Wow, It Really Is Like Capone's Chicago

An editor at the The Hill claims that “death threats” are keeping Rahm Emanuel from attending press conferences to discuss the Blagojevich meltdown. As Mark Finkelstein writes:

Which would be the safer place to be for a political figure who’s received death threats?:

a. A school concert in a public venue.
b. A press conference in the company of the President-elect of the United States of America.

If you answered ‘b,’ you’re thinking like me and presumably most people. If you answered ‘a,’ you’re A.B. Stoddard. The associate editor of “The Hill” offered up the strange excuse that death threats are preventing Rahm Emanuel from attending press conferences in the course of an MSNBC appearance this afternoon during which she also claimed that “President-elect Obama is taking steps to be as forthcoming and as open and as transparent as he promised he would be.”

Presumably “The Office of the President Elect” has amongst it perks a phalanx of Secret Service agents at every press conference, in addition to dozens of journalists eager to take a bullet for either man.

Meanwhile, a possible reason (or maybe not) why Rahm’s been remiss.