The revenge of Rahm

Don't enjoy that Democratic majority for too long, folks, because Team Obama is pretty much ready to throw it away and return to the Rahm Emanuel "Let's only put money into races we are 100% certain we can win" model -- a model which would have had John McCain taking the oath of office this year on January 20.

It's no secret that Rahm Emanuel has always hated Howard Dean. Rahmmy fought him tooth-and-nail on the 50-state strategy, making dumbass moves like moving Tammy Duckworth into the 6th Congressional district in Illinois in 2004 and running Christine Cegelis, a better-known candidate, out of the race. Rahmmy, forgetting that triple-amputee Max Cleland was defeated two years earlier by a Republican calling him a terrorist sympathizer, decided that the Republicans wouldn't dare go negative on a woman who had left two legs in Iraq. Rahmmy was wrong. Rahmmy has been wrong about everything. Rahmmy took credit for the Democratic wins in 2006, but the credit rightfully belongs to DNC chair Howard Dean, who fought the hackocracy and made the Democratic Party into a national one.

And now the Democratic Party, led by its new president, are bound and determined to throw all that work away. I don't know why Howard Dean is unwelcome at the inauguration, but my guess is that the petty, obnoxious little bantam rooster who is Barack Obama's Chief of Staff has something to do with it:

Barack Obama is set to host a press conference with incoming Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine on Thursday in what will ostensibly mark the beginning of a new era for the party and the committee.

Noticeably absent from the affair will be the individual who symbolized the old regime.

Former Gov. Howard Dean is not on the list of attendees for the event, a noticeable nonattendance for someone largely credited with revitalizing the Democratic Party ranks and contributing - whether politically or through his 50-State Strategy - to major electoral gains.

It is unclear whether Dean's absence reflects a snub or a scheduling conflict. An Obama transition official said it was their understanding that Dean was traveling. But a source with knowledge of the proceedings said that Dean was not asked to attend and suggested that he would have changed prior plans.

Either way, he's not attending tomorrow's presser when the DNC torch is unofficially passed to Kaine. The Virginia Governor officially takes over the post on January 21.

Obama made a point of praising Howard Dean while introducing Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as the new DNC head, but I think the good doctor deserves a lot more than this kind of a bone, after laying the groundwork in 2004 for the kind of organization that delivered the White House to Barack Obama this year. Instead Dean is just another progressive being thrown under the bus in the name of "bipartisanship", which as we all know, really means "capitulation to Republicans in all things."