Krauthammer: Rahm Emanuel Should Send a Dead Fish to Chicago Teachers Union Boss

September 15th, 2012 2:26 PM

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer issued some advice Friday for how Mayor Rahm Emanuel can end the Chicago teachers' strike.

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Krauthammer said, "I hope he clinches the deal by sending the head of the teachers union - as he once did in the past to someone else - a dead fish. That often works in these kinds of negotiations."

GORDON PETERSON, HOST: Chicago teachers make on the average $76,000 a year. Emanuel wants longer school days and a longer school year.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The average earner in Chicago earns $47,000 a year. So you get people earning x amount paying teachers who make 50 percent more and who were offered a sixteen percent increase in salary, and yet went on strike precisely because they don’t want to be held accountable. And I think Rahm is right, and I hope he clinches the deal by sending the head of the teachers union - as he once did in the past to someone else - a dead fish. That often works in these kinds of negotiations.

PETERSON: We’ll see.

For those not getting the joke, when he was a Democratic Party official in the '90s, Emanuel was said to have sent a dead fish to a pollster that was late in delivering poll results.