“It’s a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”
— Clemenza in The Godfather.
“In Chicago, this is how friends say goodbye.”
— Robert Gibbs, Press Secretary to the President of the United States.
I know President Obama is rather enamored of the Godfather, (even if he’s botched one of its central tenets) but his staffers are really taking it a bit too far when they start acting out scenes from it, perhaps to please their Don boss:
What a charming parting gift given to outgoing White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel at his final Senior Staff meeting this morning.
A dead fish.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs says it was presented to Emanuel by Austan Goolsbee, the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.
“I talked to the policy team and we wanted to give you a going away present,” Goolsbee is quoted by Gibbs as telling the morning meeting of top White House aides.
Goolsbee said the staff wanted to give Emanuel “something to show how we feel about you, but also shows we understand your new possibilities.”
Emanuel unwrapped the present and immediately recognized what it was: “This is a dead fish,” he reportedly declared.
Has anybody opened the fish up? Maybe there’s an iPod with all of the president’s speeches inside.
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