Stud in Chief, Rahm Emmanuel

Everyone keeps asking newly anointed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel if he’s “having fun.”

“Fun is not the first adjective that comes to mind,” he said in a profile appearing in Sunday’s New York Times.  Still, I found his physical fitness regime (detailed in the same article) pretty impressive:

He woke as usual at 5 a.m., swam a mile at the Y, read papers and was in the office at 7 for the senior staff meeting at 7:30. There was a meeting in the Situation Room about Afghanistan; a leadership meeting; a conversation with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada; a meeting with Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah; budget meetings; several conversations with the president.

Later, in the same article, we get some more specifics about Mr. Emmanuel’s resistance training regimen:

On days he does not swim, he works out, and conducts business, at the House gym: 25 minutes on the bike, 20 minutes on the elliptical, 120 situps, 55 push-ups and many sweaty conversations with his former colleagues.

Whether or not you agree with his politics, it’s good to finally see some physical fitness in the White House.