Rahm Emanuel Still Hates Democracy; and Other Sequels from Five Months of Columnizing

POSTED: June 18, 3:20 PM ET | By Rick Perlstein

This past April I published a piece here I wanted to call "Rahm Emanuel Hates Democracy." Cooler heads in the front office prevailed, and the piece ended up being called "Rahm Emanuel Has a Problem with Democracy." Here's the sequel: Every time I gave a radio interview in Chicago and mentioned my original title for the piece, some newsroom guy just about kissed me.

There have been innumerable articles about Mayor Rahm Emanuel in national publications. Mine, I learned, was the only one anyone could think of that had been critical. Fawning, should-know-better journalistic big shots praised Rahm, at Rahm's word, as a model of democratic openness. Which made the guys I was talking to – guys used to having mayoral flacks feed them questions for the mayor while they were live on the radio interviewing him – just about ready to spit.