A Chicago Bull.

“I’m excited to be heading home to Chicago, which as you know very well, Mr. President, is the greatest city in the greatest country in the world. I’m energized by the prospect of new challenges and eager to see what I can do to make our home town even greater.“

To no one’s surprise, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel leaves the White House for Chicago, several weeks before the coming midterms, to likely run for Mayor. As of this morning, he has been replaced by ex-Daschle aide Pete Rouse, a guy considered almost 180 degrees in temperament from Emanuel, and more in the “No Drama Obama” mold people might’ve expected after the 2008 campaign. (By all (perhaps beat-sweetened) reports, Rouse, a consummate political insider, is quiet, unassuming, not a screamer or a showboater, and, according to the word on the street, highly competent.)

As for Emanuel, well I’m already on record of how I feel about the guy — this clip sorta sums it up — so I can’t say I find this parting terrible news. But, since this is farewell for now, I’ll only say best of luck in Chicago…and let folks like Greg Craig, Dick Durbin, and David Axelrod handle the shovels instead.

Dubya By Any Other Name.

“Obama needed to regain control quickly, and he started by jettisoning liberal positions he had been prepared to accept — and had even okayed — just weeks earlier.” TIME’s Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf examine the recent ousting of Greg Craig, a slow death by leaking, as a telling indicator of how the Obama administration has fallen so far astray on civil liberties. “[Obama] quietly shifted responsibility for the legal framework for counterterrorism from Craig to political advisers overseen by [Rahm] Emanuel, who was more inclined to strike a balance between left and right.” Uh, what? As Nick Baumann points out in Mother Jones, what business do the politicos have in overseeing legal matters? That’s rather Rovian, isn’t it?

On target as usual, Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald puts this Craig story and the KSM trial into broader perspective: “As even Time now recognizes, many of the policies once widely declared by Democrats to be a grave threat to the Constitution are now explicitly adopted by the Obama administration. And it’s flatly inconsistent to invoke ‘the rule of law’ to defend Obama’s decision to give trials to a few Guantanamo detainees without pointing out that he’s violating that very same precept by denying trials to so many.” (Pic via the MJ article linked above.)

Don’t Mess with Sinbad…or Greg Craig.

“I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.‘” As you may recall, Sen. Clinton’s recent touting of her commanding foreign policy bona fides hit a snag when it turned out not only that she was lying about the particulars on several trips, but that her big Kosovo excursion was taken with those wily diplomatic veterans, Sheryl Crow and Sinbad. (If you frequent Talking Points Memo, one wag (no, not idiotic, although he’s funny too) has been having a good deal of fun with this over the past week or so.)

Well, now the real Sinbad has gotten involved, and his critique of Clinton’s account of that trip is pretty devastating. ““I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril…In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, ‘We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.’ Say what? As Sinbad put it: ‘What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.“‘”

Update: If you don’t want to take Sinbad’s word for it, how about Greg Craig, the director of Policy Planning for the State Dept. during the Clinton years? He completely eviscerates Clinton’s claims to foreign policy experience in a memo this morning: “There is no reason to believe…that [Sen. Clinton] was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff. She did not do any heavy-lifting with foreign governments, whether they were friendly or not. She never managed a foreign policy crisis, and there is no evidence to suggest that she participated in the decision-making that occurred in connection with any such crisis. As far as the record shows, Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue – not at 3 AM or at any other time of day.” (He then goes on to refute her claims country by country. Pretty damning stuff.)