As you undoubtedly know already, this morning saw Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s departure from the White House, an admission so anticlimactic that President Obama had little choice but to joke about it:

THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the least suspenseful announcement of all time.  (Laughter.)  As almost all of you have reported — (laughter) — my chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has informed me that he will be leaving his post today to explore other opportunities.  (Laughter.)

But what intrigues me is how this fait became accompli so quickly.  You see, just three weeks ago, the President was kicking the can of Rahm’s exit down the road:

“I think right now, as long as he is in the White House, he is critically focused on making sure that we’re creating jobs for families around the country and rebuilding our economy,” Obama said in an interview, aired Thursday, with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And you know, the one thing I’ve always been impressed with about Rahm is that when he has a job to do, he focuses on the job in front of him. And so my expectation is, he’d make a decision after these midterm elections. He knows that we’ve got a lot of work to do. But I think he’d be a terrific mayor.”

Contrast that with the unsubtle shove that Jane Hamsher noted at the beginning of this week:

OBAMA: I think that Rahm will have to make a decision quickly, because running for mayor of Chicago is a serious enterprise and I know this is something he is thinking about….

I’ve been busy this month with moving and other distractions, so maybe I missed something… but what happened?  I mean, Rahm’s (ahem) shortcomings have been discussed widely behind his back at the White House — but what changed in barely more than two weeks to make his eviction a matter of such urgency?

The floor is open for your suggestions and eleven-dimensional theories.

So, the Obama administration got a wake-up call suddenly concerned on Thursday about the health care reform drubbing it was taking in the progressive blogiverse, and held a conference call to try to stop the bleeding:

White House senior advisor David Axelrod and health care adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle held a conference call Thursday night with progressive bloggers — in what Axelrod described as a bid to clear the air after several tense days.

… In response to one blogger who chided the White House for failing to fight for the public option while taking “potshots” at the liberal activists, DeParle said: “The president is fighting for this. … You have no idea how many hours, how many hundreds of hours he has spent, how many phone calls he has made, how many meetings he has had. … We need your help and we don’t mean to be chiding you. But please appreciate how hard this is.”

… According to an account on DailyKos, DeParle said the provisions in the Senate bill need to be improved and moved closer to what the House bill includes, particularly on affordability.

Awww, I feel all warm and fuzzy now.  They like us, they really like us after all!  Except someone had to go and step on the (revised) message right away (via the Wall Street Journal):

Turn off MSNBC. Tune out Howard Dean and Keith Olbermann. The White House has its liberal wing in hand on health care, says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel….

… Emanuel pointed to a New York Times column by economist Paul Krugman and another coming from National Journal writer Ronald Brownstein pressing for passage of the Senate health bill. “What you’re seeing is the progressive backlash against the progressive backlash,” he said.

Nice going, Rahm.  Whatever small amount of goodwill the Axelrod-DeParle call created, you just undid it.  The boss must sure be glad he has you as his political mastermind.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

YES!

The first appointment sends a signal to Congress (especially the GOP) that this isn’t going to be a pussy, rollover presidency, entangled in civility while the other side lobs dirt. Everything I’ve ever heard or seen about Emanuel says he’s a no-bullshit guy. McConnell can play his petty little games but Rahm will be there to step on his head and show him who’s in charge.

I can’t say enough how happy I am over this appointment. We’ve got eight years of caked-shit to scrape through and Rahm’s a bulldozer driver.

Kudos to President-elect Obama.