Fioretti Misstep?

Maybe an effort the throw the election in light of recent polls showing him running second?

• Mayoral candidate Bob Fioretti on Monday cranked up the rhetoric in Chicago’s mayoral contest, saying that Mayor Rahm Emanuel “failed us again” by not filing any charges in the assault on the mayor’s own teenage son.
  
  “It sends the wrong signal,” Fioretti said, comparing the mayor’s actions in the robbery case to the general problem of community members afraid to give police information to help solve crimes.
  
  Fioretti made the comments following his appearance before the City Club of Chicago, where he read from prepared remarks about his vision for the city.
  
  In a question-and-answer session with reporters, however, Fioretti let loose on the mayor and chided other opponents for coming late to the party on backing elected school boards and recognizing the city’s crime problem.
  
  Fioretti brought Emanuel’s 17-year-old son into the picture when talking about Chicago crime, accusing Emanuel of not pursuing charges against the suspects in the December attack, which happened on Emanuel’s block.

Mark Brown from the Sun Times is outraged Fioretti would bring up this incident. We'll spare you the histrionics, but where to begin? Let's try this - the media has an appalling double standard where the children of politicians are concerned. They protect the ones they want and savage the others, or at least stand idly by while the "entertainers" like Letterman, Maher, and SNL launch broadsides at children.

So is Rahm's kid off limits? He is arguably, a minor public figure as the son of the mayor. And even if he isn't, he was the victim of a crime in front of his own home. That in itself is newsworthy.

And now the million dollar question - has the Chicago media ignored, misreported, under-reported and/or covered up significant facts of a crime involving someone attached to a public figure? We're pretty sure they have. No one, not a single reporter has asked how a college counselor phone call was so important that young Emanuel had to:

1. go outside
2. out of earshot of mom and dad
3. ditch/avoid a police detail
4. after 2200 hours

The story doesn't make any sense at all. The theories here, some presented by people who were actually on scene, are far more likely. Is that newsworthy? In a small way, yes, but easily deflected by the plea of "It's a family matter."

Also not making sense if the lack of prosecution of the person with the phone. People are charged on a near daily basis with "Possessing Stolen Property." You're going to tell us that someone didn't know they were buying a stolen phone when they got it at a greatly discounted price? We're going to call that bullshit.

So is Fioretti wrong? Rahm's treatment of crime numbers is a fragile house of cards built on a discredited method of policing. But by dragging young Emanuel into it, is Fioretti hoping to provoke a firestorm or backlash to drive his numbers down and enable Rahm to win outright? The Machine has always run shadow campaigns against itself to either block out real challengers or just to give the impression of opposition candidates. Rahm's opponents that even show up in the polling are a white guy, a black guy and a brown guy. Odd coincidence, but not so odd that one wouldn't withdraw and maybe endorse Rahm if Rahm's numbers were a little soft in that community.

Does anyone know if the ballots have been printed yet?