Rahm Emanuel, a first-term congressman from Illinois and former high-level aide to President Bill Clinton, ought to coordinate his strident criticism of the current administration with whomever ghostwrites op-ed columns on his behalf.

Last Friday, in the Los Angeles Times, Emanuel contributed an essay wailing about the profligate spending in the GOP’s Medicare and energy bills, a reasonable stance echoed by staunch conservatives such as George Will and Wall Street Journal editorialists, until you actually read his partisan spin. He begins: "Remember when the ‘welfare queen’ was a woman driving a Cadillac? Today, that character has become a CEO riding in the back of a limousine. The Bush administration and the Republican-led House have taken steps toward providing an unprecedented taxpayer-funded handout to private companies."

No surprise, considering that Emanuel, by dint of his steadfast service to Clinton, is one of the most powerful Democrats in the House, both for fundraising and as a talking head, despite his brief career as an elected official.

Not that Rahm can’t afford a limo ride around the block himself. Several weeks ago, in an astonishing Chicago Tribune article by Mike Dorning, which received virtually no national play, it was revealed that Emanuel earned $16.2 million during the interim period between serving in the White House and Capitol Hill. Could it be that he took Hillary Clinton’s advice to heart and read the business pages of the Journal to make this considerable fortune in such a hurry? But as Dorning lays out, this payday came courtesy of contacts he made working for Baghdad Hillary’s husband.

Dorning writes on Nov. 9: "Before Rahm Emanuel got elected, he got rich… The revolving door between government and business turns constantly in Washington, but seldom has a Washington insider made so much money so quickly… In doing so, Emanuel provides a portrait of the often murky, below-the-surface intersection of money and power and politics… Emanuel’s path to wealth stands in stark contrast to the image he is cultivating as a populist champion, the architect of vote-getting reforms designed to underscore what Democrats contend is Republican protection of wealth and privilege."

Emanuel’s sugar daddy was the liberal financier Bruce Wasserstein, a "high-rolling Wall Street dealmaker" who was one of Bill Clinton’s best sources for raising campaign funds. The congressman was tapped to "open doors" for legal, if politically connected investment banking deals, and earned praise from clients for working hard on his mergers and acquisition deals. It might surprise Emanuel’s former boss, who bludgeoned investment bankers, among others, in his 1992 campaign for "not playing by the rules," that the vast majority of men and women working in the financial sector put in long hours every week, although few are rewarded as handsomely as the 43-year-old, no-MBA House member.

I have no beef with Emanuel becoming an instant multimillionaire–it’s not as if GOP officials, such as Dick Cheney and James Baker haven’t done the same–but it might be appropriate to tone down the eat-the-rich rhetoric, since it’s now revealed that he’s a slab of prime rib. Or maybe not. It could be that Emanuel is simply following the example of Teddy Kennedy–although the increasingly flummoxed legislator didn’t even lift a phone for his wealth–who feels above the charge of hypocrisy when he rants about the sorry state of public education on the Senate floor and then leaves for a weekend getaway at one of the plebian family compounds.

Is Clark as Nutty as Perot?

Last August, Robert Kuttner, a paleoliberal columnist for the Boston Globe, wrote a piece declaring his political love for then-undeclared presidential candidate Wesley Clark. Saying the retired general’s entry would "transform" the Democratic race for the 2004 nomination, Kuttner admitted he was "star-struck," not least because Clark’s associates said he’d repeal Bush’s tax cuts and "revisit the so-called Patriot Act."

He continued, while making absurd comparisons to Dwight D. Eisenhower: "Clark is the soldier as citizen. Even better, he’s the soldier as tough liberal. Just imagine Clark, with his distinguished military record, up against our draft dodger president [Kuttner, by the way, was a rapturous Bill Clinton advocate during that draft-dodger’s first term] who likes to play ‘Top Gun’ dress-up. Imagine the Rhodes Scholar against the leader who can’t ad lib without a speechwriting staff. Oh, and he’s from Arkansas."

I guess Kuttner assumed that Clark learned how to run a presidential campaign as a Rhodes Scholar, and wouldn’t put on the amateur show that’s been playing for several months now. Let’s see: There was the general’s confusion about whether he’d have voted to authorize an Iraq invasion; his reliance on Beltway gossip and talk shows to charge that the Bush administration planned to topple not only Saddam Hussein, but the leaders of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia simultaneously; his cool-cat black mock turtleneck at MTV’s Boston debate; and numerous past speeches praising Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

One of the weirder positions, especially for a Democrat (though newly baptized), the neophyte candidate has taken is his support of a constitutional amendment to make desecration of the American flag an illegal act. Kuttner’s a nominal journalist, so you’d think this First Amendment atrocity, which hasn’t been debated in Congress for several years, would be a deal-breaker. Or maybe that’s the act of a "tough liberal" telling it straight, especially to a Veteran’s Day rally on Nov. 11 in Manchester, NH.

It’s possible the remaining "star-struck" Clark boosters admire his deft political touch. On Nov. 23, in Washington, Clark agreed that his fellow citizens generally think Bush is a pretty likeable guy. "I’m not running to bash George Bush," he said. "A lot of Americans really love him. They love what he represents, a man who’s overcome adversity in his life from alcoholism and pulled his marriage back together and moved forward." That’s the kind of statement certain to pull voters who supported Bush in 2000 over to Clark’s side.

Last Sunday, on CNN’s Late Edition, Clark told Wolf Blitzer that a Democratic candidate can’t run on a platform that’s top-heavy with domestic issues. Now that’s political wisdom, especially since it appears the economy won’t hurt Bush. Gen. Wes said: "I can stand toe-to-toe with George W. Bush. I’ve worn the uniform for real. I have been a commander in war. Nobody else has… I think the country has to understand: We’re not winning the war on terror. This administration took us into Iraq. It’s a world-class bait and switch."

My current favorite bit of Clark’s strategy is to woo Hollywood celebrities in hope of picking their pockets. As reported by the Daily Telegraph’s Julian Coman last Sunday, the general appeared onstage, dressed all in black once again, with the Eagles during a fundraiser, telling the group that "Hotel California" has long been his favorite song. (Up yours, Fleetwood Mac!) After the concert, Clark and his wife then drove to Madonna’s mansion and had a 90-minute discussion about tax cuts, Iraq and God knows what else. A friend of Madonna’s told Coman: "Madonna was very impressed with Gen. Clark’s intelligence and his vision for America." Another hanger-on added, "Don’t underestimate this. Madonna is often ahead of the curve."

Not that Clark–who, despite the private audience with Madonna and the Eagles, isn’t close to competing with Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt–is the only goofball on the Democratic circuit these days. One of the problems the nine candidates face, as Daniel Henninger pointed out in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal, is that they look very silly in the far too many "debates" that are televised. It’s now December, and not too early to put odds on the Iowa caucus winner, and still the number of challengers remains at an attention-stifling nine. DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, as usual, blew it in his orchestration of the primary campaign. Had he demanded an Iowa "beauty contest" last summer, as the GOP did in 2000, the field probably would’ve shed Joe Lieberman and John Edwards by now.

Al Sharpton’s like a cockroach, and he’ll continue scamming his way through the campaign in search of a primetime address at the Democratic convention in Boston–one can only hope it’ll come true for the huckster man of cloth–but you’d think the lagging candidates would choose dignity over humiliation and call it a day. It’s true that the debates don’t get the ratings of The West Wing, but the media is obsessed with the contest and so every other week winners and losers are declared after a debate. Henninger wrote: "The effect over time has been corrosive. Messrs. Dean, Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman and Clark–serious individuals in private, away from this burlesque–have come to look and sound ridiculous. They make the clowns–Messrs. Kucinich and Sharpton–sound endearing by comparison."

Frankly, I think Henninger is far too generous to the "serious" candidates. Kucinich, former boy wonder of Cleveland, does hold nutty ideas (a Department of Peace is one knee-slapper) but at least he doesn’t pander to audiences and try to fudge his views depending upon what state he’s visiting on a given day. And the constant refrain, most recently repeated by Dean spokeswoman Tricia Enright, that "Each of the Democratic candidates would be better for the future of this country than the current commander in chief," is straight from a clown’s linguistic repertoire.

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, normally the paper’s lame excuse for a media critic, took on extra duty in Monday’s edition with a dispatch from New Hampshire, where he attended a few Dean rallies. It was good stuff, suggesting that Kurtz ought to be relieved of his current task and replace the atrocious Dana Milbank as a political reporter. Dean "launched a full-throated attack on President Bush’s foreign policy," at a high school in Merrimack, Kurtz wrote. Dr. Hojo told the crowd: "I think [Bush has] made us weaker. He doesn’t understand what it takes to defend this country, that you have to have a higher moral purpose. He doesn’t understand that you better keep troop morale high rather than just flying over for Thanksgiving."

Dean could endorse pedophilia and his followers, so consumed with hatred for Bush, would nod in approval. In reality, Bush’s trip to Baghdad was both a morale-booster and political masterstroke worthy of Bill Clinton. The audacious stopover in Iraq jabbed a knife into the Liberal Heart, reminded voters of the Democratic Party’s weak challengers, and diverted attention, at least temporarily, from the media’s fixation that the United States is bogged down in a Vietnam "quagmire."

You know the T-Day surprise was a success by the mere fact that the New York Times, as of Monday, had yet to issue an editorial on the subject.