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Who Sent Kass A Rahmfather Portrait? We Smell An Inside Job

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Jan 30, 2012 9:20PM

2012_1_30_rahmfather.jpg
At left a photograph of Rahm Emanuel by photographer Monika Thorpe. At right, Al Pacino from The Godfather.

Tribune columnist John Kass has a secret admirer. Someone sent him a portrait of Rahm Emanuel posed as The Godfather, with the title "JOHN FRANCIS KASS'S The Rahmfather" and the tagline, "All the power on Earth can't change Chicago." And this isn't just some photoshop job.

"Whoever did this knew what they were doing," said Chicago Tribune cartoonist Scott Stantis, who provided a professional critique. The video of that is available on the Tribune website.

"This wasn't done on an HP home office printer," he said. "It's on canvas paper. You can see the eyes have been touched. The hairline has been done to match Pacino's in the movie."

"Some guy" dropped it off at the Trib with a sticker from "JKFC John Kass Fan Club," which is from the fake address, 211 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 4250. The 41-story building does not have a suite 4250, and that building is just an office building with a couple law offices and nothing very interesting. Kass took it to the U-Spy Store in Logan Square to have it scanned for bugs, which was probably smart.

Kass started calling him the Rahmfather during the mayoral campaign, since Emanuel is known for getting things done in a gruff manner. The thing is, we struggle to believe Kass has fans who would put this much effort into creating a painting for him. Did anyone send Mike Royko a painting of Daley as "Who's The Boss?" Yeah, we didn't think so.