Dana Milbank at the Washington Post has created a furor among the hard-line Marxists in the Democrat party, with this seemingly benign, no-brainer observation.

"Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters," Milbank wrote. "Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter."

Emanuel is possibly the one figure in the White House that has the respect (read fear) of Republicans, precisely because he has demonstrated a willingness to do anything and everthing necessary...to win.

Emanuel's greatest "victory" before this one, of course, was the one upon which he earned his reputation: Getting a bunch of conserva-Dems elected in purple states in 2006, winning the party control of the House while at the same time crippling its progressive agenda. This is what Emanuel is all about. For him, victory is everything -- even if you have to give up your core values to win, and even if you could have won while sticking to them.

This, according to Dan Froomkin of the Huffington Post, is a bad thing. He doesn't seem to be aware of the reality that without victory, there is no agenda, Marxist progressive, or otherwise. Hey--what can one expect from a journalist with no experience actually doing things...

Yet this next part was what really struck me about the article.

The Rahm Emanuel that Obama hired is the poster child for the timid, pseudo-pragmatism that is inimical to the idealistic Obama agenda so many excited voters responded to last November. And it's a pragmatism that is absolutely killing the Democratic Party in the long run, because American voters have an intrinsic distrust of politicians they see as tacking with the polls or shying away from a fight. This if nothing else is the lesson of two George W. Bush presidencies: American voters have a profoundly soft spot for people with clear, strongly-held principles, almost regardless of what those principles are.

Emanuel is a Bush Democrat - but not in that he has learned the lesson about the value of holding firmly to core values. He is a Bush Democrat in that he has allowed Republicans to traumatize him into submission. Emanuel operates on a battlefield as defined by Republicans, where the terrain is littered with the specter of imaginary but profoundly terrifying GOP attack ads. His reflexive approach is the strategic retreat. Most obviously in the current debate about health care, he has empowered the Democratic and centrist Republican obstructionists by validating their fear that come campaign time, they will be portrayed as radical -- even when they are supporting measures such as the public insurance option that have public support among a super-majority of voters.

Dan Froomkin, and his fellow whatever-they-are-calling-themselves-now maintain, contrary to all available and overwhelming evidence, that Obama won election on a clearly articulated platform of nationalization of half the economy, and that the average American is a committed socialist. That delusion is incredibly important to the left, and nothing demoralizes them more that the dawning realization that this nation is, after its all said and done, a nation pickled in the juices of free enterprise, self-sufficiency, individual rights and a host of other American values.

Conservatives love this, because the delusion consistently spells out electoral doom for the far-left. Its guys like Rahm Emanuel who give us pause, because he gets it.

To me, this article really illustrates the political fault-line between the unionists, interested in power for its own sake, and the far-left, silly, societal parasites with dreams of Marxist utopia that always seem to end with millions of corpses. The current administration, if put into conservative terms, would be as if Pat Robertson had been elected a Republican president and ignored the sound advice of Karl Rove.

Ironically, Froomkin, in criticizing Emanuel, acknowledges the soundness of his instincts.

To Emanuel, victory is the only thing, and rather than recognize the error of his ways and recalibrate, he is publicly declaring that the now widely-recognized enfeeblement of his boss's presidency is not his failure, but his vindication. Hail Emanuel triumphant.

There it is--Emanuel represents victory, while Jarrett, Axelrod and Obama represent 'moral victory'--another word for failure.

No need to hit this one again--just push him over.

UPDATE: Must-read article in the New Republican about Rahm Emanuel's role in the White House.