An Enforcer Named Emanuel

Barack Obama tapped Rahm Emanuel, a fierce infighter, as his chief of staff. Is he cool enough to manage a high-octane White House team?

Christopher Morris / VII for TIME

Rahm Emanuel at the intersection of politics and policy—and a lot of incoming arrows.

When a dozen former White House chiefs of staff met for breakfast a month after the election to give the incoming guy some advice, the old-timer among them had some special, reassuring words for Rahm Emanuel. Former Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who had been a White House chief of staff under Gerald Ford, noted that Emanuel has a leg up on some of his predecessors. Unlike many chiefs of staff, Emanuel comes to the job with the experience of having been a power player on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. "You've been here before, so you know the place," Rumsfeld...

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