We are still two months away from the official beginning of Barack Obama’s administration, but he is already making decisions that will affect the course of his presidency for years to come. The appointment of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff has been met with harsh criticism in some corners and raucous applause in others. However, Emanuel has aroused a far different emotion in this writer: confusion.

It is easy to see the rationale in such an appointment. Emanuel has been tagged by many as a rising star within the Democratic Party. During his time in the House, he proved himself to be a talented — if not passionate — politician. As Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, he was instrumental in orchestrating the Democratic Congressional victories of 2006. And, as the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, he was thought by many to be in line for speaker of the House someday.

Furthermore, if Obama’s campaign has proven anything, it is that Obama is an incredibly effective administrator, skilled at selecting and managing the right people for the right jobs. Perhaps, as our next president, he is deserving of our trust in this matter, particularly when choosing his own advisors.

Nevertheless, there is something fundamentally unsettling and almost hypocritical in such an appointment. Obama won the presidency based on his message of how he was going to do things, in addition to what he proposed to do.

When selecting those who will be charged with executing the policies of his administration, the latter is negotiable, the former is not. Obama seems to have both the ability and desire to expose himself to many different viewpoints (the “whats”), and a qualified, diverse cabinet would serve his — indeed, any — presidency well. The politics of any one advisor Mr. Obama appoints should not be cause for alarm, since Obama was elected president to weight the merits of a range of viewpoints. However, his platform has left him with little latitude to mediate the “how.”

Many times during the primaries, Obama railed against the tactics of his then-opponent as well as the entire Clinton political machine. Now he has a chief of staff plucked from its inner workings.

During the campaign Obama stood in horrified solidarity with the rest of America as the full extent of abuse and incompetence on Wall Street was realized. Now he has an advisor recruited from its boardrooms. The term of then-exiting President Clinton was filled with scandal when, after Emanuel was appointed to the board of Freddie Mac, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight charged that the board had “failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.”

As president-elect, Obama speaks of a new era of politics, yet his top aide hails from one of the last great bastions of old-world partisanship. He is close to Illinois political kingpins like Rod Blagojevich and Richard Daley Jr. The Daley family is the textbook example of the world of Bushes, Clintons, six-term senators and $500 haircuts that Obama purports to break from. Moreover, if Bush reflected poorly on John McCain, then what do we make of Emanuel’s ties with Blagojevich — the scandal-plagued governor with an approval rating hovering around 4 percent (seriously).

So while Emanuel’s organizational and fundraising skills make him politically well-qualified to be Obama’s top advisor, their stark differences in approach should raise some serious eyebrows, especially since Emanuel’s style seems the polar opposite of the new brand of politics that was the promise of the Obama campaign.

Perhaps this inconsistency is best summarized as such: During his campaign, Mr. Obama sought to stir our souls with quotes like, “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page of the policies of the past.” And, “In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?” These proverbs were supposed to inspire our nation to a newfound unity and purpose. Instead, the appointment of Emanuel has brought to mind a different quote: “The politics of failure have failed. We need to make them work again.”

Joey Labuz ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in biomedical engineering.