It is the current fashion to blame President Obama’s disappointing first year on his chief of staff. “First, remove Rahm Emanuel,” writes Leslie Gelb in the Daily Beast, because he lacks “the management skills and discipline to run the White House.”

The Financial Times’s Ed Luce reports that the “famously irascible” Emanuel has “alienated many of Mr. Obama’s closest outside supporters,” while the New America Foundation’s Steve Clemons lumps Emanuel in with the “Core Chicago Team Sinking Obama Presidency.”

They join liberal interests who despised Emanuel long before he branded them “retarded.” Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com, together with conservative activist Grover Norquist, demanded a Justice Department investigation into Emanuel, who is “far too compromised to serve as gatekeeper to the president.”

His argument in the end is, however, that

“Obama’s first year fell apart in large part because he didn’t follow his chief of staff’s advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter.”

This was followed up by a new story from the Washington Post by Jason Horowitz, which had as its thrust that Rahm is doing an alright job. Then David Broder, the so-called dean of the Washington press corps, attacked his own paper’s reporting and Dana, which is surprising, as you wouldn’t expect “the Post’s marquee political writer of the past 40 years [to] beat up on the Post.”

Nevertheless, if you are interested in White House politics in general, or Rahm in particular, there are a few other articles worth mentioning. The New Republic had a detailed piece on how much it sucks to be White House Chief of Staff: “Laboring as White House chief of staff is fantastically difficult under any circumstances, something Emanuel learned well as an aide to Bill Clinton. Former George W. Bush chief of staff Andy Card famously arrived at the White House by 5:30 each morning and stayed until eight or nine each night. But laboring as chief of staff during the first year or two of a presidency can be a prolonged form of torture.”

Which leads finally to this  weekend’s upcoming NY Times Magazine profile of Rahm released on the NY Times website yesterday. The entire article (the longest I’ve linked to here) is full of details. For example, it has a very good and compact description of the legislative headache of trying to get the health care bill created last year in Congress. It also has a good description of the liberal criticism, the moderation that Rahm has fought for, and then enjoyable throw away paragraphs like

Emanuel wants to jam a wedge into the fissure inside the Republican Party between, as he frames it, the descending wing that believes in small government and the ascending wing that believes in no government. Republicans lose, in this theory, whether they cooperate with Obama or not. “We’ve got to drive the ball at them,” a senior White House official told me. “Driving the ball at them, making them pick between small government and no government, putting them in their responsibility-and-accountability box. You walk away? You’re walking away from responsibility, and the public’s angry at you. You participate? Your base hates you.”

I’m not sure whether Rahm is effective or not. In fact, I think it is impossible to tell given how our information is filtered through anonymous sources. There have obviously been strategic mistakes by Rahm, but also David Axlerod and, dare I say it, the President. Rahm is doing what he can to calm the fire: both the New Republic story and the Times story pointed out that Rahm wouldn’t participate in the reporting, and the Times noted that the president was “irritated by the stories,” and Emanuel has “expressed regret.” This all goes to show that as Chief of Staff, praise or criticism, press attention is negative either way.

Paterson Said to Direct Aides to Influence Abuse Case

Gov. David A. Paterson personally directed two state
officials to contact the woman who had accused his close aide
of assaulting her, according to three people with direct
knowledge of the governor’s actions.

According to one person who was briefed on the matter, the
governor instructed his press secretary, Marissa Shorenstein,
to ask the woman to publicly describe the episode as
nonviolent, contradicting her accounts to the police and in
court.

Mr. Paterson also enlisted another state employee, Deneane
Brown, a mutual friend of the governor and the accuser, to
make contact with the woman before she was due in court to
finalize an order of protection against the aide.

These accounts provide the first evidence that Mr. Paterson
helped direct an effort to influence the accuser.

Under intense pressure from Democratic Party officials,
Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman, has
decided not to challenge Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the
primary this fall, according to two people told of his plans.

He has told friends that, while he is convinced he could
prevail against Ms. Gillibrand, he feared the winner of the
primary would have little money and remain highly vulnerable
to a well-financed Republican challenger at a time when the
Democratic party controls the Senate by a slim majority.

The New York Times is reporting that last fall a woman who had repeatedly pressed her case of domestic violence involving David Johnson, an aide to the governor, backed down after a call from Paterson.

The unidentified woman claims Johnson violently assaulted her. She went to court three times seeking protection from him. She twice complained that the State Police harassed her and that they had demanded she drop the case. Paterson then called her, or she called Paterson, depending on whose account you believe, and the day following that conversation she failed to show up for a hearing and the Court dismissed the case. Her lawyer admits the case was never mentioned directly in her phone call with the Governor, although I am not sure why that matters. The Governor offered his “assistance” or whatever in a case involving one of his closest aides; I am sure she got the message.

Just to be clear on the assault, the woman reportedly told police Johnson “choked her, stripped her of much of her clothing, smashed her against a mirrored dresser and [took] two telephones from her to prevent her from calling for help.”

Yesterday, Paterson suspended Johnson without pay and asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate whether state police tried to “improperly influence” the woman, according to the Daily News.

This seems like the most serious charge that the Times has been able to levy against Paterson. As Chas wrote earlier, the Times ran two articles on Paterson last week, one on Johnson’s quick rise to power and the second on Paterson’s relative inability to govern. This final story, though, ties it all together in a tragic way. The aide that has risen so quickly was likely “brutally assaulting” his girlfriend, and then the Governor and his State Police intervened to intimidate the woman.

Ben Smith, of the The Politico, speculates that the case “appears likely to end the governor’s tottering political career.” If the Governor had just had his staff intervene in a domestic violence dispute then that would be enough for me to think he should resign; however, he went even beyond that, he called the woman himself to intimate her. In fact, resignation might not be enough, as the actions might constitute criminal intimidation of a witness. Paterson seems to agree with me, as the Times points out:

Mr. Paterson, who has championed the cause of battered women, [] made extended remarks on the case of Hiram Monserrate, the former state senator who was convicted of misdemeanor assault against his companion and ousted from the Legislature. Mr. Paterson said he was offended that while the woman had been granted an order of protection against Mr. Monserrate, the senator’s aides had continued to have contact with her and assist her.

“The order of protection is designed to allow for independence of the victim,” he said. “This victim apparently had no independence.”

He said the conduct of the aides warranted a criminal investigation, perhaps for witness intimidation.

The State Senate did the right thing when they tossed out Monserrate. Domestic violence is not a trivial problem—it deserves punishment. Intimidation is the tool used to prevent women from seeking the rights they should have. If the story is true, he likely should be prosecuted. I am not sure if that will happen, but I suggest reading the Times article in full so you can see how awful the accusations are, and then ask yourself whether Paterson should really be our governor until January 1. If this article is true, if Paterson as well as his State Police protection intimated a victim of domestic violence, I think impeachment needs to be used in this situation if he will not resign. I do not want to see it have to become political like that but it seems that at worst he conspired to intimate an assaulted woman for an aide of his and at best he just intimated her himself.

Even the NY Post is reporting on the Governor’s fervent denials. Paterson called the rumors “callous and sleazy” and said that papers (the Post obviously included) have been “stretching the bounds of journalism.”

Paterson met with the Times reporters yesterday for an hour and half. At a press conference afterward, when Paterson asked if he was asked of the more gritty rumors said “No such questions related to any of that information was asked of me at any interview.” He continued: “The article will be written about other subjects.”

Now the story itself, rather than its contents, are becoming news. Today Lawrence Schwartz, the Governor’s Chief of staff, sent a letter to Clark Hoyt, the public editor of the Times. The Public Editor is the Times’s ombudsmen. His profileon Times site describes his job: “The public editor works outside of the reporting and editing structure of the newspaper and receives and answers questions or comments from readers and the public, principally about articles published in the paper.” Schwartz’s letter says that the Times should have denied the rumors and notes that

over the last several weeks:
the New York Times has prepared a profile of a major public figure;
misinformation about the content of that profile sparked intense, false and damaging accusations directed at the profile’s subject;
the Times was aware that the rumors were untrue;
the Times admitted as much to the subject during the article’s preparation;
the Times did nothing to correct the public record; and
when the article at last appears, it will do nothing either to justify or undo the permanent reputational damage suffered by the subject.

The letter also asks that Hoyt conduct an inquiry in to the matter. In response to the letter Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty says the newspaper isn’t responsible for what other news outlets and blogs reported. That echos what Joe Sexton, The Times’s Metropolitan Editor, said Tuesday evening: “Obviously we are not responsible for what other news organizations are reporting. It’s not coming from The Times.” That seems like a cop-out to me, they might as well have said “Well, it’s not our problem and we look forward to you all buying our paper.”

One thing is known for sure: Paterson is not resigning. At yesterday’s news conference he said: “The only way I’m not going to be governor next year is at the ballot box, and the only way I’m leaving before that is in a box.”

To stay on top of the story, it seems worth it to reproduce a portion of the link filled article from the Huffington Post:

The Daily News‘ Elizabeth Benjamin says it’s “far worse than his acknowledged extramarital affair with a former state employee.”

New York Magazine, who just ran a lengthy profile on the governor, couldn’t get a peep out of the Times, but writes that they hear the paper is “coming up with something big about the Paterson administration.”

Many believe the scandal is linked to a story that appeared in the New York Post this past weekend that further detailed Paterson’s recent decision to ban state troopers from the Governor’s Mansion.

According to the Post, a trooper accidentally caught the governor in a somewhat-compromising position:

The trooper opened the door and the first thing he saw was the governor and a woman inside and the two of them snuggling together, embracing. There was nothing more than that, snuggling, and they had their clothes on.

The AP reported today that Paterson met privately with democratic leaders this weekend and

A Democrat close to the situation [] said the meetings included discussions about whether Paterson would resign or announce he will not run. The Democrat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Business Insider added:

We spoke with a member of Governor Paterson’s communications team who denies that the governor is planning to resign. The official confirmed that a New York Times story is in the works but says it will not run Monday.

No matter what the the story is, I am certain it will be an interesting week in New York politics. We are going to post a short profile of Lt. Gov Ravitch soon, just in case he gets a promotion.