they didn't get anything called a public option took the bill hostage and started attacking it using right wing memes. This drove support down.

Public Option: supported by WH and progressives is popular despite a fervent attack from the right and corporations.

Health care reform: supported only by the administration and attacked by progressives and republicans and interest groups hated on all sides.

It is what it is; but it's this way b/c of the progressives failure and decision to go become political hostage takers.

If Rahm is being a designated scapegoat (which I really doubt, but if) he is a scapegoat for the President and the Senate leadership.  I hear few Republican complaints about Harry Reid and almost nonstop Republican complaints about Nancy Pelosi.  That tells me something.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

The stupid, it burns.

Oops, you misspelled "teh."

As far as ihateobama people who claim to be on the left are concerned, it's quite the opposite. They use Rahm as a funnel for heat TOWARDS Obama.

CONVERSELY - Obama ran on a pro-middle class, progressive, pro-constitution platform and then hired a bunch of corporate centrists who have frustrated every element of that platform. Emanuel, Geithner, Summers and Holder have all behaved as if they were part of the Bush Administration, and even if you disagree with that premise, the Administration and the democratic party, as a team, have failed miserably with infinitely more political capital.

Neither Reid nor Obama can be terminated before their terms expire.

Mistake #1 was abdicating designing the bill(s) to the Congress with seemingly minimal leadership and concrete guidelines. Why not hold the summit of Congressional Democratic leadership 12 months ago to hammer out a basic framework. Then invite the GOP in for a bipartisan photop?

Mistake #2 was not essentially continuing the campaign in order to build popular support for HCR-- especially in the states with weak/bought Democratic senators and "moderate" Republicans. (Maine, Virginia, New Jersey, Arkansas and Louisiana come to mind readily.)

Rahm's failing? Wasn't he supposed to be the fiercely partisan hatchet guy? Wasn't he supposed to bring knowledge of the Congressional processes that could be used to pressure recalcitrant Dems? Looks like it's fail on both counts. Pissing on the base makes the third strike.