LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Emanuel, speaking at Northwestern University last week, declared, "And I think the president's experience as somebody who was a community organizer on the South Side, dealing with the steel workers who had lost their jobs and lost any possibility of having a job in their industry mid-life, how they were going to retrain, how they were going to get themselves back on their feet and how they were going to value themselves, was a guiding principle for him.

"And I think that's essential because, in the Oval Office, at the end of the day, all you have are your values, your judgment, and your ability to see a clear road where everybody just sees fog."

"If you haven't seen the movie 'Lincoln,' and if I didn't try to illuminate it, please go see the movie 'Lincoln' because that's another way where all these cross currents come at you and you have to make sense of that conflict, and that conflicting currents and equities," Emanuel said.

Emanuel's remarks were in direct reference to Obama's decision to provide a financial bailout to General Motors in 2009, and how his experience as a community organizer helped him to make that decision.

At the "One Book One Northwestern" program, Emanuel held a discussion at Northwestern University entitled "Chicago Politics and the 2012 Election," in which he talked about politics and the book "Never a City So Real" by Alex Kotlowitz.

Emanuel was sworn in as the 55th Mayor of Chicago on May 16, 2011 at the Pritzker Pavilion. At his inauguration were outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley, Vice President Joe Biden, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and William M. Daley, who succeeded Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff and is the brother of the former Mayor Richard Daley. He is Chicago's first Jewish mayor.

A federal lawsuit was filed by eleven Chicago police officers in August of 2012, alleging they were removed from the mayoral security detail and replaced with officers who worked on Emanuel's mayoral campaign, in violation of the 1983 Shakman Decree, which bars city officials from making political considerations in the hiring process.

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