The office that Barack Obama once hoped to hold, at least according to legend, was that of mayor of Chicago. During most of the Obama years, it has been occupied instead by Rahm Emanuel, who was formerly the President’s consigliere and the aggressive, profane chief of his “team of rivals” Cabinet. Emanuel’s reputation was as a centrist, but he helped lend a political rationale to those who wanted a more aggressive response to the financial crisis, arguing that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” because “it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” By the time Emanuel left the White House, in 2010, to run for mayor of his home city, his reputation was both exact and universal. Every bookish American Jew knows the image of his cousin, real or imagined: louder, more physical, and more certain; supremely competent; a reality instructor. Emanuel played the role for a President whose party had experienced his election as the fulfillment of a dream. He was Obama’s tutor in how to fight in Washington; he was the Democratic Party’s instructor in reality.

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