In: Rahm Emanuel. The price of missing some of those important firsts of his young children is service to the country in an hour of need. And, of course, Power. He has the President's ear, clearly; Rahm is also becoming, rapidly, the deal-cutter extraordinaire -- the most powerful Chief of Staff since Bush 41's "fixer," James Addison Baker. As today's headline in TheHill states, Rahm Emmanuel's fingerprints are all over the President's stimulus package. From TheHill:
"Rahm Emanuel may have moved his office down Pennsylvania Avenue, but to stand in the hallways of the Capitol lately, it seems he never left.
"And if anyone’s fingerprints are on the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package being sorted out in Congress this week, they belong to Emanuel, the former Illinois House member who is now the White House chief of staff.
There he was on the morning before the House stimulus vote, bringing Blue Dogs back into the fold as he huddled with their leaders in House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) hideaway off the House floor.
"That was in addition to the unrequited courtship of Republican centrists by Emanuel, who was the No. 4 leader in the House before he resigned to become President Obama’s top aide.
"There he was Friday afternoon in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), tossing spending programs overboard until the package was light enough to support the heavy doubts of three Republican senators.
"And as negotiations began Tuesday night, he was back in the familiar confines of Reid’s leadership suite."
Cutting deals and taking names.
Out: Peter Gabriel. Gabriel, sledgehammered, is the first casualty of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences aggressive drive to make the Oscars relevant and less unwieldy. From DeadlineHollywoodDaily:
"Peter Gabriel just pulled out of performing at the Academy Awards show. In a letter to the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences, the co-writer and performer of Wall-E's 'Down To Earth' says he doesn't think the nominated songs, and their writers and performers, are getting enough respect during this year's Oscars telecast. That's because the show's producers, Larry Mark and Bill Condon, have reduced the song segment to a medley of the three songs nominated for "achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original Song)" -- 'Down to Earth' from WALL-E (Walt Disney), with music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman and lyric by Peter Gabriel; 'Jai Ho' from Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) with music by A.R. Rahman nd lyric by Gulzar; and 'O Saya' from Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) with music and lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam. I'm told the producers have slotted 90 seconds in the medley for each song sung by its original performer. But Gabriel said in his letter that he was only being offered 65 seconds for his song."
In: Media Mogul Fight Club. Satellite radio, in its hour of exigency, could make a media mogul with an eye for a sweet deal a shiny little bauble. From Reuters:
"When media moguls duke it out, what’s their battleground? Newspapers, evidently.
"For the past week, EchoStar boss Charlie Ergen and Sirius XM radio’s CEO Mel Karmazin have been doing battle on the pages of two venerable dailies, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The Journal had a head start on the story, reporting how Ergen had started buying up Sirius debt in an attempt to force the satellite radio company into a deal. Then, it revealed how Ergen had actually made an offer to buy Sirius, which Karmazin rejected.
"While the rest of the media was digesting all this, out came the Times with a story that said Sirius was preparing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which could come within days. It had even hired bankruptcy experts, the Times wrote. The Journal quickly swatted that idea down ..
".. The New York Post has since gotten into the game, and all three papers reported on Wednesday the appearance of a 'white knight' in the form of Liberty Media’s John Malone, who controls DirecTV."
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