Jan. 12--A serious question for those demanding the resignation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel:
What's your plan B?
What are you going to do when he doesn't resign?
Because he's not going to.
Barring grave illness, indictment or promotion to a Cabinet post, the mayor is going to stay in office until at least May 2019, when his second term expires.
I'm not saying that's good. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying.
Remember the guy you're dealing with here.
One of the more revealing stories about Emanuel tells what happened when he was White House political director in June 1993, early in President Bill Clinton's first term.
The supremely confident, foulmouthed operative's "certitude sometimes outpaced (his) judgment," as Clinton biographer John F. Harris put it. And among the people he alienated with his confrontational style was first lady Hillary Clinton, who reportedly felt Emanuel was hurting the president's agenda.
"White House chief of staff Thomas 'Mack' McLarty approached Emanuel ... and told him the president wanted him out of the White House," wrote Naftali Bendavid in his 2007 book, "The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution."
Emanuel said no. He said he wouldn't leave unless Clinton fired him face to face. His bet was that Clinton, who didn't like confrontation and was still grateful for Emanuel's pivotal bulldogging during the 1992 campaign, wouldn't have the nerve.
