That’s right: Kevin Spacey.

Kind of.

It’s the man Kevin Spacey portrayed in the film Recount – Al Gore’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain.

See, that movie does have a happy ending after all!

Want to get to know the new chief of staff a little better? Take a look at the speech Barack Obama gave in honour of Rahm Emanuel back in 2005. The middle finger gag is great:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The event was a roast for Emanuel. A roast being, according to the Free Online Dictionary, “a facetious tribute, as at a banquet, in which the honoree is alternately praised and insulted.”

Note to Americans: we don’t have a word for ‘roast’ in British English. Probably because all our tributes are naturally facetious. (She said, being facetious.)

(Cheers to Daily Kos)

It’s been confirmed  that Rahm Emanuel has accepted Barack Obama’s offer to be the new White House chief of staff.

Emanuel is obviously pretty much unknown to us Brits – but in a nutshell: he’s a Democratic Congressman who used to work in the Clinton administration; he’s apparently been holding out to be the next Speaker of the House (which led to hesitancy in accepting this chief of staff offer); and he’s what people would call, erm, “tough” (his nickname is ‘Rahm-bo’).

Pundits (and Republicans) on the right are calling this choice too partisan – but clearly when you’re as bipartisan, calm and reasonable as Obama is, it probably pays to have something of an attack dog as your chief. A pitbull sans lipstick, as it were.

Todd Purdum at Vanity Fair writes:

“He doesn’t piss people off for the sake of scoring debating points or asserting his purity. He pisses people off because he cares about things, and sometimes pushes too hard. He lives by an old saying prevalent in F.D.R.’s Washington: ‘Keep all the balls in the air without losing your own.’”

While Emanuel said in his statement:

“Like the record amount of voters who cast their ballot over the last month, I want to do everything I can to help deliver the change America needs. We have work to do, and Tuesday Americans sent Washington a clear message — get the job done.”

Here was MSNBC reporting the news yesterday:

And here was more later – including more on Obama’s transisition to power (note: includes obligatory shot of new chief of staff talking into new president’s ear):

*UPDATE* I just discovered 236.com’s lowdown on Emanuel. Brilliant.

*UPDATE 2* Here was Countdown covering the Emanuel pick – plus lots of other interesting headlines coming out of Washington/Chicago yesterday: