White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called a bunch of liberal activists “retarded” for running ads against Democrats who opposed progressive aspects of healthcare, and the Wall Street Journal of all places, spilled the beans. Now Sarah Palin is upset because her son has Down Syndrome and she wants Rahm Emanuel fired—just this once, I agree with her.

Not because “retarded” disparages mentally handicapped people—he wasn’t talking about mentally handicapped people—rather he should lose his job because he’s an idiot for alienating his own political base.

What Emanuel probably meant to say is that it isn’t prudent to upset senators who are needed to pass healthcare reform. While true, the progressive political ads were actually pretty smart. What is not smart, however, is to upset the people who vote for you.

When you do that, you tend to lose office. That’s what Rahm Emanuel seems to not understand. He’s fixated on moving pieces around in the Senate. His thought process must be: “How can I get Senator X to do Y when he is beholden to Special Interests A, B, C, D, E…etc.?” Great. But politicians are ultimately beholden to the people who vote, or would vote for them. Piss off the people, they don’t vote for you, and you lose office.

Within the Democratic Party itself, “liberals” outnumber “centrists” by a wide margin. “Liberals” also tend to vote more heavily in primaries. So if a Democratic senator seriously upsets the “liberals” that’s a problem.

Liberals can mobilize against the aforementioned senator, and knock him out in the primary. And what is the only real goal of any good politician? To stay in power. The threat of losing power will have a greater impact on a senator than any sort of cajoling would. Senators do what lobbyists tell them to because lobbyists give them money that they need to win elections.

If liberals can present a bigger threat than a lack of campaign donations, then senators will tow the liberal line rather than the lobbyist line.

So why are the liberals “retarded?” The liberals want their agenda items to pass. By mobilizing their base they can easily unseat whatever Democratic legislator they want.

Why shouldn’t they run ads scaring the hell out “centrist” democrats, so as to encourage them to tow the liberal line? That’s the line they want. Would centrists otherwise do what the liberals want them to? Of course not—that’s why liberals are upset in the first place. Centrists are not liberal enough for the people who vote for them. Rahm Emanuel is playing stupid politics.

The “people” vote in elections. They may be susceptible to advertisements, paid for by lobbyists—but they aren’t lemmings. You ignore their concerns and interests and they destroy you. That is the way it works in a democracy.

Does Rahm Emanuel get that? Does he think that by “pandering” to the “liberal base” he’ll lose the “moderates”? The moderates also wanted a public health insurance option and who was he pandering to then? The crazy minority who didn’t want the public health insurance option? No. He’s pandering to craven, self-interested senators who would fold in a second if they thought they’d lose power by rejecting their base.

People who could fire Rahm should be asking themselves: why do people hate the healthcare bill now? Why did more than 60% of Americans support a public health insurance option and only 30% or so support the present bill? Could it be that Americans don’t like corrupt, back handed deals with craven special interests without any visible, overt benefit to themselves? No! No!

Actually, yes. Yes! Yes! That’s the reason. The bill now exudes sleaze and most Americans don’t like that. Americans want their government to do something for them, or not do anything at all. It’s either, “a bill that helps me and seems on the level,” or, “no deal.” And in this instance, the people have chosen the latter option.

People who could fire Rahm should also be asking themselves: why, in a New York-CBS Poll yesterday did only 8% of Americans want their congressperson re-elected. Why did 79% of Americans think special interests controlled the United States Congress? Because of people like Rahm Emanuel, who work within a broken, corrupt system, but have no intention of fixing it.

Does President Obama want to be perceived the same way the Congress is perceived? Does he want an 8% approval rating?

What Rahm says is, “Great, let them hate me, let me be the bad guy, they still love the president after all.”

Assuming, anyway, that they still do love him. But even if they do, it may be because they still feel the President has their best intentions in mind. What happens in a year, when he still hasn’t done what they want him to do—when he’s still beholden to special interests and when he still seems too weak to do most things he promised to do? What happens then? Will people still love him? Will people go out and vote for him in droves?

The Obama Administration should get the message: Get rid of Rahm Emanuel.

Yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow.

Yesterday.

Replace him with some guy like Howard Dean.

Howard Dean won an enormous number of seats in 2006 as head of the DNC. They should get rid of Geithner too while they’re at it. He’s not evil but he is stupid (despite his education).

The economy did collapse under his watch. Why employ a stupid person when you can hire a smart guy like Joe Stiglitz? Not to mention people hate Geithner as much as (if not more than) they hate Rahm.

Congress, the Beltway, has lost touch with reality, and although Rahm Emanuel may be in touch with the Beltway, that won’t do his party a whole lot of good when election time comes. Did President Obama ever want to stick up to the special interests? Did he think he could both be a conciliator and an agent of change?

I can see how one might say: “Look, Rahm is evil, but he’s a necessary evil,” but Democrats are already losing seats on Rahm Emanuel’s watch, and the primary hasn’t even happened yet. Why does Obama keep him? Does Obama like him? Does Obama want lobbyist money for the next president election? Remember who raised his money the first time around? Individual donors—people who are pissed off at Rahm Emanuel-tactics and will be less inclined to give next time unless they change.

Rahm needs to go. It’s not only good politics. It’s just smart.