From Huffington Post: Then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel offered his resignation to President Barack Obama in the winter of 2010 after a series of columns appeared depicting him as the lone element keeping the Obama presidency intact. According to then senior adviser David Axelrod, Emanuel understood that the stories “were an embarrassment” to the president. The president, already suffering from a setback to his health care reform effort, declined Emanuel’s offer to resign, despite being convinced that his chief of staff was the main source for the columns.
“I’m not accepting it,” Obama replied. “Your punishment is that you have to stay here and get this bill done. I’m not letting you off the hook.”
That revelation is one of the more explosive included in “The Obamas,” a new book by Jodi Kantor of The New York Times about the first few years of the Obama administration and the strains that it produced on the president’s marriage.
The dramatics that surrounded the passage of health care reform — culminating in Emanuel’s near-resignation — reflect the type of high-pitched struggle that routinely erupted between Emanuel and the first lady during the first two years of the Obama administration. The two jockeyed for influence over the president even before he formally took office.
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