Rahm Emanuel defends his former boss

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended his former boss, President Barack Obama, praising him as a "once-in-a-generation" leader who has delivered the change he promised four years ago.

Emanuel, who was Obama's White House chief of staff until 2010, used his speech at the Democratic National Convention to tout Obama's leadership on health care and in the handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he touted Obama's decision to support a bailout of the auto industry.

"That was the change we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered," Emanuel said.

In pressing for Obama's re-election, the Chicago mayor pressed voters to consider "whose judgment, whose values do you want in the White House" during a crisis.

"When the fog of uncertainty that surrounds a crisis storms in to the White House, and all the advisers and chiefs of staff have only guesses and hedges to offer, it will be the president's leadership that determines how we as a nation meet the challenges that face the middle class. It is the president's values that shape a future in which the middle class has hope," Emanuel said. "The person who takes the oath of office in the next four months will shape not just the next four years, but the next 40 years of our nation."