1. He is a former ballet dancer. His mother got him in lessons as a child, and he was offered a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet, though he turned it down to attend Sarah Lawrence.
2. As a teenager working at Arby's, he cut his middle finger, which became infected and had to be partially amputated. Obama once joked that the accident left him "practically mute".
3. He thumbed his nose (jokingly) to his House colleagues at the 2008 inauguration.
4. He is a triathlete who often trains at the House gym.
5. Twenty years ago, he mailed a rotten fish to a former colleague. (Actually, I once saw an eBay auction offering this service, so maybe it's not an uncommon form of conveying one's disdain.)
6. On the night after Bill Clinton's 1996 election victory, he became so angry with the president's enemies that he stabbed a steak knife into a table while he recited their names and yelled "Dead! Dead! Dead!" after each one. Ok, so he's a little nuts. They say he's calmed down quite a lot--and has become a father of three--since then.
7. He was caught in the middle of two friends--Hillary Clinton and Obama--during the primaries, and did not support one over the other. He told them, "I'm hiding under the desk. I'm very far under the desk, and I'm bringing my paper and my phone." He endorsed Obama only after he had secured the nomination in June 2008.
8. He won the title "Your New Obama Hottie" in an online contest with Gawker magazine.
These stories were gleaned from the following sites if you're interested in more about him:
"Obama's Partisan, Profane Confidant Reins It In" (New York Times, 1/25/09)
Rahm Emanuel on Wikipedia
There's also this, which I discovered after writing this post:
"Ten Facts You Need To Know About Rahm Emanuel" (Washington Post, 11/08)
1 comment:
Nice job, Amber, and thank you for giving us a more human, if at times even eccentric, side of what appears to be a very intense and brilliant politician. I enjoyed this post.
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