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2010-03-13T11:28:00.001-05:00

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Statement to the PRESS

2009-11-02T19:02:00.006-05:00

On Monday, the new campaign manager for Christy Mihos informed me in an email that I had resigned on September 30. I didn't know that nor did anyone else. I have yet to speak to Christy or his new manager, but I guess this is just another one of those eccentric moments that make us all just love Christy for the special person that he is. I will always love the guy like a brother, and wish him and his family all the best in their future endeavors - and I thank Christy for the great projects he and I worked on together throughout October and in the many months prior. I'm sure he'll do very well.

Simply too much to digest after dinner.

2009-10-26T19:20:00.001-04:00

I was going to watch the senate debate between the Dems running for the seat left open by Ted Kennedy's recent passing. I'm here watching - make that wincing. To my stomach's dismay I see that the moderator is that exiled crank from WBZ radio - and very former health care industry flack - Peter Meade; who was someone very famous in his own mind back in 1971, or something like that. So that's it for me. I'm going straight to Sanford and Son reruns if all the networks can give me is four lackluster candidates not complimented by a has-been moderator.

By the way......before my hand can grab the clicker I catch a real, earth shattering first question from the brilliant, utopian moderator. When did you decide to run? YUP, that gives me a lot of information. Not that a better first question would be................................... name the first thing you'd do to bring jobs to Massachusetts, or something like that. The first question is when did your brain cells tell you to run, Kido, run!! And they wonder why no one watches these affairs.

Mike Capuano decided after Kennedy died. I guess that's better than deciding to run while the poor guy was still alive. He says he talked to his family and figured out he could do the job. BREATHTAKING prudence from the Ivy League grad.

Pagliuca - he's the guy whose advertising on every station except HBO (and that's only because HBO won't sell ad space) says he decided after figuring out that we've lost a lot of jobs. This guys a freakin Einstein. He could have saved the Titanic with prowess like that.

Oh, yeah, I'm here still watching, aren't I.

Peter Meade (wasn't he the dad in the Brady Bunch) won't let go. He want's a "moment," that special spiritual thing I guess, when the candidates decided to run. They ignore him, like I should be doing.......like thousands are doing as they reach for the remote controls which save us from the meager Meades of the world.

Hanscom is on the chopping block. Capuano says he's learned how to influence Washington, even on a small scale, like Ted. It's critical that we keep Hanscom. Ok. Thank you, Mayor Capuano. As they say....one a Somerville Mayor, always a Somerville Mayor.

Steve says he can change Washington because he has a plan for partnerships and empowerment zones. Something we've never heard before...................right. Ok.

Martha says ......well, I can't figure out what the hell she said.

Anyway, I gotta go now. Can't take anymore.

I've gotta Google the Libertarian candidate for this one so I can send them a check real fast.

Dan Grabauskas for the number two spot?

2009-08-04T22:57:00.000-04:00

Dan Grabauskas for lt. governor? The Republican Rumor Mill is stacked with stories regarding G.O.P. hopeful Charlie Baker - who recently joined Christy Mihos as a contender for the G.O.P. nomination - tapping Grabauskas as his running mate for the 2010 race. Baker and Grabauskas share, or shared, the same consultant - right wing activist Rob Gray; whose now toiling for Baker and once ran Dan's ill fated campaign for treasurer, when Grabauskas was burried by Tim Cahill.

And then there's this.......Grabauskas could be leaving his post as general manager at the M.B.T.A. sooner than he prefers since the governor and his transportation secretary, Jim Aloisi, appear to have launched their first strike in a war to dump Grabauskus, a hold over from the Romney Administration. Running for lt. governor could beat sitting at home and watching Joy Beyhar.

What would Grabauskus bring to the ticket? Well.......he's from Ipswich. And as Ipswich goes, so goes the Commonwealth??

Let's end the week on a lighter note - SUPPORT MR. Clucky !!

2009-07-31T10:27:00.003-04:00

Mr. Clucky Goes to Court
By Kyle Munzenrieder in NewsThursday, Jul. 30 2009 @ 11:29AMThe legal saga of Rooster-American Mr. Clucky went to court this morning, and he doesn't have much to crow about.

Clucky and his activist owner Marc Buckley have been South Beach fixtures for years, riding up and down Lincoln Road and even appearing on the cover of New Times. Problem is, roosters technically can't be kept as pets on South Beach. So early last month, code enforcement told Clucky and his girlfriend Wallflower they have to get out of town.

Today, Buckley went to court and wasn't told much different. He has to pay a $50 fine and was informed the chicken might be removed from his home.

But Buckley can still ask the city commission for an exception to the rules or continue the appeals process through the court system.

Charlie Baker is being over estimated.

2009-07-30T19:28:00.001-04:00

Charlie Baker is a 'Their guy' candidate.
by Kevin Sowyrda

Not much time to blog this date, given the fact that it's been atleast a day since I watched The Michael Jackson Story on TVONE..........so here goes.

Charlie Baker could well be the Steve Pierce of 1990, then the House minority leader who was the 'chosen one' of the G.O.P. establishment and the winner of the party convention that pivotal election year. In fact, just weeks before the big primary vote in September, the party bosses demanded that the populist in the race, Big Red Bill Weld, drop out for the sake of the party; and to avoid the embarrassment of a crushing defeat.

Didn't work out that way, did it? Unless I'm pulling a very senior moment, Weld put it into fifth gear and left Pierce in the dust..........and the party elite looked red faced, if not ashen.

Sure, Weld had a smoking gun in his hands. News of Pierce ignoring his state income tax obligations for a matter of years didn't exactly endear him to Joe and Mary voter. But I think it was more than that. If there's anything rank and file primary voters can't stand, it's being told who to vote for.

Proof of this? Just drive down to Pennsylvania where newly created Democrat Arlen Specter is loosing ground quickly to the likely G.O.P. nominee, Pat Toomey. The party bosses have annointed Specter as 'their guy' since he defected from the G.O.P. but the endorsement from the Governor Rendell and President Obama doesn't seem to be paying off in good polling data.

Link -

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/philadelphia/20090723_Poll_shows_Specter__Toomey_even_in_Senate_race.html

But 'Their guy' candidates tend to be losing candidates. Charlie Baker is the epitomy of a 'Their guy' candidate.

For my money Baker's got problems. Questions regarding his big dig financing decision are legitimate, regardless of how much he dodges them. Further, the G.O.P. primary will be flooded with independents, given the fact that the Democratic Primary will be a yawner, as Gov. Patrick will likely not be opposed.

Independent voters like an independent candidate, and G.O.P. hopeful Christy Mihos embodies that spirit more than Baker ever could.

Simply put, it's the clash of the establishment candidate, Charles Baker, versus the populist candidate, Christy Mihos. In an era when independent voters are telling pollsters they see Beacon Hill insiders as poison fruit, who will they support......Baker, the Beacon Hill Secretary of this and that, or Christy Mihos, a self made man who blew the whistle on Big Dig corruption when everyone else had their whistles in a lock box?

In any event, the campaign begins and everyone should get involved and study the contenders.

Channel Two is hard up?????

2009-07-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

Boston Globe reporter Megan Woolhouse reports that Channel Two is about to bring the hatchet down in light of budget shortfalls (click title for full Globe story).

Alert to the brain trust at Channel Two. I’m here channel surfing as I blog - quite the multi tasker aren't I - and in between words of wisdom on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic (which now goes by the much cooler moniker, NatGeo) I’m seeing a ton of ads and I don’t see how it’s eviscerating the educational programming for which the aforementioned media outlets have won numerous, prestigious awards. Do the execs in Brighton think commercials cause cancer, or something?

When does PBS wake up and smell the coffee???

Would a few volvo ads really descimate The American Experience, Nova, etc? In fact, a few commercials during the Emily Rooney Show - a.k.a. Greater Boston - would give me the time I need to run to the medicine cabinet for the Pepto Bismol.

Even better, becoming an independent broadcasting network, like everyone else, would alleviate the taxpayers sending the annual 400 million dollars PBS has become addicted to. Let me think......400 million in tax dollars........maybe better spent on cancer research, feeding the poor, anything but TV.

Can the HERALD just finally disclose the conflict????

2009-07-27T19:45:00.002-04:00

At what point in time does the disgruntled, X-Employee move on.
by Arthur Stamfordham

If you are a reader of the Boston Herald you might actually take the time to skim through the meanderings of the "Lone Republican," a.k.a. Holly Robichaud, a former state house worker (read - legislative aide) and now a self proclaimed Dick Morris with a skirt on.

Problem is, she doesn't seem to be able to get over her former boss Christy Mihos, a successful businessman who ran for governor in '06 and is trying to make the second time the charm in 2010.

In column after column, Robichaud takes Mihos to task for everything from costing the G.O.P. the election last cycle (Mihos ran as an independent) to you name it. Her recent proclamation is that Mihos should drop his bid for governor as he was a bad boy for running in last time around. Problem is....the rest of the story.

Toiling for Independent Candidate Christy Mihos in 2006 was none other than the Lone Republican herself, Holly. According to records at the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Robichaud made a pretty pile of cash off the convenience store magnate before she flew the coop and decided to take up a new career of hitting the guy over the head with a baseball bat at each and every turn.

What happened? According to a Mihos insider, "it was a nightmare." Beyond that, he wouldn't elaborate. I suppose we can all use our imaginations. And one might imagine - hope - that Robichaud's boss at the Herald might insist that she atleast disclose her past work for Mihos before another mugging via her Herald blog.

2009-07-24T18:10:00.007-04:00

Here's my principal beef with this ongoing Friday morning press conference being held by the solid BLUE LINE regarding the arrest of Harvard's Professor Gates. They've decided that Governor Patrick owes an apology to the constabulary? Are you absolutely kidding me? I understand the beef with President Obama (though I agree with the president....I would not have thrown out a form of the word stupid, or even gotten involved - as the president must maintain a distance from the quarrels of local life) but Governor Patrick has been measured and mature in his commentary and done nothing to be regretful for.
This is about police authority being challenged - and they, the police, find it as distasteful as eating rotten fish cakes. Police have developed a sense of entitlement and as a result citizens are dragged into jail every day of the week for paltry reason. But the governor has been far from incendiary in this matter, and has yet to make any statement that should offend the hypersensitive solid BLUE LINE.

The governor has been very gubernatorial throughout this event and proven a good demeanor throughout. Maybe one of the reporters should have asked this question - "if this had been your father, all things being equal, would you have believed his arrest the only course of action for the police to take?"

2009-07-21T12:49:00.004-04:00

Charlie Baker needs to get the needle pointed the right way, not the extreme right way.
by Kevin Sowyrda, political commentator
Gossip in Bean Town, more critical to survival than franks at Fenway, is telling us that newly born gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker is about to ink a deal with G.O.P. hit man and Lee Atwater wanna-be Rob Gray to run his campaign for the corner office. If "you know them by the company they keep" is applicable here, Baker's about to alienate more than a phalanx of party activists - and Democrats - who remember Gray for political tactics that don't seem in sync with Baker's reputation as a moderate Republican, high on ethics and committed to a think tank governing style.

Sure, it's inside baseball. The average voter isn't going to que on election day to vote for or against a candidate because their campaign chieftain is Gray, Rubin, Morris, or whoever. But in a town where the primary sports are Red Sox Baseball and Beacon Hill Intrigue, this story is juicy, and will only get better.

Watching Gray in action at the state house was always like Francis Ford Coppola's, 'The Godfather.' I don't know of any bleeding horse heads deposited into the beds of Gray's enemies (of which there are too many to enumerate), but all the broken toes still healing from Rob's political stampedes would, alone, be enough to Bring Baker's HMO company to its knees.

Sure, he says he was offered a high ranking position in the White House after toiling for George Bush and Dick Cheney on the campaign trails of New England; though a number of G.O.P. operatives tell me that his claim was dubious -a spin effort worthy of Gray who counts as his clients the Toiletry Foundation of America......really.

So how and why the Rockefeller-like Republican Charlie Baker goes to bed with a G.O.P. right winger is a hard question to answer, especially given Gray's penchant for rewarding his mentors in a less than conventional manner. After pocketing plenty of easy cash from no heavy lifting contracts via Mitt Romney's graces, Mr. Gray, famous for his trade mark jeans and penny loafers minus socks, showed his gratitude by joining John McCain's presidential operation. Et,tu Brute?

Finding Republicans willing to share their distaste for Gray was as easy as finding a new reality show on TV. But trying to get one to go on the record was not a realistic expectation. For a disheveled little man, Gray intimidates a fair number of political operatives who don't care to incur his wrath but are nonetheless loaded with anecdotal information as to why Gray is the best thing to ever happen to the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

"He's the reason Kerry Healy lost", said a former high ranking Weld Administration official who asked not to be named because......well maybe she doesn't like horse heads in bed. Gray managed Lt. Governor Healy's gubernatorial bid in 2006, which went down in flames; especially after her media war created more controversy than votes. Gray's so called "parking garage ad" warning citizens about the dangers of being raped was lambasted by critics for racist undertones. "I think it was extremely negative and I think the parking ad was so over the top. It was racial. It was scare tactics that if you don't elect her then everybody else will be week on law enforcement," said the former Weld Administration insider who worked in the corner office.

So is it all a harbinger of the type of campaign Charlie Baker will run - one of those Willie Horton specials that has us rolling in the gutter; or atleast rolling our eyes? If Gray is in total control, yes. Gutter politics is where Gray's needle is pointing to. But should Baker actually be in this to win, he needs a broader path. "Charlie's success would be found in people viewing him and his campaign as a moderate operation," media consultant and '06 Kerry-Healey supporter Jan Saragoni told me on Tuesday morning.

In any event, Baker's facing a Pork Chop Hill of a campaign. Despite the fawning coverage his drinking buddies still toss his way from the city's broadsheet, Baker is hardly the eight hundred pound guerilla he's portrayed as. While it's fun for the G.O.P. establishment to make fun of businessman Christy Mihos as a pushover in waiting, I'll put my money on Christy any day of the week. Don't put it beyond Mihos to give Baker a shellacking. Mihos is independently wealthy and ran for governor in 2006, while Baker's campaign experience does not extend beyond his riveting race for Swampscott selectman.

Come the general election, Governor Patrick could become the man to beat, with an Independent Tim Cahill siphoning off votes from the Republican nominee. Then again, the governor still has a lot of damage repair ahead of him after squandering so much political capital on cynical patronage ventures; and my sources say that Mihos is taking solid advice from campaign guru Dick Morris and is in this thing to win, having learned from his mistakes in '06.

For my money, Baker's the candidate of the Boston Globe and the Republican Party preaturians. This crowd makes a roar now and then - and they're great to meet for chocolate martinis at the Hampshire House - but they rarely pull off touch downs in the final quarter.

2009-06-25T14:56:00.000-04:00

How much more of this monarchist-like flummery can we possibly endure???
Case in point, today's web edition (is there any other) of Politico.com where we are tutored on the actual dangers a president faces when he is, well, "perfect" (article link is - http://www.politico.com/news/s...

No, they are not speaking of former President Abraham Lincoln, but the rather newer President Barack Obama who is a "better father", a "better husband" and practices "better" dieting. For all we know he never suffers flagellant moments like the rest of us. So Politico scribe Eamon Javers has gone where no man has gone before, and delved into the potential political pitfalls for a president who is just too omnipotent for his own good. "The industry seems to be in collective awe of Obama," the author writes. Seems to be? Ya think? Really?

Even the bonafide conservatives are yielding to his Excellency's prowess in all things temporal. Tucker Carlson told Politico, "People naturally defer to others they think are superior."

The propaganda gets even thicker - even sickningly sweet. Newsweek's editor Evan Thomas recently proclaimed to fellow Obama sycophant Chris Matthews that the president is basically a Deity. "I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world, he's sort of God," said Thomas - though strangely he had no rosary beads in hand as he was providing this twisted take on the state of American affairs.

This historic Hyperbole on Obama is getting so thick, I can finally relate to the Great Molassis Flood of Boston in 1919 when a Molassis tank the size of Heaven burst, killing 21 people. It wasn't pretty, and neither is this sticky, political flood of pure propaganda that's beyond even the hype Hollywood used to brainwash millions into thinking Justin Timberlake is actually talented.

At what point in time does the press get tired of playing the role of White House Communications Director? It's a post now vacant - but not really, given Charlie Gibson's innumerable softballs at Wednesday's infomercial at the White House, where ABC gave the administration a free, in-kind contribution so they might air their politics, minus any opposition.

And who said the folks at the old Pravda never found new employment?

For my money, don't hold your breath for serious discussions and responsible media coverage of the highest office holder in the Republic. Though many of my progressive friends seem to be more exhausted than my G.O.P. brethren regarding this ridiculous love fest, I don't see it dissipating. I mean, it's sort of like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - there may have been bumps in the road but they never fell out of love with eachother.

Accordingly, Governor Sanford has a silver lining to keep in mind as he's hunkered down after his revealing his intercontinental activities. He wasn't going to win anyway. Who could? Maybe Jesus, but I'm betting the press would still side with B.O. They'd definately scour Nazareth and conjur up some scandal.

You can't beat a president, or a candidate, who has the the press corp hypnotized.

Just ask Hillary Clinton.

2009-06-09T21:29:00.001-04:00

Democratic scandals are opening the door for a Mihos comeback.
by Kevin Sowyrda
Former House Speaker Sal Dimasi's perp walk last week, and his Monday arraignment, reveals more than the surreal fact that the South End can boast two former legislators and a current city councilor facing serious time in federal prison. Though it's probably yet to dawn on the gubernatorial head, I see it as a growing migraine for the chaotic and highly disappointing political machine belonging to Governor Deval Patrick and a boost to his likely G.O.P. adversary.

But first the meat of the matter. Sal DiMasi's gone rogue in the eyes of a grand jury because Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Loucks convinced the panel that the recently retired commander in chief of the State House pocketed some serious quid pro quo cash courtesy of the software company COGNOS. The portrait is ugly; sort of like staring at an Andy Warhol painting for way too long. DiMasi allegedly used a funny funneling scheme to garner a little under $60,000 in exchange for navigating some beefy state contracts to COGNOS with the approval of unsuspecting - we think - Patrick Administration politicos. News reports say that various gubernatorial lieutenants were successfully lobbied by DiMasi on behalf of COGNOS and the governor has stated that he himself had some vague conversations with the x-speaker regarding the matter.

If found guilty, DiMasi would get out of prison right about the time Barack Obama's daughters are in their thirties. Really.

Speakers being indicted in Massachusetts is about as unusual as Kirstie Allie going on a diet. We've just sort of become used to it. But just on the face of it we can see that the DiMasi indictment is far more egregious than the legal sledge hammers brought down on his predecessors Charlie Flaherty and Tom Finneran in past years.

The Flaherty indictment was quintessential proof that you really can indict anything including a bologna sandwich. During the "scandal" the Boston Globe reported that then U.S. Attorney Donald Stern spent about seven million dollars dissecting Flaherty's life on the planet, only to come up with a teaspoon full of dirt - that his tax preparer had made a minor error on a federal return dating back to God knows when. In Finneran's case, he was less than candid in a civil deposition, but no one's yet to pin any old fashioned, Tamney Hall like bribery charges on the Mattapan Democrat. Finneran's "sentence" is having to work at WRKO with the irascible Howie Carr, where Carr regularly berates Finneran as the station's resident "convicted felon". That should be sufficient purgatory for anyone.

But what we are likely to see in the DiMasi trial will make the past legal proceedings against Flaherty and Finneran pale in comparison. Dimasi’s alleged crimes are just too naked. A bunch of hacks cruising on yachts and hitting golf balls while deciding who gets what state contract and what they'll pay up for the favor. Is it really all that different from organized crime? And, are any of so naive as to assume that COGNOS is the only company for which DiMasi was twisting arms?

But there are other insinuations emanating from this indictment which warrant thorough investigation by the U.S. Attorney, as well as the state's attorney general. The speaker, whether it be Sal DiMasi or Harry Potter, does not have the magic to get state funds into any business purses. It is the sole purview of the administration to award contracts and dispense state funds. What Patrick staffers did or didn't know as they inevitably approved millions of dollars in contracts for COGNOS has to be vetted to the full satisfaction of the public. And that very process will not produce the perception Deval Patrick wants or needs as he gears up for his 2010 reelection bid.

Sensing trouble on the horizon and still licking his wounds from polling data showing he’d likely lose a primary battle to potential challenger Tim Cahill, Patrick recently hired the proverbial 800 pound guerilla to retool his political machine. Barack Obama’s ‘08 campaign manager David Plouffe will try to keep the guv afloat, just as a heavy weight Republican strategist has joined the campaign of an already announced G.O.P. contender.

Republican Christy Mihos was sadly ignored by many in the media when he blew the whistle on Big Dig corruption. He ran a solid campaign for governor in 2006, and has announced a political second coming with the help of former Bill Clinton confidante Dick Morris. It’s a brilliant move for the convenient store magnate. Mihos bringing Morris on board shows that he’s serious about running a more comprehensive campaign next year; and Morris is no babe in the woods, having given birth to political careers from here to Tel Aviv.

When you consider the current environment, it’s remarkably similar to 1990 when an unlikely Republican named Bill Weld was lifted to the governor’s office on a wave of voter discontent with how the Democratic establishment was running state affairs.

This year, the issue is corruption on Beacon Hill and the need for change. If Mihos drives that message home, and he has the credibility to do it, he’ll be a worthy opponent to Patrick in 2010.

2009-05-26T23:14:00.000-04:00

Race is everything.
by Kevin Sowyrda

We're living in a crude time of racial centric politics. Nothing new, you say? Then check out the recent news concerning judiciary appointments in both Washington and Boston.

Everything is race. The only thing that matters in Obama era politics, in governing, in policy making, in political appointments and in the media is your race. And for the first time in history, it's not Caucasian imperialists who are directly reaping the benefits of their light skinned complexion. But in a more cunning, indirect way, it's the liberal establishment - the still mostly white, modern day power brokers - who are using the race of minorities to squelch the Conservative opposition and achieve the progressive agenda. It's as effective as it is Machiavellian.

Case in point, this week's presidential nomination of New York Judge Sonia Sotomayor for a seat on the Supreme Court. Sotomayor wasn't picked because she's the reincarnation, in female visage, of Justice Brandies or because her intellect overshadows that of Stephen Hawking. She was picked because she's a Hispanic woman and Barack Obama, who remains in perpetual campaign mode, is sufficiently brilliant to realize that he can have all the liberal sycophants his appetite desires if he picks the presently in fashion, once out of fashion, brand of color.

That's because anyone who opposes this new color du jour must be a racist.

If you bring up Sotomayor's almost surreal ruling in Ricci vs. DeStafano, where in a painfully oblique edict she obliterated the test results for a group of Connecticut firefighters because an insufficient number of minorities were able to score high on the test, you'll be branded a racist quicker than Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow can coordinate their talking points with Rahm Emmanuel at the White House.

If you querie Sotomayor about her ruling that convicted felons should be able to vote, you'll definitely see Chris Matthews getting the wrong type of tingle up his leg and suddenly you're shish kabob on the Peacock Network.

If you dare to ask Sotomayor if she was being a little bit too polarizing when she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life", the Washington Post is going to call you Hispanic Hater of the month and quote an anonymous source that you use the "spik" word while imbibing at South Boston taverns.

So the nomination process will be as smooth as silk. We'll hear the usual suspects on the senate judiciary committee gush, with tear filled eyes, about Sotomayor's up from the boot straps story. That one always resonates when it's about a liberal nominee. Sadly, we can't talk about up from the boot straps stories of more conservative jurists like Clarence Thomas, who grew up in impoverished Pin Point Georgia and was homeless as a little boy after a fire burned down his family home.

And it's even a twofer. As political scientists on both sides of the aisle predict that the Hispanic vote will only continue to swell, a savvy politician like Mr. Obama is not going to be outflanked by Republicans, who have previously forged cordial relations with Hispanic Americans because of the G.O.P.'s historic position on Cuba. Those policies are as moribund as Fidel himself, and Obama knows that a quota system for Hispanics is the new route to that growing demographic and a key ingredient for his 2012 prospects.

Locally, the racial centric trend is no less intense and obvious than on the national stage. Carmen M. Ortiz has just received the papal blessing from Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to be the new U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. The panel that recommended her clearly intimated that Carmen, one of three finalists, was actually second in qualifications to prominent local jurists Michael Keating and Martin Murphy, but that her status as a Latina gave her the edge.

Atleast they were honest.

2009-05-05T19:45:00.000-04:00

There's a more civil way to debate.
by Kevin Sowyrda

Miss California and Barack Obama have something interesting in common. They are both opposed to gay marriage. It didn't cost Obama the presidency, but it probably did cost Miss California two things; the bigger crown she was expecting at the recent Miss America contest and any hope for a decent dialogue on her position, with which I take strong exception.

The public pillaging Carrie Prejean has suffered at the hands of liberals who forget what the word really means has been painful to view. The lynching's been led by, among others, the insufferable duet of Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto and MSNBC democratic commentator Keith Olberman, who believe that when a woman disagrees with the gay boys and the not so gay boys she's to be shreded like so much bad pork. But first some background for those of you who've been underground, hiding from the Swine Flu that's going to end the world as we know it.

Miss California or Prejean was asked by Gay Blogger Perez Hilton, who was serving as a pageant judge at the April 19 Miss America contest, what her position was on Gay marriage. Prejean articulated this frank and diplomatic answer. "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised." When you think about it, Prejean's response hardly differed from Obama's recent words on the subject, “marriage is only between a man and a woman.”

But Prejean doesn't have that Obama Teflon and now she knows what a fish feels like when being prepared as sushi. No sooner had the pageant concluded that Perez got the hate ball rolling by posting a Rosie O'Donnell like video on his web page where he called Prejian a "bitch" and some other childish derogatives, none of which should be flabbergasting given the source. Hilton's bite and infamy date back to before August 17, 2007 when he reported on his web page that Fidel Castro had died and further insisted that he was the first person in the world to report it. He's right. He's the only person to have reported that. Hilton is also nothing less than a lightening rod of controversy not just because he declares living people dead but also for outing notables in the world of pop culture gliteria, and not because they've ever lifted a finger against the Gay Community. There's no way Hilton has any anger issues going on, is there?

So not to be outdone in the category of venomous castigators, Keith Olberman invited his soul mate Michael Musto to his cave at MSNBC to dissect Prejean further; for her physique and a host of other taboo, personal issues. It's the type of commentary Rush Limbaugh would have shyed away from. Here's how the dyspeptic Musto described Prejean. "This is the kind of girl who sits on the TV and watches the sofa. You know, she thinks innuendo is a Italian suppository. Can I keep going? On the pageants now, they really should have easier questions, like what’s your middle name or what show was Seinfeld on. I mean, this girl’s a ding-dong. I didn’t even like her earrings." And it degenerated further. Said Musto, "they also paid for Carrie to cut off her penis, and sand her Adam’s Apple and get a head-to-toe waxing. I know for a fact that Carrie Prejean was Harry Prejean, a homophobic man, who liked marriage so much he did it three times. Now he’s a babe who needs a brain implant. Maybe they could inject some fat from her butt. Oh, they have?"

Olberman revels in this potty mouth routine and chimed in with some old fashioned woman bashing typical for his caustic demeanor, including a stream of references to Prejean's breasts and the completely outlandish thought that Perez Hilton is now an "intellectual giant" for his performance as a hard hitting beauty pageant official.

It's disgusting. When men are allowed to pile on like this and eviscerate a woman whose crime against humanity is stating her opinion, the true meaning of liberal has been perverted by people who are no more liberal than was Jerry Falwell. All their doing is churning the pot of hate speak in an attempt to vilify anyone who dares to subscribe, however tactfully, to an opinion that differs from their own theology. Olberman preaches ad hominem that that's what the Republicans do. Clearly he's projecting. It's what he himself does as do so many of his liberal comrades who don't know what liberal really means and have spent the past days nailing Carrie Prejean to the cross.

Liberal means a woman should be allowed to freely and independently say what she thinks without men ridiculing and demeaning her to the point that the transcripts begin to read like sordid material written by Larry Flynt for Hustler Magazine. Liberal means people who disagree with you are your opponents, but not your enemies. To travel the other path is to go the way of Nixon.

For the life of me, I don't know why the Miss California-Prejeans of the world should be bothered if a Gay couple marries. It seems to me we've got ample supply of hate in this world and anything we can do to foster loving and committed relationships should be inviting to all. But there's something intellectually degenerate about countering those who dissent on the marriage issue by employing debating tactics from the Iranian Parliament.

We're better than that and any woman, even Miss California, should not suffer such violent, verbal abuse at the hands of the male dominated liberal establishment.

Mayor's race.......

2009-04-21T23:13:00.001-04:00

A personal bond, hard to break this November.
by Kevin Sowyrda

When I met Tom Menino for lunch, Friday last, at the Dry Dock Cafe in the ever transforming Southie Waterfront District I made two strategic decisions. The first, was that I would try the Haddock because my friend Susan told me it's the best in the Hub. She was right. The second was that I was not going to interview Mayor Menino. Instead, I decided to have a conversation with Tom Menino, and from the friendly and straight forward discussion that ensued I discovered a guy who is pretty hard not to like and will be very hard to beat in what will be the mayor's bid for a fifth term as the city's chief executive officer.

Tom Menino didn't tell me he's running for reelection and I didn't ask. Tom Menino didn't tell me that he's ready for a political fight, and I'm not so dumb that I needed to ask. He's always ready. But Tom Menino told me in so many words, and through gestures, inflections and other mannerisms that he loves the city so much that not being mayor is simply something Tom Menino's not able to do. And it's not a power trip. It's just a genuine love affair. The type of Frank Sinatra, might have written a song about.

It was days after our lunch, on Tuesday, that Menino did make his bid for an unprecedented fifth term official. No surprise there.

I think the surprise will be how Menino runs his campaign. In this modern-day pandemic of cyber personality - i.e. twitter, face book, IM's, text messaging, email and all the rest of the no real human contact - Menino, at first glance, is the old fashioned exception to the trends of the day. But it has nothing to do with being out dated. Instead, Menino strikes me as above the gadgetry gimmicks because they're beneath his unbeatable work ethic. As a veteran of city politics, known for rising well before dawn and burning enough midnight oil to dry out OPEC, Menino's a lot smarter than the Twitters. He's more sympathetic than the Face book crowd. He realizes that Joe and Mary Bostonian prefer the personal touch to the You Tube politicking any day of the week. It's even paid off in political dividends. A recent Boston Globe poll shows that more than half of city residents say they've actually met the mayor in person and His Honor's popularity ratings remain high, despite a foundering economy from which Boston has hardly been immune.

So on this particular Friday, Menino does what he does best. While chatting with yours truly about everything from the failed lights-out policy at the Zakim Bridge to the recent Easter Weekend traffic debacle at the Mass. Turnpike Authority tolls, he smoothly takes time out here and there, between bites of the clams with bellies and sips of the ice tea with lemon, to warmly greet the regular constituents who come to our lunch table at a steady pace to pay their respects and share a musing or two. He knows each one by name and knows just what to ask. How did that situation work out, how is so and so, did my folks get back to you, etc. Menino may not speak like he's the Socrates of the day, but how he's able to brilliantly remember all these names and all their problems right off the cuff is impressive and would appear to be proof positive that Tom Menino is a smart guy who simply chooses not to use a lot of fifty cent words - and his particularly homespun style, even in the blackberry, techno age - has hardly hurt him since he assumed leadership of the city in the early nineties upon the resignation of then Mayor Raymond Flynn.

So what makes this guy tick? I think what we've overlooked - or at least I have on sufficient occasion - is that Tom Menino is a people guy and a people guy can't retire. Before he'd send you an email he'd prefer being at your local bakery at about five in the morning ready to hear what you have to say and then jumping back in his new Hybrid vehicle to call the right department head to fix the problem. I'm' willing to guess that about a thousand pot holes in this city have been promptly fixed simply because a constituent asked the mayor to do it, and then he did.

Imagine that. I'm sitting here with a politician who you can actually go up to and then get something done as a result of a quick dialogue. He might even be the last of his breed, and I don't sense any huge movement in the city to send Tom Menino to that place which I sense he may equate to Purgatory - i.e. retirement. Boca Raton might sound inviting to the rest of us, but not this guy. Menino isn't heading for Boca - he's marching forward to a reelection campaign against three contenders who may not even appreciate the juggernaut they're up against. "He has the most tireless work ethic of any official I've ever seen," said City Councilor Rob Consalvo. "He has a laser like focus on the job and what peoples' problems are. He's the ultimate grass roots mayor."

But back to the niceties of dining in Southie with the most recognizable politician in New England. Does Tom have any particular gripes on this beautiful Marathon weekend, as we break bread together for the first time in too long a time? Not really. He arrived with Dot Joyce, the best and most reliable press secretary he's ever had, and seems excited about the positive lime light on Boston, hopefully assuaging the tragic story of the past days concerning the Craigs list Killer, a case solved in record time by D.A. Conley and Boston Police. We're even introduced to a visiting foreign dignitary - I think it was the High Lord Mayor of London - whose taking in all things Boston before the start gun fires on Monday. The Mayor is pretty pumped. When he toiled for nine years as the district councilor from Boston's Hyde Park he probably didn't imagine all this - but fate works it's magic, doesn't it?

And Menino keeps working his magic - or maybe it's just a Midas touch he was destined to yield in the mayor's office. I ask him about the rather glaring juxtaposition between state and city government, of late. While Governor Deval Patrick has been having a less than marvelous time lately......being governor........Menino's principality has been relatively free from controversy. No state senators being offered silly job deals, no ludicrous trail of emails from staffers, and no hideous traffic jams triggered by any of the mayor's cabinet members. The mayor's not one to criticize the governor (I'm guessing he'll leave that to folks like me) but he makes it pretty clear that on his watch toll booths wouldn't be shut down so that people can admire, for hours, the beautiful pavement at the Mass Pike.

The mayor pretty much brings the episode back home, and emphasis that his style of leadership is polar opposite that of some big time bureaucrats. It's anything but hands off. If he sees a problem he gets it fixed, and chances are there are plenty of department heads and their deputies and City Hall Plaza who have their early morning or late night call stories about a call to action from the boss. Sort of like what Hillary said. What will you do if the phone rings at three o'clock in the morning? I suspect the answer from city hall officials would be - do what he tells me to do because he doesn't suffer fools well.

But he does suffer atleast one slight with dignity. By the time I finished the perfectly cooked Haddock I asked Menino what he thought about a no lights policy at the Zakim; keeping in mind that I've always considered the spectacular array of blue lighting in the evening to be the one meritorious aspect of a bridge which should never win any architectural hurrahs. Believe it or not, the brain trust at the Turn Pike Authority never consulted with the mayor. "I learned about it by reading the paper," he said. But he wasn't angry nor thin skinned about it. It's as if the mayor has become used to a state government that often forgets the basic rules of protocol, and he's just happy the lights are back on, the way they should be.

Should this column leave any of your questions about Tom Menino unanswered, don't fret. Just keep your eyes open long enough and you'll see the Mayor pretty much everywhere in the city greeting pretty much everybody by name. His opponents will have the formidable task of competing with that personal bond. It took decades of hard work to build, and no one's likely to break it without a prolific message and a great deal of luck.

Governor stumbles.

2009-04-03T17:21:00.001-04:00

Patrick’s Helen
by Kevin John Sowyrda
MySouthEnd.com Contributor
Wednesday Apr 1, 2009

Does anybody remember the Prince of Troy of Greek mythology, a rather naive young lad named Paris? Paris decides to steal one undoubtedly beautiful royal named Helen, who awkwardly enough was unblissfully married to the enemy of all the people of Troy, King Menelaus of Sparta.

Suddenly, Troy is besieged by Helen’s aggrieved husband, who wasn’t too thrilled to see Paris abscond with his wife. To make a long Greek tragedy short, the entire kingdom of Troy was quite unceremoniously burned to the ground because of one man’s obsession with pleasing a woman nobody had ever heard of.

Sound familiar?

Gov. Deval Patrick apparently rented the DVD Troy and took Orlando Bloom’s character, Paris, way too much to heart. I’ll grant you that state Sen. Marian Walsh - our modern day Helen - may not be a Greek Princess, but exactly why the governor and his staff have spent so many invaluable hours, and nearly all their credibility, doing whatever is required to please Helen - I mean Sen. Walsh - is the vexing question of the day.

A veteran lawmaker from Boston, Walsh was an early Patrick political recruit and her reward was to be a posh patronage appointment to one of the more remote agencies on the map of state government, where the senator would have settled down for at least $120,000 annually. The post has been vacant for a dozen years, and it’s been a lightning rod for voter discontent since news of the deal with Walsh was first made public. On March 31 Walsh said she’d remain in the Senate and decline the pomp and circumstance of patronage because the public response to her gubernatorial gift had created a "tsunami." As if that will repair the damage already done to the governor. This childish affair has cost him dearly and voters are telling a local pollster they’re ready to jump ship.

After pension scandals, no-show jobs, state senators being indicted, a transportation secretary gone amuck and the revelation of e-mails showing that Patrick aides orchestrated Walsh’s hiring despite their claims to the contrary, I think many of us who supported Patrick have pretty much had our fill. I thought Patrick to be the "different" Beacon Hill leader. But I was wrong, and the growing Tom Foolery of this administration is not only a deal-breaker but a bizarre juxtaposition when you consider that the governor is clearly very caring and highly educated. But his political sensibilities are clearly not well honed.

The problem for Patrick is that the average voter has become beleaguered with the governor and his party’s shenanigans at the State House, and few feel obliged to coddle a state government that increasingly resembles the political horror show of Patrick’s hometown, Chicago. As one prominent but disappointed Patrick fundraiser told me this week, "He’s not the guy I supported. If Cahill runs against Patrick, I’m now with Cahill."

Who is Cahill? Ironically, he’s the political invention of Patrick’s own chief of staff, Doug Rubin. Tim Cahill is the Democratic state treasurer and recent polling data is basically telling Cahill that if he wants to be governor Patrick is paving the path.

Cahill once faced the seemingly impossible task of running statewide against another man with the same last name. It was like figuring out a Rubik’s Cube, but Cahill’s campaign, then managed by Rubin, came out with a hilarious ad featuring Tim Cahill’s young daughter telling voters they could distinguish between this Cahill and that Cahill with the slogan "Tim for treasurer."

It was so perfectly cute it worked like a charm, and Cahill’s now sitting pretty on about $3 million in campaign funds and should be encouraged to run by the Channel 7/Suffolk University poll showing the treasurer besting Patrick in a head-to-head race.

It’s the first time in years an incumbent governor is facing defeat in his own primary; but not the first time that the catalyst for the incumbent’s downfall was a rather microcosmic issue, all things considered. But just as Gov. Ed King was beaten in his 1982 primary race by Mike Dukakis, largely over endless coverage of King having purchased lobster sandwiches for his state trooper detail (I’m not kidding), Patrick has created sufficient fodder for his opponents just by being the Patrick we didn’t really know.

For my money, Cahill jumps in and would be lacking that carpe diem thing if he did otherwise. Shamelessly juvenile e-mails amongst numerous Patrick staffers, reported in the press in recent days, showcase the unprofessional conduct on the part of gubernatorial lieutenants who should be working for the public’s benefit, and not Sen. Walsh’s. As a result, the image of Patrick as the different "Yes we can" leader has been permanently tarnished, if not entirely diminished.

By the way, I actually don’t even believe the Suffolk poll showing Cahill beating Patrick by five. Right about now, the spread would be more like ten points.

Kevin John Sowrdya is a political columnist who writes for South End News and Bay Windows, as well as other publications. He can be reached at kevinsow@aol.com.

Police reform in Massachusetts

2009-04-01T21:58:00.001-04:00

Time to rein in the police and support Chairman Costello’s reform efforts
by Kevin John Sowyrda
MySouthEnd.com Contributor
Thursday Feb 26, 2009

First in a new series regarding police culture in the Commonwealth.

So where’s the outrage? In a state which prides itself as the "Athens of America," not just for cultural reasons but because we claim to cherish civil liberties, barely an eyelid is raised when the cops toss a prominent talk show host in jail because a computer screen in a police cruiser says the subject didn’t pay a lousy car insurance bill in a southern state from which he moved years ago. How can this lackadaisical attitude toward police excess be so prevalent in the Massachusetts birthed by Sam Adams and governed by a Democratic majority which tells us that the eight years of George Bush and the Patriot Act are dead and buried and constitutional rights are back in fashion?

But I guess I missed the fashion show. Police powers in Massachusetts are completely out of control and each of us has our own, particular horror story to tell about an outrageous cop who seems poised to go postal or whose grasp of the truth is lose at best. And this dilemma is particularly acute given my observation that our elected officials fear the unions representing the constabulary forces more than they respect the voters. Thus, even if conservative gabber Michael Graham is not your cup of tea, you should not find it appetizing that a police officer can throw him or you in jail because the Intel Chips running the registry of motor vehicles in another jurisdiction revoke your driver’s license for a reason of minutia.

To be blunt, I’m not exactly a Michael Graham fan myself. It’s in this very column that I once took the local talk master to the wood shed for his lame attempt at an interview with Congressman Barney Frank. But that’s not the point. Deciding what kind of a state we want to live in, both as progressives and conservatives, is the issue in need of a healthy and open debate; and Graham, or for that matter any citizen of this Commonwealth, being handcuffed and thrown into jail for a simplistic, bureaucratic issue is a situation worthy of debate and due consideration.

Graham was more whimsical than contrite when he recently told his audience that he managed to make his 9:00 a.m. gab shift on WTKK FM only after having suffered undue humiliation in Framingham, where police detained him for what they allege was a minor moving violation. After the perfunctory plate and registration check at the scene, officials told Graham his license had been suspended and that they would have to handcuff and jail him.

An ad hominem of hieroglyphics from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, issued to the press in the aftermath of this ludicrous police action, can best be deciphered to mean that the Confederacy rises again. Virginia apparently declares that Graham didn’t pay his car insurance there, and, thanks to interstate cooperation agreements, Massachusetts was all too happy to suspend Mr. Graham’s license here.

(Memo to Registrar Kaprielian - if a member of your family were driving, unbeknownst to him or her, with a license suspended for the same trite reason, would you want him or her thrown in the clink?)

In any event, Graham has already appeared in court and will seek a jury trial on the charges that he was driving with a suspended license. He says he’ll call the registrar as a witness. I hope he does.

The entire affair is almost surreal, and we all know that incidents like these are repeated every day of the week in Massachusetts. I mean, forget Bernie Madoff sipping Chablis in his swank, Manhattan penthouse after bilking enough cash from unsuspecting souls to fill a U-Haul truck. Apparently the real menaces to society are souls like Michael Graham, whose license was suspended because another state is gravely concerned about a pocket full of cash he may owe the auto insurance syndicate.

"We see this all the time," said Chris Ott, communications manager for the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] of Massachusetts. "We see people getting arrested and hauled off to jail for non-criminal offenses. People are getting arrested all the time for all that drama for something that is legally in the same category as a parking ticket. So yes, if all he [Graham] did was not pay his insurance in Virginia that doesn’t sound like he’s a danger to anyone, and so this does sound unusual."

But the roadblocks to change will be hard to navigate. After all, any politician who takes on police powers will not only incur the wrath of the potent and well-funded public safety unions but a fair share of voters as well. Conservatives are pro-police by nature and liberals are increasingly afraid to be labeled as weak on crime, which leads to a blind eye or two being turned in the direction of a few civil liberties being tossed here and maybe a few others being tossed over there.

Let’s be blunt; the pervasive attitude in this state is that police officers are free to do basically what they please, and this attitude can be proven by visual observation on any day of the week.

But be careful before you whip out your cell phone and videotape what you see going wrong. On Sept. 27, 2008, Mark Hynes of Charlestown was not enjoying his own experience with the Boston Police and was then arrested for videotaping the local cops without their permission. There is apparently a law prohibiting videotaping without the permission of both parties; a law that should be canned so that taxpayers can absolutely videotape police actions, thus insuring proper conduct. I’d even give tax incentives for the action.

And though the scales of justice weigh heavily in favor of the blue wall, there’s one member of the state legislature fighting for the change we need.

The governor’s deputy press secretary Kimberly Haberlin declined any comment on this subject. But the Chairman of the House Committee on Public Safety, Michael A. Costello (D-Newburyport), has been speaking out and providing a needed leadership role. Costello said arresting citizens for an offense like Graham’s is not jurisprudent and should be corrected in the so-called CORI [Criminal Offender Record Information] reform legislation filed by the governor on January 11.

"Unless there’s a suspension for an egregious behavior such as operating under the influence it [driving with a suspended license] should not be an arrestable offense," said Costello, a former assistant district attorney in Essex County and now a practicing defense attorney. "It’s mind-boggling to think that an otherwise law-abiding citizen can be pulled out of their car, be arrested and jailed; to find out it’s a technicality or an out-of-state insurance issue. But that’s what happens. At a minimum we should look at whether or not that should be an arrestable offense."

Governor Patrick should jump on board and support Chairman Costello’s efforts to utilize the CORI bill as a vehicle for police reforms which will enhance the rights of citizens and put the brakes on police being able to arrest citizens for offenses which simply do not rise to the level of an incarceration event.

Kevin John Sowrdya is a political columnist who writes for South End News and Bay Windows, as well as other publications. He can be reached at kevinsow@aol.com.

Gitell gets PR job with new Speaker DeLeo

2009-02-06T14:39:00.007-05:00

If you can be known by the professionals who you surround yourself with, new Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D) of Winthrop may be favorably known as he pulls together a new team of seasoned political veterans to help him quarterback leadership of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Having won an easy victory over his opponent, House Majority Leader Rogers, DeLeo is reaching out for some cream of the crop appointments, and has succeeded in recruiting a few former public servants who've been living the good life in the private sector.

Former Boston Phoenix Columnist and Tom Menino Spokesman Seth Gitell will assume the post of PR man for the newly elected speaker.

Deleo served as House Ways and Means Chairman under departed Speaker Sal Dimasi and is known for his reserved and cautious leadership style. DeLeo has promised a transparent leadership style and has recently made a term limits proposal for the office of the House speaker. Gitell, hardly rash or rumbunctions, will make a good fit as DeLeo's communications lieutenant at the state house.

Gitell was highly respected by the press corp while serving as Boston Mayor Tom Menino's communications director, and appreciates the needs of his old colleagues in the press corp. having been on that side of the aisle as the well known scribe for the Phoenix. As a Boston writer, Gitell was highly respected for his probing and careful analysis of city and state politics. Gitell is also an attorney and since leaving Menino's staff has published a well read and noteworthy blog.

Boston mayoral contest '09

2009-02-01T22:22:00.001-05:00

Flaherty has his work cut out for him
by Kevin John Sowyrda
MySouthEnd.com Contributor
Thursday Jan 29, 2009

The race for mayor of Boston may not be a "show me the money" contest as much as it will be a "show me some new ideas" race. In that vein, Councilor Michael Flaherty’s novel, YouTube baptism as a contender for the city’s highest office is best taken seriously by the incumbent potentially seeking an unprecedented fifth term at a time when recession beleaguered voters have few reasons to embrace the status quo.

But first, a reality check for the at-large City Councilor, who has enjoyed broad support in the South End, which can be attributed to his progressive stance on key social issues. Menino will hardly go down in history like that Marlin Brando "could-ah been a contendah" film character. Menino has been the de jure contender for many years, beating a crowded field of articulate political pros in a special election in 1993, garnering more than 60 percent of the vote. He’s kept a bullet train pace since then, building a massive, urban political machine envied by other state politicos. To be perfectly blunt, Menino’s the George Patton of Massachusetts politics: brash, highly aggressive, savvy and armed with a legion of loyalists and an intimidating war chest of $1.4 million; in comparison, Flaherty has only $590,000 at his disposal.

"Flaherty’s an articulate candidate, but in a business where money can be the king maker Mayor Menino remains a formidable and respected incumbent," said Boston media consultant Jan Saragoni.

But this is not to say Councilor Flaherty need storm Pork Chop Hill to take the mayor’s office. What he may lack in political cash the young Flaherty compensates for with political cache, an unquestionably superior ability to communicate, and the physical appearance of youth and vitality which plays to the desire for change - presuming you subscribe to the theory of Menino Fatigue, as do I.

True, you can bet the job you might still have that the councilor from South Boston will not out raise His Honor anytime before November. Keeping pace with Menino’s money machine is a marathon no one’s going to win. This is business as usual, and should you doubt it just call former Menino opponents Maura Hennigan and Peggy Davis Mullen.

Hence, Menino Fatigue. Many in the city grow tired of a chief executive at times perceived as temperamental and thin-skinned and whose vision for the Hub seems limited to a nearsighted view of a posh, harbor side City Hall - an architectural plan now thankfully mothballed. And the potential fodder for a Menino challenger is actually quite fresh, coming from recent criticism in the news regarding the Mayor spending more than a cool million on political activities just as one member of his family is revealed for enjoying a special job arrangement with a major city developer.

Flaherty’s chances rest on the possibility that there’s a silent majority of Bostonians who are feeling intense pains in the pocketbook, which might trigger less than the normal level of tolerance for an incumbent issuing disjointed pronouncements and utilizing backroom political tactics from an already scandal-weary electorate.

But a coin flip reveals two factors that may make Menino his usual, formidable self. First, Flaherty, for all his oratorical skills, will have to overcome the political fact that Menino is a municipal version of Barack Obama, which is to say the mayor has consistently proven that he can raise huge sums of money to overwhelm any political opposition. And then there’s this: the mayor is a workaholic. I recall a conversation I once had with former mayoral communications director and South Ender Carol Brennan, who told me that no matter how early she rose for work, the mayor was already awake and 10 steps ahead of the rest of the staff. For Flaherty to outwork the mayor, he best prepare for 18-hour campaign days.

Those long campaign days will be consumed by a needed discussion on the economy, and on this front Flaherty has already outmaneuvered the Mayor by publicly opposing an increase in the city meals tax. While Menino is fighting for state approval to raise the meals tax by two percent, Flaherty has just come out swinging on the issue, arguing that making a night out on the town even more expensive in this economy is hardly a prodigious move. Flaherty’s right on this issue, and proves that he’s more in touch with the hurting local business owners who are already facing empty tables at Boston eateries.

So the race is on. The incumbent who’s everywhere, hardly articulate but hardly unapproachable, versus the renegade councilor who hails from a different generation with better prose but an inferior political machine to propel his candidacy. Sure, the odds-on favorite is the same mayor we’ve had for nearly 15 years. And yes, the era we have chronicled in Boston for so long is one where entrenched incumbents reign without question and are challenged only at the peril of the challengers.

But like many things in American politics of late, that glass ceiling may not be long for this world.

Pay for PLAY.......................

2009-01-15T17:23:00.000-05:00

Pay to play, Boston style.
by Kevin Sowyrda

If it's Mayor Menino's narcissistic intent to continue impersonating Marie Antoinette - minus the ornate garments and Austrian accent - I'll be the singular person in the Hub to tell you that an upset of historic proportions is in the offing in the upcoming mayoral contest where the incumbent has been considered all but invincible.

For some weeks now, while Bostonians are dodging pink slips more than meter maids, Menino has been apprehended - by the media that is - for living a life style that would put any self-respecting Bourbon Royalist to shame. In good times the chronicles of Menino's missions of self indulgence would serve as sufficiently grating. But at a point in history when we all feel like we're living a real life version of that iconic T.V. series the WALTONS, the news of one million dollars in Menino's political cash being lavished on the payroll patriots, and His Honor's highly paid detective son enjoying the benefits of what some are calling a no show job with a development company which regularly begs for mayoral favors, is just too naked for any apologetic press release to cover up.

It's a little difficult to calculate which sin better portrays the pugnacious and self centered politician. On December 29, 2008 the Boston Globe reported that Menino has spent a staggering $1.2 million from his political war chest over the past three years on all things trite and ridiculous, ranging from fabulous galas to endless dining events at the South End's Hamersley's Bistro. If the mayor's campaign chest was burning such a hole in his pocket, a cool million would have gone a long way to help people in greater need than the perennial political activists already fattened at the trough.

But perhaps the more egregious sin is not that difficult to consider. With unemployment certain to hit eight percent before the end of the quarter, Bostonians learn from a Boston Herald article that Tom Menino, Jr., His Honor's police detective son, was paid $137,000 in 2007. Though it's hard to digest how the mayor's progeny was able to reportedly earn 310 overtime hours, the average laid off Bostonian has a difficult task figuring why and how $137,000 isn't enough for the young lad to survive on, family and all. But apparently it's not. Hence Suffolk Construction enters this sordid, political play.

Suffolk's web page will tell you that they are dedicated to "exceptional client service." Apparently, Mayor Menino's son is treated better than any client could hope for. The royal prince works as a safety consultant for Suffolk for a sum of cash yet to be determined; and we are to believe this has no influence on city hall, where the fate of Suffolk Construction projects is deliberated on a daily basis by the mayor's minions.

The city legal counsel, William F. Sinnot, patronizes us by declaring there's no conflict of interest here and nothing for us to worry our pretty, little heads about. Memo to Mr. Sinnot - Illinois Governor Blagojavich should pray every day that you become the next U.S. Attorney for his state.

Sinnot is as much a sycophant as he is an incompetent lawyer. The Menino affair is absolutely a conflict of interest, even by the lowest bar of ethical standards. It's Boston's version of pay to play and it's a perfectly reasonable impetus for Bostonians to seek a new administration at city hall which will be committed to anything but business as unusual. In the interim, the state should investigate exactly who arranged for the princely sum for the mayoral prince; and what quid pro quos may have been negotiated. Since Attorney General Martha Coakley has disappeared (anyone who can find her doing something about state corruption is hereby offered a $1,000 cash finders fee) we should expect the U.S. Attorney - the only law enforcement office in Massachusetts which seems to care about ferreting out public corruption - to vet the situation.

And then there's this. There's no neighborhood in the Baystate where pay to play has garnered more headlines than in Boston's South End. With a former state senator and a current city councilor headed for trial on bribery charges, South Enders understand what bribery means. But there are two types of bribes, aren't there? There's illegal bribes, where getting caught taking cash lands you in handcuffs. Then there's legal, or acceptable, bribery, where taking cash in an indirect manner - such as a great job for your son - just lands you in the media dog house.

For my money, I see no difference between legal bribes and illegal bribes. It's all the same type of corruption and cronyism.

Behind the movie......

2008-12-24T22:12:00.001-05:00

Off screen, Sean Penn is no Harvey Milk
by Kevin John Sowyrda
contributing writer
Wednesday Dec 24, 2008

I got Milk. I mean to say, I’ve seen the flick about the life and times of one of America’s first openly gay elected officials. Milk was a panoply of sexual identity, bigotry, spiritual conversion, seizing power, having it stolen away, revenge and twisted closure. The movie is also about a producer’s denial regarding sensitivity to the real world activities of an actor who is polar opposite to everything Harvey Milk would be doing right now had he survived his assassination in 1978. Sean Penn playing the role of Harvey Milk is rife with ironies that should not be ignored.

The cast is far from homogenized (I simply couldn’t resist) and instead the integral players are found to execute unique acting techniques worthy of the complex characters they try, sometimes too hard, to bring back to life for a younger generation of gay citizens who probably think 1972 (Milk’s debut in San Francisco) was when Cleopatra and Caesar were still dating.

Penn’s acting shows few if any flaws, but I found it almost overshadowed, ironically so, by a mesmerizing supporting cast. That guy Lipton with the pile of too many blue cards would lecture me sardonically here, but I find supporting actors the stuff of real movies. James Franco, as Milk’s love interest Scott Smith, seemed to be handing in his straight card for gay credentials, pulling off amazingly credible intimacy moments with Sean Penn that must have required a special imagination that can be found only in a true artist’s heart. Kudos likewise to Josh Brolin, who seems to be the new character actor du jour. Having mastered the idiosyncrasies of President Bush for his lead role in the Oliver Stone drama W, Brolin is compelling for his on screen brooding as City Supervisor Dan White in Milk. The leader of San Francisco’s conservative community -- yes there was once such a thing -- White would kill Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and commit suicide about five years later. History will note that Dan White was dealing with more demons than he would inevitably find when sent to perdition, and Brolin projects that in the best supporting actor performance of the year. Milk’s message, aside from documenting for us the unlikely political rise of a gay, Jewish man in conservative 1970’s San Francisco is, I suppose, that though heroes are not immune to a .38 revolver, their memories are indeed held harmless to even the most sordid tools of temporal life. Agreed.

But had Milk’s colleague White been captured on that fateful morning of Nov. 27, 1978 while crawling into a city hall window with his gun, and the murders thus avoided, would Milk cheer the fact that his stunning story of unlikely ascendancy is being portrayed by Madonna’s ex? I think not.

In today’s world Milk would be just shy of 80. No one with his energy would dare leave us before blowing out at least 95 or so candles. Therefore, upon getting the word that he’s to be portrayed by Sean Penn, I dare to imagine a present day U.S. Senator Harvey Milk summoning the congressional physician for those paddles needed for heart resuscitation. A modern-day Milk would be raising holy hell -- a technique he mastered -- regarding the treatment of gay people at the hands of our hemisphere’s growing supply of dictator-thugs, and would consequently find Penn’s bipolar existence -- championing gay rights in one event while praising those who literally kill people for being gay in other events, an ugliness far greater than anything Milk had to face in San Francisco.

Sean Penn is a nonsensical hypocrite whose acting may have matured beyond Fast Times at Ridgemont High but whose politics reads as if it were written in the detention room at that fictional school. His recent claim to infamy is a hell bent effort to legitimize the regime of Venezuelan Despot Hugo Chavez, whose sanity is almost as questionable as his deplorable human rights record. Tell Hugo Chavez of Venezuela you’re gay? No problem. Hugo’s thugs cut your head off and then you don’t have to worry about being gay in Venezuela anymore. Easy.

As James Kirchik recently scribed in The Advocate, "The same week that Milk premiered in theaters, The Nation published a cover story by Penn based on interviews he conducted recently with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro, the dictators of Venezuela and Cuba respectively. The article is a love letter to the two men, defending them against all manner of Western ’propaganda.’ It hearkens back to the notorious dispatches penned by Westerners fresh from the Soviet Union who reported on the amazing progress of the workers’ paradise. These worshipful epistles, often published in The Nation, neglected to mention anything about the gulag, the ’disappearance’ of political dissidents, the Ukrainian famine, or any other such inconvenient truths about communism. Lenin termed the individuals who delivered these apologetics ’useful idiots,’ and Penn and his enablers are nothing if not that."

The nuclear bombs being launched at Kirchik, an assistant editor at The New Republic, are to be expected. The stereotype that card-carrying members of the gay community must also heap praise on any new Politburo infesting the Banana Republics of the world is too strong a misnomer to fight without opposition. But where’s the moral compass of sensible members of the gay community when personalities like Penn are suddenly canonized for what I’ll grant you is his masterful portrait of a gay icon, but not also called to task for embracing men -- Chavez and Castro -- who are known to support the imprisonment and torture of people for the "crime" of being homosexual?
By all means go watch Penn shine in the movie Milk. I recommend the Coolidge Corner Theatre as Brookline was founded for deep thought. But after falling in love with this production -- and you will -- send a snail mail to Penn care of his agent -- 2049 Century Park E Ste 2500, Los Angeles, CA 90067 -- and ask the actor/politician to stop making love off screen to people who hate us.

Harvey would have known better.

TURNER's bribery charge pales in comparison to other sins.

2008-12-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

Turner's other sins outweigh what he's charge with.
By Kevin Sowyrda

For my money, Chuck Turner being guilty or not of taking a thousand greenbacks for one liquor license is the least of his sins at the concrete bunker, also city hall. In fact, on the accusation of being on the dole I'll give the filibustering municipal hack a pass. In an Al Capone sort of way, Turner may find himself going to jail for a petty crime, and not the more severe escapades with which he’s burdened a district deserving so much better and needing so much more.

I first met Chuck Turner in the aftermath of 9-11, and not so much by choice. Like millions of others who were trying to make sense of the Hate Crime committed against our country, I was still glued to the electronic media coverage which seemed to induce more of a panic attack than understanding of why and who. In any event, there I was tuned to WRKO just a few days after the terrorist hijackings and City Councilor Chuck Turner was being interviewed. He gave such a sadistic twist to the turn of events, that the listening of it made me more ill than watching the still burning debris at Ground Zero.

Speaking to the station’s talk masters, Turner prosthelytized that Americans needed a time of serious introspection concerning the actions we had taken to provoke the attacks. The councilor shamelessly proceeded, to the obvious amazement of the talk show hosts, to give a stupefying lecture that could have been copied from the airwaves of Al Jazeera

The firestorm which ensued was the first time I had reason to consider that Turner was not a Democrat or a progressive or a civil rights activist or even a Socialist. Tuner was and is an Anarchist - by pure definition - holding views that are so divisive and beyond the mainstream that it remains difficult to understand how he'd even pass muster for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

As the pressure mounted on Turner to withdraw his incendiary comments about 9-11, first made on the RKO airwaves, I decided to call him and provide a simple ‘Q and A’ format. We titled the column, ‘Chuck Tuner in his own words,’ and as we sometimes say in the business, Turner simply dug the hole deeper.

As I asked him questions to which he provided simply flabbergasting responses, I kept reminding Tuner that we were on the record. I actually felt bad for someone saying the things he was saying. But sure enough, Turner stuck to his Machiavellian belief that America did indeed bear significant responsibility for the September terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and the crashed airliner in Western Pennsylvania. His philosophy was as draconian as it was overly simplistic; stating that America’s foreign policy had justified the surprise attack on unarmed civilians in the Homeland. It was probably the fist time in his life that Turner was on the same page as Evangelist Jerry Falwell; who echoed a tone similar to Turner's, saying that the sins of America had triggered the attacks, courtesy of God.

One person was recently quoted as calling Turner “a dedicated servant for the voiceless within Boston for over 40 years.” But in the aftermath of 9-11, Turner was hardly an advocate for the thousands of voiceless people who were murdered on that fateful day in September.

Perhaps having acquired a taste for expressing a Lyndon Larouche like view of the world, Turner’s twisted take on foreign policy extended to the Iraq War in the spring of 2004. That's when Turner accused American soldiers of raping Iraqi women. Turner’s and his compatriot, Sadiki Kambon, held a disjointed press conference inside city hall where they presented photos clearly showing men engaging in sex with women. The Boston Globe, over the objections of one of their own reporters, Donovan Slack, gave prominent coverage of Turner’s accusations complete with the photo he supplied. But days later the Globe called the photos falsified. WorldNetDaily reported they were lifted from a pornography web page called "Sex in War". The Globe said it had been duped and condemned Turner, as did six of his council colleagues who signed a formal letter of rebuke.

Turner's bizarre foreign affairs briefings would offend sensible constituents only slightly less than his other disturbing portraits of politics; clearly painted from a chaotic viewpoint of the world. After telling a Boston daily that Secretary of State Condi Rice working for George Bush was "similar in my mind to a Jewish person working for Hitler in the 1930s," Turner's obsession with race would only intensify and become more destructive at the local level.

As reported in an editorial by Sue O'Connell on October 2, Turner referred to State Senator Elect Sonia Chang Diaz as "someone from another community." The painful undertones of that statement should be obvious to anyone and it came at the heels of Turner's comrades actually berating Diaz for not being a person of color. The racial litmus test being put forward by Turner and those he played hard ball politics with was becoming highly volatile.

The legendary Conservative Barry Goldwater once said that, "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." Turner practices the same brash brand of politics, just from a polar opposite end. But he doesn't understand that extremism is indeed a vice; probably the greatest of vices.

It's extremism to compare the city council president to a member of the Ku Kluk Klan, as Turner's surrogate recently did. It's extremism to condemn U.S. support of Israel because the statements border on anti-Semitic. It's extremism to accuse former council president Michael Flaherty of supporting "institutional racism."

And yes, it's at least a little extreme if Chuck Turner took a one thousand dollar bribe.

Election aftermath......

2008-11-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

The dominos begin to fall
by Kevin John Sowyrda
MySouthEnd.com Contributor
Thursday Nov 6, 2008

The tidal wave is over and the ancillary affects are particularly acute here in Massachusetts, where Governor Deval Patrick’s career prospects are suddenly more grandiose, as is the case with the handily re-elected Senator John Kerry, whose name is increasingly bandied about as the next Secretary of State or ambassador to the United Nations. Every MacBook-carrying member of the blogosphere has already anointed Kerry as a new cabinet member and they can’t all be wrong. So brace yourselves for a big political domino affect in Massachusetts starting now.

For Kerry, Secretary of State is the granddaddy of consolation prizes and may assuage the soul of a complicated man who never quite recovered from the painful rejection that was the 2004 presidential race. But it’s the least President-Elect Obama can do. The Illinois senator’s keynote address at the Democratic Convention in Boston in July, 2004 was his inauguration as a figure of stature on the national stage. He’s president elect today, in part, because Kerry tapped him for that coveted and pivotal moment in time. Smart insurance policy by John Forbes that will now pay its dividends.

Look for Kerry’s resignation shortly and his departure creates a remarkable special election contest to fill his coveted six-year term. Bet money on Congressman Steve Lynch being the first to jump in the waters (he voted no on the bailout bill with this event in mind); and put nothing beyond the ’most eccentric one’, a.k.a. Bill Weld, former Republican governor of the Bay State now slumming at the Trump Tower in New York, to plunge in just like he dived into the Charles River when once promoting his environmental agenda (that jump caused him a serious ear infection).

Weld seems to be hopelessly and eternally bored, perpetually seeking some political mountain to climb no matter how high or intimidating. First there was the ill-fated task to become ambassador to Mexico, then his almost comedic bid for governor in New York; and I guess it’s our turn, again, to give Bill Weld a shot at yet another campaign.

Think about it this way. Some Brahmins play polo; Weld plays politics. In fact, the former governor and U.S. attorney is actually more bi-political than bipolar, despite what his critics often contend. Though Weld is the only politician in the country to endorse Mitt Romney one month and then Barack Obama a few months later, there’s nothing necessarily crazy about that. It’s just typical Bill Weld showcasing his unique philosophical pendulum.

But jocular comments aside, given recent scandals on Beacon Hill involving Democrats, voters may be quite receptive to a Weldian resurgence. If the former Cantabridgian is smart, he’ll run as an independent. I’d give him at least a one in five of taking it. Really.

Back on the Democratic side, Steve Lynch will not die of loneliness in the primary. Martha Coakley retains the loyalty of Middlesex County voters, a key building block for any statewide campaign. Coakley was a highly popular district attorney before taking the A.G. slot in 2006 and is an articulate communicator. Her viability is obvious. As former congressman and assistant D.A. Marty Meehan once told me, "voters love to vote for the guys [gals] who send the bad guys to jail."

Add to the probable special election contenders other hungry aspirants such as Congressman John Tierney, who would be the instant darling of the progressives. I can imagine Tierney wrangling for that key progressive block with Worcester Congressman Jim McGovern, who I think would be well advised to jump in the race.

But the guy who’d take it in a walk, Congressman Barney Frank, is an unlikely participant from my view. The Newton Democrat was gearing up for a special senate election in 2004 in the event John Kerry won the presidency. But since then Frank has assumed the coveted chairman’s post at the House Financial Services Committee. He’s credited with shepherding the recent bailout bill through congress using a combination of whit and natural abilities to make the argument, and he’s got to be doing something right when Saturday Night Light decides he’s a big enough player to parody. I don’t see Frank giving up his national profile for a freshman’s seat in the upper chamber.

Our own Congressman Capuano, you inquire? I doubt it. Michael Capuano has colder feet than an Eskimo as he proved when he was mentioned as a gubernatorial candidate before the advent of Deval Patrick. Some members of congress want to climb the ladder away from the tawdry task of being in perpetual campaign mode; the life of anyone holding an office affording a mere two year term. Others are perfectly content to sit there quietly without causing too much damage - and that would be our very own Congressman Capuano.

And then there’s this. Governor Patrick has gone from being a close confidant of a very charismatic U.S. senator to being a close confidant of the next leader of the free world. I think presidents tend to surround themselves with smart people that they can trust. That tells me Patrick will be jumping on the Acela to Washington.

Say hello to Acting Governor Tim Murray and yet another brewing contest: the governor’s race in 2010.

ELECTION EVE

2008-11-03T18:52:00.000-05:00

The Thursday night Fox News poll shows Sen. McCain down by a mere three percentage points, and for my money McCain's campaign has internal data showing hope in Pennsylvania, where recent comments by Congressman Murtha (i.e. Western Pennsylvania is "racist" and comprised of "red necks") have hurt Obama, or atleast the congressman himself who suddenly has an opponent gaining ground on him.

I'm convinced that everybody will watch Virginia on election night because the polls there close early, seven PM, and obviously it's an EST state, making an early call by the networks very plausible. If the major outlets quickly declare for Obama, I say McCain's toast. But if they still cant call it by nine PM, then that bodes well for McCain.

Overall, as of election eve I see McCain with about a five percent chance of pulling off an upset. It's clearly Obama's to lose......maybe it always has been. McCain's had too many bridges to cross - out spent, an anti-Republican sentiment not seen since the post Watergate 1974 midterm election, economic dynamics clearly favoring the Democratic Standard Bearer, and a huge volume of unabashedly pro Obama media coverage which has skewed perceptions in the race against the G.O.P. nominee. It's rather amazing that McCain has been able to hold out as well as he has, given this political environment.

Election preditions, Massachusetts and national

2008-10-29T21:07:00.001-04:00

Time to predict

by Kevin Sowyrda

Wilkerson vs. Chang-Diaz

Who ever thought State Senator Diane Wilkerson and U.S. Senator Ted Stevens would have so much in common. Then again, maybe they don't. I mean, Stevens was found guilty in Washington this week after a highly publicized trial, but at least he's still walking. But the Feds have so much less courtesy for mere state senators. They cuffed Wilkerson early Tuesday morning, without even the courtesy of a by your leave, and practically ransacked her Beacon Hill office while distributing a photo of the senator allegedly taking one of eight bribes from an undercover agent - and making the deposit in a sort of Victoria's Secret place.

Think about it this way. You're one week away from a Don Quixote sticker campaign and what's your schedule? Doing the perp walk on the six o'clock news. Hardly a photo finish for election day.

Wilkerson was already going down in flames in what the Boston Globe on Monday called her "sore loser" sticker campaign. But this is the proverbial nail in the coffin and no one should be so naive as to feign shock or even surprise. There was nothing remaining for Wilkerson but this humiliating culmination of events. Everything was always climaxing to this precise and tragic moment in time. One Boston city councilor said that after reading the indictment he thought it "read like an episode of the Sopranos."

The FBI sting operation only changes one thing. The job Mayor Menino likely had waiting for Wilkerson is now on very permanent hold. But this is not to say His Honor has entirely given up hope. Late Tuesday morning a mayoral aide, who asked not to be named, told me the mayor's position in the race remains unchanged. "He's not formally endorsed either candidate."

I'm frightened to imagine what it would take for the Mayor to finally break with Wilkerson. Or for that matter, Boston's morning talk gabber and former Speaker of the House Tom Finneran, who spent his Wednesday morning shamelessly ignoring the biggest news story in town in favor of an enthralling discussion on dog racing. Loyalty to old friends is one thing, but whatever happened to loyalty to the voters who've been so beguiled by a very cunning political insider?

And then there's this. Make no mistake that you're reading about the beginning of Boston's Watergate. There are more Subpoenas flying around Bean Town than pigeons, and if Senator Wilkerson starts to sing like a bird the criminal defense counsel business will be the new growth industry in the Hub. When you read the Wilkerson indictment carefully there's one sentence that indicates the state capital could be on the verge of the most far reaching political scandal since the Ward Commission ferreted out the bad apples in the 1980's. An unidentified Wilkerson assistant allegedly tells agents in the sting operation that other Boston officials needed money, and would accept it under the right circumstances. The following quote is what has people "sweating bullets" as a city hall staffer told me yesterday - "Ninety-nine percent of the times, these people would accept or receive these things from a source that they are comfortable with..."

Pam Wilmot of Common Cause summed up this brewing scandal most poignantly when she told me, "This isn't just any kind of politician, this is a person who was very talented; who advocated for justice and lots of great things. She was affective and could have done so many good things, but for her life to fall into the trash and for her public trust to be sold is such a tragedy."

Democrats get a super majority in the senate.

When a completely lovable lunatic like Al Franken is poised to beat incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman in Minnesota, you know the GOP has become the political version of Wachovia bank and is on the verge of political insolvency, which means holding less than 41 seats in the United States Senate. The most recent poll has Franken, the former SNL comedian, sprinting to the finish line. Add to that the following dreary news for beleaguered Republicans - Jeff Merkley leads Republican Gordon Smith in Oregon, Kay Hagan is croaking Republican Libby Dole in North Carolina (Dole deserves to lose considering she never deigns to steps foot in the state), Jim Martin is right on Republican Saxby Shambliss’ tail in Georgia and Ronnie Musgrove is pretty much dead even with Republican Roger Wicker in Mississippi; that’s if you can even conceive a Democrat winning in Ole Miss. The only good news for the G.O.P. is that Mitch McConnell seams to be holding a slight lead against Democrat Bruce Lunsford in Kentucky.

But Senator Ted Stevens' conviction this week on corruption charges could push the Democrats to the magic number 60 in the senate, something the G.O.P. can’t afford.

Before the verdict, Democrat Mark Begich was already even with the incumbent. The verdict makes Stevens reelection even more uphill thus helping the Democrats to sixty seats bragging rights next year. Historically, both parties have yearned to hold atleast a sixty seat majority as it prevents filibusters and other parliamentary maneuvers by the minority.

But the senate might also get another surprise, she being Sarah Palin. Consider the less than far fetched scenario. Stevens pulls off a miracle next week. Could happen. Then the senate ethics committee would have to rule on whether or not the convicted felon can keep his senate seat. Should Stevens be expelled, suddenly Alaska has a vacant senate seat; a sweet consolation prize for Governor Palin to grant herself should she lose the vice presidency. She’ll be the best dressed senator in history.

McCain vs. Obama

You tell me. Conventional wisdom crowned Obama long ago, and how can anyone beat a candidate who raises money like a healing preacher and gets better press coverage than the Pope. If McCain pulls off a Truman-esque upset, it proves Nixon’s theory that there really is a silent majority in America. In any event, watch Virginia. It’s in the Eastern Time Zone with an early closing time at the polls of seven PM. If the state is declared promptly as a big Obama win, it indicates a landslide. If the state can’t be called by eight O‘clock, it guarantees a later evening than all the belt way bandits expected and bodes well for the underdog.

Shaheen over Sununu

Who knew? Apparently New Hampshire Senator John Sununu is responsible for every human frailty up to an including the Ebola virus. Or at least that's the general theme of the merciless tidal wave of Jeanne Shaheen advertising which has so successfully eviscerated the incumbent Republican that he'll no more win this race than Elvis will rise from the dead. Ironically, Sununu's already being mentioned as one of the unfair casualties of an indiscriminating electorate ready to eat Republicans for breakfast. It was MSNBC Democratic commentator Chris Matthews who recently lamented Sununu's impending doom, citing him as one of the good guys in the senate. For once I agree with Matthews.

Question one

If the ballot initiative passes, it would supposedly terminate the present 5.3 percent income tax on wages, dividends, capital gains and interest. The scandal behind the ballot question is the conduct of the advocates. The Boston Herald reported that the petitioners for the income tax repeal have raised serious money, much of which they have generously placed in their own pockets.

But the voters aren't as focused on the sins of the ballot creators as they are on their own shrinking wallets. Question One gets sort of a protest vote of 45, maybe 46 percent, but nonetheless fails; thankfully.

As for getting high

That’s a different story. If you carry an ounce or less of pot, this ballot initiative - question two - means you're no longer a criminal but someone who could, instead, face a citation. The question will pass because with the crumbling economy, people need something to take the pain away.

Colin who??

2008-10-24T07:39:00.001-04:00

General Powell's impact on this election will be less than profound (like most endorsements), and one of the reasons is that he didn't make the argument for Mr. Obama as much as his Military Highness simply let us peek through a kaleidoscopic view of the McCain campaign; ironic given Powell's many years as a G.O.P. devotee. One would think Powell -having been showered with promotions by adoring Republican presidents - would have kept faith with McCain, with whom he's shared a close friendship for many years, like others in the Republican party. In fact, President Bush appointed Powell's son, Michael Powell, head of the FCC in 2001. It was one of the new president's first appointments.

But party loyalty is one thing and opportunism is another. Powell is a carpe diem kinda guy, putting all other considerations in a lock box. Apparently he didn't take offense to Obama attacking McCain for being computer illiterate and "out of touch". A war veteran himself, Powell should cringe at the thought of poking fun at someone, McCain, for a handicap; which prohibits him from typing and sending emails because McCain was tortured as a POW.

And, he being the nation's former diplomat-in-chief, one would have thought that as Powell was lecturing us this weekend on the negativity of the McCain movement, he would have first read the New York Times article which eviscerated Cindy McCain; noting everything from her miscarriages to her rehab for substance addiction. Even John Kerry has jumped on the negative bandwagon by ridiculing McCain's age, saying that his senate colleague wears adult diapers. Ouch!

Yup, the Obama camp is running a veritable Mother Theresa like campaign.

And then there's this alert to liberals suddenly in love with Powell; - he's the same guy who passionately made the case before the United Nations for the invasion of Iraq. As secretary of state, General Powell told the world, "the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."

Truth be told, there's more than just one Colin Powell. He's either Sybil with pants on or a guy who says one thing in private and yet another in public. In July of 2007 Powell told the Timesonline's Sarah Baxter that he did everything to stop the invasion. "I tried to avoid this war. I took him (Bush) through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers." But again, if this was the real world view of Secretary Powell, how could he have ever, in good conscience, lobbied the UN security council on the president's behalf and given the intemperate testimony advocating war, which in a speech broadcast everywhere but Krypton paved the way for invasion.

Just as he was once drowning in promotions and trinkets from Republicans, Powell is now sacrosanct in the eyes of liberals for breaking with his party and endorsing Obama. But how the general portrays his role in the Iraq war is reminiscent of what politicians have done a hundred times before. Mission fails, I told you so; mission succeeds, I helped mastermind it.

But is there a caveat? In other words, having just sliced and diced him have I anything sweet and cozy to say about the General? You betcha. On the endless debate of "don't ask don't tell," Bill Clinton's conception which still bans citizens from serving in the military as openly Gay, Powell has been a vocal critic of the antiquated policy. Obama's statements that Powell may well serve in an Obama administration is a clear and welcome indication that the day's may be numbered for "don't ask, don't tell."

In any event, I maintain what I've said for weeks; this race is still competitive, and that's even with Obama outspending McCain by a four to one margin. The tightening polling data is even more of a conundrum when one factors in the reality that this has been a turning point election for journalism, because this was the cycle when the media just let its hair down and didn't care how naked the bias was. Why do I feel like McCain gets a daily blackberry message from Hillary Clinton saying, "now you know what I went through in the Primarys", when the NY senator just couldn't get a break, because she wasn't simply challenging Obama, she was also running against a misogynist clan with names like Brokaw, Matthews, Olberman, Russert, Blitzer, Williams and pretty much any body else sitting under a klieg light and feeling a "thrill going up" their legs.

Life is a......well, you know.....when the guy your running against is so shamelessly coddled by the media; and apparently adored by former Republican and I guess former Iraq War advocate Colin Powell.

History Primer

2008-10-16T20:46:00.000-04:00

Kevin's History Corner
A Frequently Publication by
THEBOSTONMEMO.BLOGSPOT.COM

Ok, here's the deal. We won the Revolutionary War when the British surrendered in 1781 at Yorktown. We then governed under the Articles of Confederation...which in fact we already had been operating under as colonies in rebellion. The articles basically gave all powers to the 13 states, with no nationally elected president. Instead, there was a very weak congress which elected, from its members, a president of that congress. His powers were nominal at best.

In 1789 many Americans realized there needed to be a central government. Things were a mess. Each state was literally printing its own currency. It just wasn't a system of government that could work in any practical sense. People of this belief were called Federalists. THE CONSTITUTION we now live under was written in Philadelphia and General George Washington was subsequently elected unanimously as the first President of the United States, BUT not by the public/popular vote as we see it today. He was elected by "electors" - basically political leaders of the day - and won unanimously from the 69 gathered. They each represented their states. The first president elected with a known popular vote was John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. 108,740 was his vote tally.

The "presidents" under the articles of confederation (again, keep in mind they were elected just by the members of the confederation congress) are as follows...........
Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled
Samuel Huntington (March 1, 1781– July 9, 1781)
Thomas McKean (July 10, 1781–November 4, 1781)
John Hanson (November 5, 1781– November 3, 1782)
Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782– November 2, 1783)
Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783– October 31, 1784)
Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784– November 6, 1785)
John Hancock (November 23, 1785– May 29, 1786)
Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786– November 5, 1786)
Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787– November 4, 1787)
Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788– November 2, 1788)

Don't PANIC !!

2008-10-15T19:10:00.003-04:00

Dear Friends,
Today, our governor has asked us to keep the Ativan in the medicine cabinets and "not to panic." With the conviction of Franklin Roosevelt, the determination of Harry Truman, the inspiration of JFK and the sincerity of that great economic President James Earl Carter, His Excellency has asked us to be calm in tumultuous times. "I know you are anxious. There is real cause for concern. But not for panic. My office and your government is [sic] (proper pronoun should be 'are') here to help and we will keep governing," said Patrick.

These words were so timely and indeed needed. I was worried that the Commonwealth government might actually fail, like the Egyptian throne with Cleopatra. But the rumors of the governor running for that bunker in Framingham are clearly false. Despite the terror surrounding us and the Barbarians at the gate, Our Beloved Leader (credit to my North Korean contact) has made it clear that He (hence forward, all pronouns giving reference to O.B.L. will be capitalized) will steer us through this crisis and inspire us to know in our hears and minds that we must NOT PANIC.

So, my message to you, my friends, is the same..............NOT TO PANIC. Put down your guns and bibles (not necessarily in that order), drop the inhibitions to riot and burn innocent property - or personages - and just hunker down and be calm.

God Bless Our Beloved Leader.

Don't PANIC !!

2008-10-15T19:10:00.001-04:00

Pickles enjoying her Thursday.

2008-10-09T22:45:00.002-04:00

Pickles enjoying the sunshine.

The second debate.

2008-10-08T07:11:00.003-04:00

I think McCain gave a highly energized performance at last night's second Presidential Debate.

McCain played more offense, obama more defense. I think while McCain was succesful at labeling obama as a fiscal liberal, and partisan, obama was successful at labeling McCain as a deregulator, which is hardly a good thing to be known as today. Frankly, the only new information I acquired was that we paid three million dollars for a projector in Chicago ...... and I think Staples would have been a better deal for the folks in the windy city.

In McCain I saw a higher level of passion last night. He took every opportunity to show the juxtopositions between himself and Obama on everything from taxes to nuclear power. in point of fact, Obama was rather low key last night in comparison, which was an irony.

At exactly ten o'clock McCain may have won the debate when he said, "we don't have time for on the job training", this after a very poetic statement about world affairs. "A cool hand at the tiller" was another great line he interjected a few minutes later on the subject of when to employ the military forces of the United States.

Actually, there was indeed something new....relatively new....McCain supporting 300 billion dollars to basically buy down mortgages so that people can keep their homes. I think that grabs a lot of people and its certainly a revolutionary position for a gop standard bearer.

Obama wasn't eviscerated last night, but McCain had a better town meeting debate in that he showed some real fire in his belly.

And don't jump on the bandwagon of conventional wisdome. The polls showing an Obama steamroller are far from realistic. This race isn't over.

The race for president.

2008-09-21T21:38:00.000-04:00

Obama and McCain are both rolling in the mud, but there’s still hope.
by Kevin John Sowyrda
contributing writer
Wednesday Sep 17, 2008

The only way the presidential election could become more surreal would be for MSNBC to replace deposed election anchor Keith Olbermann with Rod Serling, the deceased host of the iconic Twilight Zone television series. Yeah, it’s getting that creepy.

Hence my disappointment. The "different" campaign I was promised by the senator from Illinois and the "honorable" and "end to divisive politics" approach I was also promised by Senator McCain have been discovered to be commodities about as bankable as the holdings at Lehman Brothers. It’s become a dreadful and ’B’ rated sci-fi series, frightening for its dark undertones, and ineffective because this is the year voters will not embrace the same old, sardonic and down-right nasty advertising tactics which were the successful staple of yesterday’s presidential aspirants.

The messages, sadly, haven’t been different; but this election remains nonetheless unique from the perspective of the electorate, which is in a very different mood than just four years ago. It’s like Joe and Mary Voter trotted to Walgreens and got a prescription of serious meds. Amidst economic news that would put F.D.R. into the fetal position, everybody is looking for something pretty serious in this election, which excludes the same old finger-pointing and cheap-shot ads.

Barack Obama proved that his "different" campaign often resembles the dusted off playbooks of his predecessors when he decided to put his legally required seal of approval (remember that annoying ending to the ads, "my name is such and such and I approved this ad") to one TV spot that’s high on the incredulous chart. Yeah, John McCain doesn’t use a computer; the reason being that about half a decade’s worth of broken bones make it less than easy for the former P.O.W. to type. That ad is not worthy of you, Mr. Obama.

But not to be outdone by a fellow negative politico, Mr. McCain takes a quick, headfirst dive into the compost pile and runs an ad suggesting Obama wants to basically take kindergarten kids on a colorful tour of advanced sex ed. As Mike Dukakis would have said, "That’s bologna!" According to factcheck.org the bill did "not support explicit sex education for kindergartners" and contained an "age appropriate" proviso. That ad is not worthy of you, Mr. McCain.

So as the financial markets are imploding, is this juvenile, bipartisan rhetoric the best we can get as political consumers? I mean, it’s like showing up at Lock-Ober and finding grilled cheese on the menu. And the anxiety of it all is beyond just financial for members of the gay community. McCain, himself an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has recruited a running mate who’s conceivably even more hostile to the principle concerns of gay voters. On gay rights issues Governor Palin makes former Governor Romney look like a member of the Gay Pride Committee.

Accordingly, one might imagine that Obama is still the candidate of choice for readers of this space, which begs the imperative inquiry, what is he doing wrong (key polls show McCain with a slight lead in the race) and what can he start doing right, while still being loyal to the left?

First, Obama needs to pretend Sarah Palin’s parents never consummated their marriage. Her name should never leave the Obamian lips again, and if it does his campaign staff should administer water boarding. He’s running against the guy with white hair, not the lady who looks like she popped out of a Lens Crafters ad.

Second, as Boston’s best political consultant Dan Payne told me in an interview last week, Obama must focus his stump speeches even further on the argument that McCain’s election is a de facto third term for George Bush. I agree.

Third, Obama needs to look in the mirror and realize that he’s got a serious and fundamental problem on his hands. In an economy as precarious as this one, Barack should be riding a cozy ten-point lead. It’s Politics 101 that swing voters tend to see the Democratic Party as the foxhole of choice during an economic storm. But it ain’t playing out that way, and the reason is because Obama is still, if you’ll pardon me, not Hillary Clinton. You’re telling me she wouldn’t be croaking McCain by about ten points in this particular environment right now?

Obama’s compensation- - other than jumping back in time to Aug. 23 to pick Hillary as his running mate, as he should have done -- is to hit hard on the economy with a barrel of appetizing specifics, including proposals to extend and increase unemployment insurance and revise the so-called COBRA law so as to reduce rates the unemployed pay to retain their health plans.

Meanwhile, the clock ticks loudly till the first debate. In a few days you’ll see what no one has seen before; a person of color debating the Republican nominee at the first presidential debate. The juxtaposition is huge and Obama must seize the moment with substance and avoid the negative. In other words, if McCain’s not going to keep his word to run a positive campaign, at least Obama can keep his word.

The electorate should then reward him for that noble deed.

Who the heck is Ed O'Reilly

2008-09-07T08:35:00.004-04:00

For those of us who have no life, we were glued to the Sunday morning - 8:30 am start time - debate between veteran U.S. Senator John Kerry and his who the heck are you challenger Ed O'Reilly, who instantly reminds me what a Kennedy child would look like if one parent were from the venerable clan and the other parent was Yoda from Star wars.

But less I digress, John Kerry did not beat the former Gloucester City Councilman Ed Reilly. John Kerry ate Ed O'Reilly for breakfast - proving my theory that the only mistake the Kerry people made was agreeing to a debate scheduled at a time and date that facilitated a zilch audience - for had most citizens watched this episode of the awkward neophyte attacking the seasoned legislator, Kerry's inevitable September 16 Primary win would be over 80 percent, instead of just above a mere 70.

For every bomb tossed Kerry's way from a very unpolished O'Reilly, Kerry shot back with a Nuke. O'Reilly's vagueness and broad strokes were left circumspect when placed against the calculated specificity and lengthy list of accomplishments which could be put on the debate table by the unflappable Kerry. Bottom line - O'Reilly debating Kerry made me realize what it would look like if I played golf with Tiger Woods.

If there was a Seminole theme to the debate - which gave even the motley crew of Hillary Clinton fanatics reason to vote Kerry even though (in my humble can't prove it opinion) they put O'Reilly on the ballot as pay back for Kerry being an early Obama supporter - it was O'Reilly's lame attempt to diminish Kerry's tenure in the senate because; from O'Reillys Cape Anne view-point the senator's committee appointments are paltry. With another nuclear response, Kerry listed a plethora of impressive committee assignments and reminded his shaky opponent that Massachusetts has received more than half a billion for small businesses thanks to Kerry's role on the small business committee in D.C.

Predictions on this race are as easy as reviewing the menu at McDonalds. Kerry bests O'Reilly in a seventy-thirty shellacking, and after ridding us all of the ridiculous tirades of his nominal G.O.P. opponent, the man from Louisburg Square either returns to the senate as part of a solid Democrat majority, or if Mr. Obama pulls off the big win, becomes a likely pick for secretary of state - a job he'd excel at.

Obama-Biden get tough

2008-08-23T19:48:00.002-04:00

I don’t know that I buy the argument from Citadel Obama that the VP choice was made a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I think Obama’s Praetorian guard knows how poorly their Saviour performed at the Saddleback Church event on all things religious held on August 16, when the Illinois senator could not answer the question that any step rep candidate would know to be prepared for; namely, when does life begin. Obama’s shocking response what that the answer was above his pay grade (by the way, senators make $154,700 a year with sweet benes).

As Republican Peggy Noonan just wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "Everyone who ever bought a pack of condoms knows when life begins."

So suddenly, the Obama campaign knew that just as voters were re configuring their radar from scanning the sand dunes to, instead, surveying the political turf, Obama blew it big time and I think the Great One's handlers decided a heavy weight, seasoned, bare knuckled partisan had to be the Democratic vp choice - and that’s exactly who Deleware Senator and former presidential aspirant Joe Biden is. He’s brash, he’s blunt, he’s smart, even though he’s more often wrong than right, and in politics he doesn’t take prisoners …he eats them.

This choice signals a big switch for the guy who was going to bring us a gentler and kinder campaign. Look for the Obama Biden ticket to start hurling nuclear tipped missles at the GOP starting with Monday evening's spin fest in Minneapolis.

If you thought the Primary season was harsh; you ain't seen nothing yet.

Obama's still the underdog

2008-06-30T21:28:00.001-04:00

For Obama it’s still an uphill fight
by Kevin John Sowyrda
contributing writer
Thursday Jun 26, 2008

In recent days the new titular head of the Democratic Party (sorry Nancy) has been sporting an Obama-ized version of the presidential seal, to the utter revulsion of Republicans and even to the dismay and wincing curiosity of some more prudent Democrats who think it a little arrogant. You might remember what happened to the Patriots when Mayor Menino planned a celebration parade before the first down of the Superbowl. Bad karma is bad karma.

And out of this smug attitude I see a problem for the natural constituencies of Barack Obama, which include the gay community, a voting block increasingly mentioned by all the media for its political power. McCain could win at the heels of our own complacency, and with him would undoubtedly come the likes of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, in some incarnation or another. That’s more frightening than Bela Lugosi showing up at Club Cafe and a great incentive to put any euphoric sense of pending victory in a lock box.

And yes, in this space we once extolled some McCain virtues in the event that the November ballot provided the painful choice of Hillary Rodham Clinton versus the venerable Arizona senator. I was prepared to hold my nose and vote for the war-hero and political maverick in preference to that now deceased and buried political dynasty I could never trust. I present as evidence to the court of public opinion the absurd, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," policy, which marked the point in time when I gave up the Clintons like a bad date.

But now we have the menu I prayed for and it’s better than shrimp and escargot. My Primary campaign candidate of choice pulled it off. Barack brilliantly bested the overwhelming odds and outmaneuvered the battle tested political duo. The newest problem is, Senator Obama is enjoying the final victory lap before he’s put his running shoes on, inventing his trappings of office and apparently gloating over presidential opinion polls showing him blitzkrieging the Republican in November, even though such data is bound to change dramatically in the ensuing weeks and can also be suspect for reasons of race.

For my money, Barack is doing what everybody loves to do with John McCain, and that is to write him off as the post-World War II George Patton; a great man with no more wars to fight and no more fight left in him.

But I sense that McCain does indeed have the stuff for another battle and the upcoming town meetings (still being negotiated) are potentially a turning point event Obama may be entering with overconfidence.

For all his strengths - Obama is the best communicator the Democrats have fielded since J.F.K. and he’s all the better for having jousted with Clinton - he faces a daunting task in November that Camp Obama seems to be forgetting as they watch their West Wing DVDs so they’ll know how to behave in January.

Barack needs to campaign as if he’s the underdog, as does the gay community, which may still see a McCain-Romney ticket.

For example, the senator from Illinois must still improve his connections with many key voter demographics, including the elderly, Roman Catholic males, working class females and Hispanics. There’s time to make the pitch, but not if precious hours are spent sitting on laurels and inventing new presidential seals of office.

And then there’s the proverbial elephant in the parlor. Since racism will sadly be the last disease we cure in this little Republic of ours there are many Americans who will, behind that curtain, vote against a guy with dark skin. It’s shameful but it means Obama will have to compensate the same way he did when the Clintons shamelessly played the race card in South Carolina - by working hard and taking nothing for granted.

Don’t look for any clear evidence of racism in the polling data, even though the racism is clearly out there. This theory was painfully proven in 1982 when Tom Bradley, the popular African American mayor of Los Angles, enjoyed a commanding lead in the polls in his race against George Deukmejian, a Caucasian, for governor of California. But on Election Day Bradley was buried. What happened to the polls? The same thing you’ll see this year under the similar circumstances: many white voters are going to lie to pollsters when they say they support a black man, this time named Obama, thus inflating the numbers better than any oil speculator could do.

The real test may come shortly in a series of town meetings proposed by Senator McCain. I think Obama will likely attend the foray, which plays to McCain’s strength of speaking with small groups, instead of having to rally them to exuberance in a large crowd setting, a talent Obama has clearly mastered. I sense Obama is overconfident and may forget that in this format McCain could well score some serious points and quickly narrow the polling gap between the two major party nominees.

First, McCain isn’t going to run away from Iraq. Quite the contrary. I sense that his savvy and bold move will be to link our presence there to a continued flow of needed crude oil. He’ll put it to Obama this way. "Okay, senator, you want to pull out of Iraq. Fine. But what will you do the day Iran moves in, cuts off our oil supply, and, consequently, Americans pay ten dollars a gallon for gasoline?"

It’s going to be a peppering of foreign policy brainteasers designed to show McCain as Henry Kissinger and Barack, in stark contrast, as a freshman at the Tufts School of Diplomacy.

Given the gas crisis it would be a brilliant strategy for the Republicans. To link a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from Iraq to a dangerous spike in gas prices would be to make McCain ironically strong on an issue, which has heretofore been one of his Achilles heel.

Naturally, the scenario I provide is hypothetical. It’s next to impossible to predict the specificity of the debate strategy McCain will employ in the coming weeks and whether or not it will resonate. But my money says McCain’s about to start playing a very aggressive game of politics, utilizing his years of experience against an opponent whose own strengths don’t include, well, years of experience.

Those who are writing John McCain’s political epitaph may want put a cap on the ink well. Being written off is just what McCain relishes. That way we’ll be unprepared when he comes out swinging.

And if McCain goes to the White House, in a cabinet seat or better I predict Mitt Romney will sit.

That’s plenty of reason to stay sharp and get out the vote for Obama.

President Russert???

2008-06-17T19:44:00.001-04:00

Tim Russert made Mitt Romney.
By Kevin John Sowyrda

There isn't a journalist on the block who had a greater impact on gubernatorial politics in Massachusetts than did NBC’s Tim Russert, whose recent death has become a national news event. Allow me to explain, with some necessary preambles.

First, though I disagree with the journalistocracy that Tim walked on water and had a direct line to the office of Jesus Christ, I’ll grant you that he was a quick study, cresting far above the horrendously average people trying to pass as reporters at his network; and he clearly had the ability to connect with viewers so that his program, Meet the Press, reportedly profited his bosses a hefty fifty million dollars annually.

But how can you can not be above that sceptered sway, as Shakespeare would say, when your colleagues are so dreadfully mired in self absorption and the pursuit of mediocrity. Take a peak at the Peacock and you’ll wince at White House Commentator David Gregory, who once called in to the Don Imus show from India, clearly five sheets to the wind. And then there’s former sports babbler Keith what’s his name from MS-whatever, whose new ratings grabbing technique is to rant and rave at the camera like he just got bad news about his 401k balance, followed by an abrupt hurling of papers into the air as his program, watched by somebody out there, floats, mercifully, to a commercial break. (Keith is presently competing with his nemesis at Fox, Bill O’Reilly, to see who can be the most trite and ridiculous cable creature. By a razor thin margin, Keith is beating the other blowhard, over at Fox.)

Yeah, compared to the plants they grow at NBC, Tim Russert was definitely the hybrid crop. But let’s put a needed check on some of the hyperbole. On Sunday morning Tom Brokaw unabashedly pronounced of his late colleague, “Had he gone in to politics he certainly would have been President of the United States (emphasizing the word certainly).” I know they’re mourning over at Rockefeller Centre right now, but could we please confine the commentary to some semblance of Earthly reality?

And though I never needed to know about his father and personal life - I’m interminably old fashioned in that I heartily agree with Brian Lamb at CSPAN that a true journalist is someone who never makes them self the story for any, any reason - I’ll take Mike Barnicle’s word as solid gold that Tim was indeed the proverbial nice guy and I’m certain that St. Peter has found the NBC broadcaster, taken from us about thirty years too soon, a suite in Heaven superior to what I’ll ever see.

All that said, it was the late Mr. Tim Russert who unexpectedly gave birth to Mitt Romney’s political ascendancy and changed history in Massachusetts, hardly for the better if your have any progressive leanings.

It was October, 2002 and Democrats had every reason to aspire to end what already had become the Republicans’ iron grip on the governor’s office. State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien had pulled off a stunning primary win and her opponent was not the Weldian Republican voters had developed a comfort level with, but instead, in stark contrast, the very conservative Utah Republican, Mitt Romney, already known to state voters for his failed bid against Ted Kennedy in 1994. On paper, this was the chance to bring the conservative Democrats and the plethora of un-enrolled voters back to the Democratic fold.

Tim Russert didn’t let it happen. For a man who was never on a mission, Russert came to Suffolk University that Autumn carrying a dozen Garmins and a pre ordained strategy to moderate the big debate; by the end of which O’Brien was severely scathed, never to regain her footing.

Like George Patton rolling toward Berlin, Russert pummeled O’Brien on her pro-choice credentials using such an arcane inconsistency in her position that the attack was as bizarre as it was ironically affective. Russert brought to the attention of the world that O’Brien’s opposition to parental consent for a young woman’s abortion was an oddity given the fact that a Massachusetts law required same for a minor to obtain services from a tattoo parlor.

Granted, O’Brien had been poorly prepared for the debate. But the Democratic nominee for governor wasn’t given a breather by the relentless Russert. I remember watching the pouncing he gave her and I realized what it would be like if Richard Simmons had ever gone into the ring with Muhammad Ali. It just wasn’t pretty.

The questions delivered to Romney by the illustrious Russert were, well, hardly as sharp. One might have thought an appropriate Russertism would have been something like this. “Governor, you’ve recently run advertisements attacking Shannon O’Brien in her role as treasurer, but isn’t it true that your own campaign is being run by the two deputy treasurers from the past Republican administration there, during which time more than ten million dollars was embezzled by the people they appointed?”

Russert didn‘t ask it, even though I was shouting it at my T.V. set.

A devout, Jesuit Roman Catholic, Russert used abortion as a wedge issue in the O’Brien-Romney debate - rather ironic, given the fact that wedge issues are usually used by the candidates and not the moderator. As the famous quote from one of the partisans at the event went, Shannon lost to the moderator.

The rest is history. Romney sailed into the governor’s office with a lot of wind blown in his sails from Tim Russert‘s slanted moderating, resulting in four years of Big Dig largesse, presidential positioning and interminable antagonizing of the Gay Community. Tim went on to other debates, and for some reason a pattern developed - the other women were treated no better than Shannon.

Just ask Hillary Clinton what she really thinks……….privately, in a few months when the hysteria dies down.

Time to consider the Nuclear facts

2008-06-12T12:11:00.000-04:00

Just thank Paul Gunter the next time you fill up
by Kevin Sowyrda
MySouthEnd.com Contributor
Thursday Jun 12, 2008

You want to know who to send a Hallmark to in thanks for the present energy crisis, which may soon make the "malaise" and gas rationing of the Carter years seem like an economic stroll in the park? No problem - just address your envelope to one Paul Gunter, who in 1976 glued together a rag-tag group of misinformed radicals and dubbed them the Clam Shell Alliance.

All 1000 or so of the shellers succeeded in putting nuclear power on the back burner in New England, using propaganda, misinformation, fear mongering and naked media manipulation - to such a flawless and permanent affect that I’m thinking, in retrospect, that they must have infiltrated the ’70s via a time machine from the Bush White House. Or maybe I’ve been watching too many episodes of Dr. Who.

But before the Karl Roves of the world were anybodies, the Clam Shell Alliance invented the shady tactics of manipulating public opinion and they are long overdue the credit they so richly deserve for a modern day America that is completely dependent on polluting fossil fuels. It’s all so painfully ironic when one considers were it not for the propaganda, we could have had safe, clean and abundant nuclear energy and the more robust economy that would have been the fringe benefit.

The clam shellers reached their apogee in April of 1977 when, in full military fashion, they stormed the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, then under construction on New Hampshire’s Atlantic coastline. You would have thought they had taken the Bastille and their hyperbole was effective in indoctrinating an impressionable public that the expansion of nuclear power equaled Armageddon.

While the nuclear power industry in this part of the United States has yet to fully recover - Gunter’s army even succeeded in bankrupting the plant’s builder, Public Service of New Hampshire - Seabrook is cranking out more-than-ever needed electricity today, keeping the lights on for about 900,000 households, according to their web page. And Paul Gunter and his vocal minority were wrong regarding their doomsday predictions delivered via bullhorn in Eastern New Hampshire. According to the World Association of Nuclear Operators, Seabrook’s safety record is unblemished, and when I toured the facility I found the security at the plant to
be nothing less than overwhelming.

But Gunter and his ilk clearly succeeded in making their long term mark, which you can see at the gas station today. The public was scared, as it can so easily be frightened, and in the aftermath of the guerilla advertising tactics of groups like the Clam Shell Alliance, we all sat back on the petroleum cushion just like Gunter and his cabal wanted, perfectly content to damage the environment more than any China Syndrome could have.

Now, the Gunters of the world have disappeared. I’ve yet to see them giving commentary on Exxon Valdez or the Department of Energy statistic that in 1999 alone electric power plants puffed about two billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air, complimented by 19 million tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides - all the delightful ingredients for global warming.

And this is to say nothing of waste oils that dirty the oceans with more than 700 million gallons of oil each year.
Ah, yes, the virtues of keeping all those evil nuclear plants segregated in France.

And speaking of France, that’s where they’re belly laughing at us Americans: Nearly 80 percent of the French power grid emanates from third generation nuclear power facilities, leaving their petrol products much more free for automobiles. France has 59 nuclear reactors and consequently the cleanest air in Europe. What they don’t have is a lot of New Englanders having panic attacks because there will be no way to afford heating oil this winter, unless Joe Kennedy can quickly clone himself about 10,000 times before October.

Simply put, we’ve screwed ourselves royally. As per American tradition and protocol, the smallest minority with the biggest mouth set the nation’s agenda. Most lawmakers went into the fetal position when they saw the impact in the polling data. Your typical Joe Politician didn’t dare speak out to educate the public to the real facts, so the Paul Gunters of America discovered they had amassed power completely disproportionate to what should have been the reality of their shoddy research and inability to appreciate clean-energy technology.

And what is this new, clean technology commonly referred to as third generation nuclear power? As I’m still not the provost at M.I.T., my description will probably be less than perfect. But simply put, the new reactors are as different from those first built in the U.S. as a 2008 Toyota Prius is from Henry Ford’s original model T. They are more fuel efficient and vastly superior in safety.

If Governor Deval Patrick wants to put his name on the political map, and more importantly save us all from ourselves, he’ll begin an immediate public-private partnership to expand nuclear power in Massachusetts and debate - head on - the Paul Gunters of the world who will no doubt come out of retirement so as to keep us all misinformed. But I pray his years of fame are over. Given present fuel prices, the public may finally be willing to listen to the real facts about nuclear power and follow the lead of the French

Potomac Primary

2008-02-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

Romney in 2012? I think not.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Why do I feel like singing, "Ding, dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch!" This jingle of days gone by, minus Judy Garland in the ruby slippers, could well be the appropriate song for me or even the proverbial fat lady signing, especially if she were Gay and receiving the news that Mitt Romney's campaign has gone the way of Comp USA.

The former Bay State governor "suspended" his bid for president last Thursday having spent about 34 of his personal millions for a grand total of 4 million votes. He demanded to the end that he was the true conservative in the race and those who know him best would be hard pressed to take exception.

As the governor of the Commonwealth, Romney reversed the long trend of his moderate Republican predecessors who had embraced Gay friendly policies. Governors Weld, Cellucci and even Swift had all extended a hand of friendship to Gay men and women in Massachusetts. Romney, in stark contrast, tried to show us the door. Instead we showed him the door.

Learning that Romney, at least for the time being, won't be lifestyle lecturing is almost as rejuvenating to the sole as discovering that Rush Limbaugh has donated his vocal chords to the Smithsonian

But Romney, just like a good case of the flu, will look for a come back. He figures his dream come true is spelled O-B-A-M-A. Any one smart enough to invent a giant stationary store (say what you want about our former guv, but Staples is truly Heaven) is smart enough to see the tidal wave cresting in the distance. President Obama is purely inevitable because three forces have coalesced, and combined; and they are simply unstoppable in a Democratic election.

Romney knows what we know. The press adores Obama and will not offend him. Second, Obama profits from a historically inevitable white guilt complex which fuels his candidacy and gives him political longevity. Third, Obama proves true the oldest lesson in American politics; that a great communicator doesn't have to count his votes, but weigh them.

With fresh wins in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia under his belt, Obama marches into Ohio and Texas like Sherman did Atlanta, minus the scorched Earth policy of course. He's his own army not to be stopped; and when - not if, but when - he wins Ohio and Texas on March 4, you will see an icing on the cake on March 5. To make it all quite official and tidy, the super delegates will, in near plurality, announce their fealty to Obama, thus handing him the nomination, de facto if not de jure.

The only thing more interesting to watch that this, will be the inevitable March 6 press conference when Hillary Clinton does something she's never had to do before - concede. Pondering how Hillary gives a concession speech is like contemplating Mayor Menino playing Shakespeare's Hamlet. It won't be pretty.

And Come October this year, the dinner table conversations from the South End to the Castro will be about the amazing juxtaposition of watching the elderly and often laconic John McCain debating the perfectly polished and religiously refreshed Barrack Obama. The visual impact in and of itself will hand the junior senator from Illinois the popular vote and the electoral college.

But in the bushes in Belmont, Mitt Romney will be hiding. While sipping tea with the illegal immigrants who stubbornly manicure his shrubbery - maybe they do his hair as well - he'll pray for painful inflation, intolerable unemployment, shaky stocks and maybe a national security crisis to top it all off.

Some people will say that God doesn't answer the prayers of Mormons. I have no idea. But I'm sure God answers the prayers of good men. Since Barrack looks to me like a good, praying man, 2012 won't provide Romney with any window of opportunity.

The former governor of Massachusetts will be perpetually stuck in the private sector, probably on orders from the family to earn back that 34 million wasted on a campaign short on substance and long on combative, Puritanical preaching.

Brady's baby.

2008-01-29T19:40:00.001-05:00

Hugging the pigskin, but not the baby.

by Kevin John Sowyrda

I don't' know where Tom Brady's been hiding, but I do know where his baby is and where the father isn't. Tom's baby is the little secret of Boston society which apparently no reporter will have the temerity to querie the Patriot's Quarterback on, who at this precise moment in time has been elevated in status comparable to that of God, or maybe the next best thing.

Quite Frankly, before leaving Bean Town on Sunday, had any Bostonian seen Pope Benedict walking between them and Tom Brady, His Holiness would have had hoof prints on his face as crowds stampeded to view the third coming of Christ; New England's ace quarterback, part-time hunky male model, and father in absentia.

The 'B' word (baby) not withstanding, Tom's not just at the top of his game, he's at the top of the world. Sir Edmund Hillary never saw heights like this, and it probably doesn't get any better in the world of fame and acclaim and adoration. If the broad smiled Tom announced for president on the Democratic side today, Bill Clinton would probably beg to be the campaign manager and Mrs. Obama would likely jump on board to write the ads. Really.

In this uber sports compulsive town...make that uber sports compulsive nation.... where jocks are literally worshipped like Buddha, Tom Brady is a jock's jock, pure as the white driven snow. New England's Q.B. loves his pig skin, tosses it better than anyone ever has, and makes us feel just a little bit better about our boring lives as we live extemporaneously through him, dazzled for some ridiculous reason because the boy from San Mateo, California can run fast and throw.

But with all do respects to the Pontiff of pig skin, where the Hell is the little bundle of joy? And, why can't we just ask the following questions at those Foxborough Press conferences where I've learned more about the Human groin than I thought possible outside the marbled edifice of Harvard Medical School.

How about 90 year old sports reporters like Bob Lobel putting the cards on the table with the following inquiries at the next sports gaggle, where Tom likes to sport that winter cap despite the pressing 100 degree temperature of all the klieg lights.

"Excuse me, Tom, but as you're someone whose a phenomenal role model to young people everywhere, can you tell us what you are doing to play an active role in your new baby's life?"

or,

"Excuse me, Tom, but since the paparazzi would not have missed your jetting off to California anymore than they'd miss Martians landing in Central Park, can you tell us why you're spending zilch time with your son?"

or,

"Excuse me, Tom, but since women are a huge constituency to the Kraft financial empire, where the football team franchise is now the crown jewel, can you tell us if they might start to be turned off a little were the press to remind them that after making a baby on one coast, you quickly jetted off to Europe with super model what's-her-name from an airport on the other coast? Is this how men should treat women and is this how the young men in American high schools should behave when it's their turn on the gridiron of modern romance?"

But the Q and Q we're exposed to is instead, dreadfully oblivous to Brady's painfully obvious flaws. How will you trounce the Giants, is the ankle a problem, and when was the last time you actually saw your jet-set super model Gisele Bundchen eat?

But in my playbook of old fashioned values - they being that paternal responsibility is equal to maternal responsibility - Brady's Achilles heel going into the football game of the century is hardly his ankle. It's his broken relationship with his son and his Clintonian narcissism that turns me off even more than the duplicitous Boston press corp which is needlessly mesmerized by six feet, four inches and 225 pounds of impish immaturity.

So pretend, if you will, how things would be different if.......Tom Brady were Black. Let's say our star Q. B. was, shall we say, Vince Young of Tennessee Titans fame. Can you imagine the typical Bostonian reaction? I can almost visualize the Bill Cosby tour de force on yet another example what he would call the broken Black family. Then then there'd be the columnists, chirping away accordingly.

And I'll bet you a year of tolls on the Tobin that last Saturday's Boston Herald page one would have been a little different if Brady looked like Young. Instead of that comical photo of Tom Brady posted as a milk carton missing person, it would have been a likeness of Young's baby with some editorial about what a bum this guy is.

But Brady's no bum, atleast not from the Bostonian point of view. He's very pretty, very preppy and very white. If he's not sending the baby hugs and kisses that's no problem; as long as the public doesn't see him on one of those dead beat dad posters.

On Sunday, baby John Edward Thomas Moynahan will be about six months old. His Dad's the undefeated quarterback going into the Superbowl, but the poor kid can't even get a ticket to sit with his grandparents and be hugged by his dad when the Patriots bring home the big win.

File under pathetic.

NH PRIMARY

2008-01-09T08:08:00.001-05:00

Romney's Wrinkles
by Kevin John Sowyrda
Reporting from New Hampshire

Maybe the hair was just too pretty, the boys too pretty, the wife too pretty, the Belmont
Mc Mansion too pretty or the manse at Lake Winnepesaukah too pretty. Maybe it was hurling the dog Seamus on the station wagon roof for a half day sojourn to Ontario. And maybe it was none of the above.

Maybe voters in New, New Hampshire decided that a veteran Republican whose also a decorated veteran was a better bet than a nouveau rich Republican who just seemed too decorated.

In the end, the history book on Romney's evaporating presidential ambitions will showcase the following key chapters of discontent and old fashioned arrogance.

Chapter One - Romney should have scheduled a sit down with Dr. Phil. Broadcast on the airwaves or not, some form of intervention was required for a man who is unquestionably clinically homophobic. If you Google 'Mitt Romney Gay,' you'll get about 451,000 hits. I kid you not. Do you think the Mormon Bishop was a bit obsessed with a certain subject?

Based on empirical data from an event on January 14th, in a state with as many steepled churches as fat and happy cows, the Romney social agenda sold about as well as what the fat and happy cows leave behind in their trail. Even Governor Huckleberry Finn.....whatever.... an unabashed Baptist preacher for Christ's sake........didn't lash out at Gay people like our x-governor.

Lesson learned? When right wing social issues don't sell even in Iowa - even in Iowa - you know that political figures like Romney are as out of fashion as Greg Brady's bell bottoms.

Chapter Two - Think twice before you pick two certifiable political hacks to run your campaign. For Romney, two princes of the blood in his imperial Romanov-like family were Eric Fehrnstrom and Beth Myers; both top operatives in the campaign according to the Washington Post. The "evil twins," as one Beacon Hill Democrat used to call them, are perfectly infamous for running the Massachusetts State Treasurer's Office exactly when nine million dollars was embezzled. Fehrnstrom was the deputy treasurer at the time as was Myers the chief of staff. Of course, they were never implicated and knew nothing at all about what was going on. Really. They also knew nothing about New Hampshire.

Chapter Three - Hypocritical pontificating will get you no where. During heated debate exchanges with Senator McCain, Mitt Romney hurled insults at the senior senator regarding his authorship of the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, co-written with Senator Ted Kennedy in 2005. It was only out of gentlemanly generosity that McCain didn't remind Romney that while he, McCain, was trying to address the issue of illegal aliens, Romney was employing them to cut his grass.

Chapter Four - Given his 61 years on the planet, one might have expected some semblance of consistency from the corporate chieftain who knew how to make money by buying out companies and laying off trucks loads of workers, and I don't mean illegal ones. But Romney didn't know how to make up his mind. He flipped and flopped on core public policy issues more than that fish I caught at Castle Island this summer, and it hurt him more than he was ever counting on.

Chapter Five - When searching for a political pinata to pulverize, choosing something other than your own state would be a great idea. Forget the given that Massachusetts voters were somewhat irked when the incumbent governor Romney used Massachusetts as the negative punch line when traveling to venues far from Beacon Hill. Observers from bordering New Hampshire may have also seen that routine for what it was - classless and un presidential.

Chapter Six - Never, never, never lecture a war hero on leadership. You might as well try to beat Tiger Woods in an eighteen hole golf game. Though the final Republican debate in New Hampshire was spun as Mitt's triumph, I saw it as his ultimate demise in the Granite State. After Romney sermonized about his executive leadership skills, McCain shot back with his resume of leading a jet fighter squadron; which clearly triggered sympathetic thoughts of the senator's five years in a P.O.W. camp.

And finally, this epilogue to the Mitt Romney campaign book. Though he's stubbornly not ready to throw in the towel, Mitt's starting to look wrinkled. It's sort of like his dad before him, George Romney, who ran for president in 1968 until his three month fledgling campaign folded after Romney senior claimed he had been brainwashed by the military.

Romney junior, now tired, frumpled and electorally bashed, was never himself brainwashed; just the voters who supported him who are now drifting away, having come back to their senses that McCain's the best bet for the G.O.P. in November.

Arroyo should consider mayoral bid.

2007-12-06T05:30:00.001-05:00

Issue Date: 12/6/2007, Posted On: 12/5/2007

Arroyo versus Menino. Why not?

by Kevin John Sowryda

There’s something about retiring City Councilor Felix Arroyo which strikes me as worth saving from the where-are-they-now archives. Instead of being relegated to anonymity and “I could’a been a contendah,” in a Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront sort of way, Felix might consider rolling the dice and playing some David vs. Goliath. My point? Felix Arroyo should run for Mayor of Boston.

Not simply because no else will do it, though that’s reason enough. But Felix may well find an inviting audience in a mayoral contest during a season when the country is going through a unique and powerful multiculturalism guilt complex — long overdue I’d say — which is propelling minorities to greatness whether they be Deval Patrick or a young senator from Illinois who is running for an office a bit higher up the food chain.

Not one to shy from independent pronouncements and breaking ranks with many of the traditional power basis in the Hub, Arroyo is the de facto leader of the minority community in the city. Due to a myriad of odd political dynamics, the at-large councilor was defeated for re-election on Nov. 6. Losing to John Connolly may have been more painful to Arroyo than just the concept of losing in and of itself. Connolly’s claim to fame is, well, that his father is the former Massachusetts secretary of state.

But here’s why Felix should run. First, he commands respect. I’m the first to get a little irked when he takes on issues better addressed in the marbled halls of the state department in Washington, but the guy’s squeaky clean in a city which smells to high Heaven from corruption and old-boy network deal making that doesn’t rest even on Sundays.

Second, Arroyo’s name recognition is huge and there seems to be a sympathy factor concerning his unanticipated defeat in the council race early last month. Eyes are still tearing from not only sad surprise but guilt. I’ve had my fair share of conversations with city conservatives (there is such an enclave hiding in various nooks and crannies) who were happy to have an independent, progressive at-large councilor who was never afraid to break ranks with Mayor Menino.

Third, Arroyo’s mayoral endeavor could well garner at least a dusting of national attention. The producers at CNN won’t have a problem doing a profile here and there on a charismatic Latino politician running for the top political job in the Hub.
Fourth, as alluded to earlier, Arroyo could likely be the only name-worthy contender. That means the loyal opposition has no where to go but to his exclusive bandwagon, and the opposition looking for a ride and a vibrant mayoral contest is growing rapidly. Coupled with this are the obvious signs that the economy for 2008 is looking tenuous at best. The Massachusetts Department of Revenue just reported a sharp drop in state collections and the housing market is so pathetically bad that real estate brokers in the South End would have been throwing their bodies out of windows months ago, if only they worked in high rises. A bad economy can often be disastrous for an incumbent but a highly affective wedge issue for a competent opponent.

Fifth, spare me the straight jacket because I’m holding my ground on this one — I’m utterly convinced that Arroyo can be competitive in the all important money contest. Yeah, yeah, I know that’s what killed the guy in the race he just lost. But bear with me here. Though Menino’s money machine could give lessons to Chase Manhattan Bank, we seem to be entering a new era of small donors taking a big role in elections, empowered by the Internet. Classic case in point, Republican presidential under-dog Ron Paul who raised nearly $4 million on the net in one day last month. The money was not coming from developers and political king pins, but the “little guy” whose increasingly disenchanted with status quo politics. On a smaller level, one can imagine Arroyo raising sufficient funds to organize an affective retail campaign against Menino’s Tammany Hall like political apparatus. If he hired someone to run the campaign, that is.

Last, but not least, Arroyo has nothing to lose by challenging the mayor. I mean, what’s the prince of the city going to do? Block Arroyo’s ability to deliver constituency services? The election results make all that a mute issue now. I’m giving Arroyo the same advice the late, great Tip O’Neil gave Mike Dukakis when the governor asked the speaker if he should run for president. O’Neil told Dukakis to go for it because the Duke had nothing to lose.

Menino has 25 fundraisers scheduled through Christmas.

2007-10-31T08:29:00.000-04:00

Menino's magic for term five.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

How in the name of God does he do it? He's impervious to all the maladies of being an urban leader, including, shootings, an in the toilet real estate market, sky rocketing grocery prices, a continued exodus from the metropolis, a Swiss cheese tunnel, an airport that everyone hates more than Satan, a school system you wouldn't send your cocker spaniel to, real estate tax hikes which must have been authored by North End loan sharks and the ever growing schism between rich and poor, black and white, you name it. And yet, the Honorable Mayor Tom Menino - who apparently never heard John Silber's admonition, "when you're ripe, it's time to go," is raising cash hand over fist while not a single, solitary whimper of opposition can be heard from any nook or cranny in the Hub. Exactly how does Tom Menino seem to be heading for an unprecedented fifth term with no real opponent within a thousand miles; just as the chorus crows that Boston needs something different than, well, you know who?

Put more succinctly, what could possibly account for the mayor's Midas touch? He lacks the pizzazz of that new, French president who went Chernobyl on Leslie Stahl last Sunday and, with no disrespect intended, he's hardly a George Clooney type babe magnet. So where lies the attraction to four more years of an imperious and hyper sensitive city chief executive whose the only politician in America whose public verbosity makes that of George Bush seem erudite in comparison?

Boston journalist Dan Kennedy, a long-time observer of the media and politics in the Hub, paints a picture which is as simplistic as it is plausible. "The mayor strikes me as a very hard working guy and intelligent; and there are no alternatives power basis (to oppose him)," said Kennedy. "The city council just seems so diminished now, no one takes them seriously; and there's no elected school committee and none of the elected legislators take interest in it."

Kudos to my distant cousin, Dan. The WMD in Menino's political arsenal is that he has one and the other city politicians don't. Mayoral powers in Boston are on par with those of Czar Nicholas. The city council has all the prestige and political cache of an imperial Duma. For a less royalist analogy of the approaching mayoral race dynamics, bring to mind all those John Wayne westerns where the Duke was the only guy who could really shoot. That's Menino, and wealthy Bostonians with fat check book recognize that he's the only sheriff in town and that giving him money will pay back handsome dividends in approved development permits, city contracts and only God knows what else.

As for the members of the Duma - which is to say the Boston City Council - atleast one of the more prominent members appears to be undaunted by the Czar's powers, which are sure to be enhanced now that Menino has directed his lieutenants to plan atleast twenty five more fundraisers between now and Christmas.

Though admittedly a perspective candidate himself, who believes Bostonians are "looking for another big mayor's race in the city," front bencher City Councilor John Tobin is hardly reticent to acknowledge the mayor's prowess, which may not often project at the podium - but does at other venues. "It's almost magical how he does it," said the district city councilor from Jamaica Plain. "Menino deftly walks that balance between the high rollers and the regular 'Joes' you meet in the coffee shops."

Tobin said the mayor is something of a political hybrid; a public combination of the particular strengths showcased by two of his predecessors, Kevin White and Ray Flynn. Menino appears to emulate White's finesse with the business community, while not faulting as White did in the area of neighborhood services. He also practices Flynn's populist brand of politics, which was to champion neighborhood rights even when they conflicted with corporate wants.

Meanwhile, back at the palace, Menino's savvy ness, however non verbal, is rearing it's head. The mayor knows of one city councilor who, though politically impotent on that body politic, nonetheless has the ability to be financially competitive in a mayoral contest. As such, the worst kept secret in Boston today, confirmed for me this week by two city councilors, is that at-large City Councilor Mike Flaherty is close to a deal whereby Menino will back Flaherty in his bid for district attorney, thus keeping the popular councilor out of the mayor's race. This plot thickens as tongues wag that Menino, a long time supporter of the incumbent D.A. Dan Conley (the two were once neighbors in Hyde Park), will lobby Governor Patrick to find a refuge for Conley; which is to say a judgeship. The technical term for all this political intrigue is B.O.O. - buying off opponents.

Given the ongoing political migraines of Conley (the police and detectives unions have voted no confidence in his leadership and called for his resignation), Flaherty's weight as an opponent backed by the legendary Menino machine should make the councilor from Southie the 800 pound guerilla for a post he's coveted since D.A. Ralph Martin resigned for the private sector in 2002. Conley may well be scared out of the race, just as Menino is trying to intimidate potential opponents with his recent fundraising blitz.

But though its Halloween week, I don't see everyone getting scared. Tobin's correct. You can feel the electorates' anxiety and anticipate the hospitable welcome they would give a real, mayor's race; something we haven't had in this city since 1983. My radar screen says candidates are lurking beyond the horizon, sophisticated enough to comprehend that Menino's hard work ethic not withstanding, there's growing Menino fatigue in Boston.

Another savvy politician could take advantage of this sentiment and give Menino a run for his money - and he's got plenty of it.

WRKO woes.

2007-10-17T08:32:00.001-04:00

Paris, I mean Boston, may be liberated soon.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

for Bay Windows.

If Boston's penultimate Gay basher, misogynist, low bowed bigot and all around obnoxious radio creature Howie Carr being caught between a rock and a hard place, shut-out from the airwaves, is not cause to celebrate like Paris did when the allies came marching in, then I don't know what is. But if for some strange reason that tidbit doesn't do if for you, then certainly this hot off the docket news from the Boston court house will. The infamous Howie Carr may be off the air for an indefinite period of time because the legal winds just aren't blowing his way.

All this simply must trigger elation deep within you soul; unless you're a member of The Klan, or simply a beer belly red neck who at age 55 still can't figure out where North America is on a map.

Yes, Howie Car is in a pickle. Right about the time on Tuesday that the Red Sox were figuring out how to recover from that so-called 4-2 baseball game on Monday night, Howie got whacked by a Suffolk Superior Court Judge who stood firm on his earlier decision that Carr can't exit stage left from his afternoon gig at WRKO AM for what the blabber of all blabbers sees as happier trails at RKO's nemesis and principal competitor, FM Talk Station WTKK. The 96.9 station is also home to the more sophisticated but similarly debauched Gay basher, Jay Severin. Birds of a feather wanting to flock together so badly, if only it weren't for those silly, little contracts.

Interestingly, Howie may finally appreciate how Whitey Bulger's victims felt - sort of that is. It's all rather ironic for the gossip writer whose made a mint scribing about the wanted fugitive from South Boston who showed his victims about as much mercy as the Judge has shown Howie these past many weeks. For Carr, it must be "murder."

Though Carr's spokeswoman promises an appeal, you don't have to be Judge Judy to figure out the ramifications of the heavy gavel that landed on Carr's thinning hairline this week. To Carr's dismay, Judge Allen van Gastel said the Herald Columnist and on-air dark-comedian must abide by the "right to match" clause in his WKRO contract. In non-legalize speak, that means Carr may be stuck at WRKO through the year 2012; a bit awkward given the fact that Carr told WBZ TV's Beth Germano in a puff piece interview that he must abandon Ship RKO because it's best to "'F' them before they 'F' you." TKK has offered Carr a sweet, seven million dollar contract, but Entercom owned RKO has matched the offer.

Well, for once in my life I agree with Howie Carr. It looks like he got, well, you know, but it was by himself and his inept agent Cary Pahigian, who clearly didn't hire the best of lawyers for this case. Pahigian is sort of the prince of darkness in the New England radio market, serving unique, duel roles as the marketing manager for a string of radio stations while also serving as agent to some of the stars. As Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy told me recently, Pahigian's working simultaneously as both a radio executive and radio agent is considered entirely unorthodox in the business.

But since when is unconventionality not the indelible trade mark of all things Howie Carr. For example, his nuclear attack against the station that made him more than just the muckraking columnist at the city's unofficial Republican Party tabloid is hardly normal or loyal behavior when you look at everything RKO has put on the table for Carr over many years. You may remember the media coup d' tat when Carr shamelessly did everything possible to take the job of his own mentor, the late Jerry Williams. Carr succeeded, and since then RKO has generously given the afternoon talk jockey more liberties to spew political venom, racist remarks and ludicrous soliloquy's regarding the Gay Community than Don Imus ever could have dreamed possible. A very timid sampling of Carr's missives is his past description of Deval Patrick supporters being, "Gay, bicycle-riding tax-hikers." Howie, don't dare go after my bike.

Why Al Sharpton isn't picketing outside WRKO by now, I'll never quite know.

But maybe it doesn't matter. The late, great WRKO is in such dire straights they may want to just call it a day and have the station simply packed away, sort of like Ted Williams was. Ratings are frozen if not melting and the paltry talent still clinging to the station consists of Tom Finneran, whose programming regularly features guest hosts recruited to shore up the timbers of the foundering morning show the former House speaker commands since his settlement with the justice department on perjury charges. If you ever want to experience pain beyond what Solzenitzen ever experienced in the gulag, just tune in any Thursday morning when Tom's co-hort is hyperactive lawyer Wendy Murphy. Picture Rosie O'Donnell, just with better dictum and without the Ritalin. When you turn the radio off, you can still hear Wendy screaming.......about nothing.

Accordingly, RKO's battle to legally maneuver for Carr's retainer is perfectly good business sense. He's all they got on the shelf. For all his warts and distortions and mean spiritedness, welcome to a city where there's sadly a big market for that sort of garbage. Accordingly, advertisers are known to be pulling their cash from RKO pending Howie's return, however disgruntled it is likely to be.

This prediction form someone who used to be in the business. Howie returns to RKO and performs so miserably - with intent - that they catapult him off the roof - from where Carr sees that WTKK has moved on to another bombastic host for their morning gig, thus leaving the King of Smear Radio with no port of call.

The cheers you'll be hearing will be from any Bostonian who long ago became beleaguered by the ugliest character Boston media has ever dared to showcase.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage.

The Boston media.

2007-10-02T21:54:00.000-04:00

Boston and Beyond web link - www.southendnews.com...... opinion section
Kevin John Sowyrda
kevinsow@aol.com

What does Boston journalism and the Big Dig have in common? Both are broken, and events of the past few days at the local PBS affiliate and at the city's biggest daily newspaper prove this to be the case.

It's weeks like this that make me remember what a student of mine once asked me: What makes a good journalist? I answered that I'm hardly the best person to respond, but that for me a good journalist is suspicious. It’s that simple.

A prudent writer or television host should suspect any and all information for its authenticity. This attitude may be as harsh as it is pessimistic, but it should prevent the dissemination of misinformation to the public, which is the worst “crime” a journalist can commit, purposely or not.

It's with this in mind that we ponder the dilemmas of two journalists and their employers, Channel Two's resident Barbara Walters, Emily Rooney, and the Boston Globe and its scribe Joseph Kahn.
First, let's deal with Rooney (who is the daughter of the deliciously eccentric Andy Rooney of that used-to-matter network). On Mon., Sept. 24, Rooney interviewed several veterans of World War II as part of a tie-in promotion with the PBS documentary The War. One of them, Leonard Morris, told astonishing tales of heroic deeds as a member of what he called the Devil's Brigade. He also told chilling stories of having executed Nazi guards at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, in Saxony, Germany. He and his comrades, he said, “set out to kill as many as we could.” As Morris went on, blithely noting that he and his comrades shot a guard in the head after hanging her to make sure she was dead, Rooney appeared to be flustered, and quickly talked over Morris to move the conversation along.

Just four days later, on Fri., Sept. 28, Rooney explained what had happened during “Beat the Press,” her weekly roundtable about the news business. The "war hero" was, in fact, nothing of the sort. Rooney told viewers that a Greater Boston researcher spoke with “close to 20 people,” including Morris’s family, contacted officials at the state military war records office, the U.S. Army and the president of a local holocaust survivor’s group in an attempt to verify Morris’s claims. It turns out that Rooney had been taken for a ride, big time, by a very pathetic figure.

I wonder if some of that fact-checking should have occurred before his being invited to the green room and then seated in front of the cameras. One Channel Two source told me that there had been some vetting of the vet before his appearance on the show. But it was clear from Friday's non mea culpa that the guest's background was researched thoroughly only in retrospect, instead of prior to placing him in a coveted position to disseminate false information — that journalistic 'crime' we mentioned earlier.

Rooney addressed this head on during the Sept. 28 episode: “So you wonder, ‘Why didn’t Greater Boston try to authenticate Morris’s story first?’ The short answer is, ‘We did.’ The honest answer is, ‘How far do you challenge an 87-year-old veteran of World War II?”

How far do you challenge an 87-year-old veteran? Is Rooney serious? Does she mean to tell us that Morris fed her and/or her staff some of his outrageous tales before he got on the air and they let it go because he’s 87-years-old? That’s pretty bad. But it’s worse when you consider that every media outlet covering the Mashpee Wampanoag casino story in Middleborough was bamboozled by former Mashpee Wampanoag president Glenn Marshall, who lied about his extensive war record in Vietnam. It took a blogger named Peter Kenney, who wondered aloud on his blog how Campbell, who claimed to have earned five Purple Hearts and a Silver Star during three tours of duty, managed to accumulate two Purple Hearts above the three that typically earned the recipient a permanent discharge.

It could be that Rooney, an admitted news hound, had somehow missed the Glenn Marshall-Peter Kenney dust up and the obligatory commentary on how the mainstream media had missed the story and how it took a blogger — a lowly blogger! — to bring the truth to light. But no! Rooney and her compadres on “Beat the Press” discussed this very issue. And Rooney herself interviewed Peter Kenney for an episode of Greater Boston Sept. 4.

Perhaps the irony of ironies here is that Rooney is Boston’s self-appointed media czar and she was taken in (and let’s face it, nearly everyone is vulnerable to an especially good liar), by a war vet telling tall tales right after every media outlet in Boston was, um, taken in by a war vet telling tall tales. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, skip across town from Channel Two in Allston to Morrissey Boulevard and you'll find that journalism is hardly blossoming at the Boston Globe, where there's more egg on faces than on the grill at Charlie's. Globe reporter Joseph Kahn wrote a moving story about a homeless man suffering from an inoperable liver tumor with only three months to live. Given that the man was homeless, hospital officials let him stay and the man had since forged close ties with his caregivers. The man, Patrick Conway, told Kahn the stories of his terrible past: Family members who had been killed by the Irish Republican Army while in London; a wife and daughter who had been killed by a drunk driver; and his move to Boston shortly after his wife and daughter’s deaths and nearly freezing to death.

None other than Rooney herself called Kahn’s story into question as part of the segment on her big boo-boo with Morris. (I guess she can be dogged when she needs to be. But I digress…) Kahn told her he was checking out some of Conway’s claims. Whatever. It’s clear that the Globe didn’t do its homework. It's all too reminiscent of the Globe's past journalism challenges (I'm being overly polite) which include a series of high profile plagiarism cases which resulted in the dismissal of two columnists, and the suspension of a third.

Is any of this shoddy reporting new? Is it a sudden aberration we've not seen in the past? You've got to be kidding. The Boston Globe, for example, will print just about anything. Just ask District 7 City Councilor Chuck Turner. On May 12, 2004 the Globe printed pictures that even Larry Flint would have passed on presented by Turner and so-called activist Sadiki Kambon. The photos portrayed U.S. servicemen in Iraq raping women. On May 13 the Globe admitted it had been duped and, in so many words, stated that the photos were nothing less than photo shop specials — something Globe reporter Donovan Slack had wisely warned her employer about before going to press.

Slack was properly suspicious. Her editors were not.

My suspicions are rather simple. I suspect that blogs and alternative news outlets will continue to grow, while viewers of Emily Rooney's TV talk show and readers of the Boston Globe will slowly but surely shrink.

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District attorney by fatal default.

2007-09-26T07:59:00.001-04:00

District attorney by fatal default.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Boston and Beyond

Run, Michael, run!

by Kevin John Sowyrda
contributing writer

The ongoing Chernobyl which is the career of Suffolk County District
Attorney Dan Conley - the latest disgrace, of course, would be the the
no-confidence vote in the District Attorney taken last week by the Boston
police detectives union - makes me long for what might have been.

But first some background - and a bit of news. Conley is the chief law
enforcement officer for a county with 687,000 residents. He was appointed to
the position by Gov. Jane Swift in Feb., 2002. Since then, he has excelled
at earning acquittals for violent criminals while dismissing substantive
accusations of his politicizing the D.A.'s office to the detriment of
professional law enforcement. After chatting with four command level
personnel from Schroeder Plaza over the weekend, I was left with the
impression that the police honestly believe that the D.A.'s office is being
run like the White House: It can be counted on for a steady flow of
incompetent decisions, silly bravado and stubbornness. None of which is what
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. likely had in mind for the city of his
birth. But I digress .

It's hard to disagree with the commanders I spoke with. What poses as a
D.A.'s office for New England's most densely populated county is beginning
to resemble a plotline in an episode of The Simpsons, complete with the dark
humor. Just look at the ridiculous turf war Conley has launched against the
Boston Police Department. This summer, he transferred authority to
investigate homicides committed on MBTA property from the Boston Police
Department to the State Police. It was, apparently, Conley's petulant way of
expressing his pique at not having been consulted when B.P.D. Commissioner
Ed Davis decided to restructure the B.P.D. homicide unit.

Conley's stunt over turf is embarrassing and it detracts from the job of
fighting crime in the city. But what makes it particularly painful to watch
is knowing that it was never supposed to be this way. Former City Councilor
Dan Conley, for many years the quintessential back bencher and non entity at
Boston City Hall, won the D.A.'s post on the coattails of political tragedy.

Conley's better known and respected opponent in the 2002 election for the
post, Boston City Councilor Brian Honan, died in July of that year from
complications related to cancer surgery. Bostonians felt Honan's loss keenly
because he was the non-politician's politician, a man focused on public
service and not personal advancement. The power of Honan's memory explains
the presence of 650 people who came out for the fourth annual Brian Honan 5K
Run in Allston this past Sunday.

Sadly, Honan passed away just when Boston needed him the most, making his
death a political tragedy as well as a personal one. Honan handled homicide
cases as an assistant district attorney before he entered politics. He was
widely viewed as a smart, hard working public servant and the best successor
to District Attorney Ralph Martin, who left office before the end of his
term to go into private practice. Although Conley should have held an
advantage for having maneuvered his way into office seven months before the
September primary thanks to the appointment by Swift, Honan was the odds on
favorite to win. Indeed, Conley's own supporters have confessed to me - and
others - over the years that Honan would have surely bested Conley in the
race for D.A. And he was favored for the very best of reasons: He had
established a concrete reputation as a leader who could build consensus to
solve serious problems.

The chances of Conley ever being praised as a consensus builder, meanwhile,
are identical to the chances of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marching in next year's
Gay Pride. The fourth grade-style antics from Conley this summer earned him
not just a no-confidence vote, but a virtually unprecedented call from
Boston police detectives for his resignation.

We'll refrain from joining the growing chorus chanting Conley's political
funeral march; but it would be best for Boston that a qualified candidate
emerge to challenge Conley as his six year term nears an end.

Enter City Councilor-at-Large Michael Flaherty. It's long been rumored that
Flaherty wanted the appointment to the D.A.'s post back in 2002, but settled
for a backroom deal instead that gave him the City Council presidency and a
promise from the Mayor that he would only seek one more term in office -
thus clearing the way for a run by Flaherty. Now that it looks like Menino
is going to run again for reelection, we hear that Flaherty is demanding the
Mayor's support in a bid to unseat Conley next year.

To all that, we say this: Run, Michael, run!

Romney has bigger problems than Craig

2007-08-31T08:31:00.000-04:00

Senator Restroom is the least of Romney's troubles.
by Kevin John Sowyrda
kevinsow@aol.com

Mitt Romney's inevitable, waiting for him in the wings of fate shellacking in the New Hampshire Primary, has little to do with his top fund raiser Alan Fabian resigning after being indicted for a $32 million fraud scheme, or his liasion to the U.S. Senate, U.S. Senator Larry Craig, pleading guilty to conduct in a public men's room which is contrary to all the etiquette I've read lately in GQ magazine. Romney's pending fizzle, just like his father's before him, will come for reasons the candidate just isn't able to understand or see down the road ahead of him.

As James Carville might boil it down to bumper sticker format for us, "It's the Big Dig, Stupid!" And, please add to that what it isn't - it isn't your father's New Hampshire anymore. The Granite State's political pendulum has swung sufficiently to the left so as to morph former Massachusetts Governor Romney to dinosaur in the making status; and un enrolled voters, free to scribble their preference on either a Democrat or Republican ballot in the 'live free or let die' state, are sure to be drawn to a vastly superior and globally respected contender whose somewhat better tested under pressure and not at all obsessed , as is Romney, with what two consenting adults do in their bedrooms - or is it bathrooms, given the inclinations of Romney's close comrade, Senator Craig.

The candidate on the brink of surging in the polls in New Hampshire is Rudy Giuliani, and as we all vacuum the remnants of Herring Cove sand from our Volvos this weekend we'll be reading news of a slow but gradual increase in Giuliani's standing in the crucial New Hampshire G.O.P. primary.

The field marshals running command, control and intelligence at Bunker Romney are blinding themselves to two giant blips they seem to be missing from their AWACS plane intel. First, New Hampshire residents are fluent in Big Dig Speak and know that Mr. Ken Doll governor was the head of state (as in Bay State) while tunnels were completed perfectly - perfectly, had the specs called for car washes. Look for the Globe - and even that bastion of Republican dialogue, The Manchester Union Leader, to start a post Labor Day blitzkrieg on what Mitt knew and when he knew it regarding the phantom zone which remains Big Dig politics.

I don't see Romney pulling an Ed Muskie when the heat inevitably turns on - Muskie was the presidential aspirant who had an infamous, on camera breakdown in 1972, responding to the Union Leader slicing him and dicing his wife. But our former governor appears all too ill prepared for some tough coverage in the state where Big Dig developments are part of the daily diet prepared by the Boston based TV market, which absolutely dominates densely populated Southern New Hampshire, where candidates will win or lose the primary.

Second, Romney's ultimate Achilles heel is that an ever changing Southern New Hampshire is not home to the same breed of Republicans who recently handed Romney his state fair victory in Iowa on August 11. With more than 175 members of the Romney family in tow (I dare you to tell me all the Romneys don't practice the rhythm method) Romney was amidst his own disciples there. They Bible thump as much as they Gay Bash out in Iowa (proving they're not really reading that Bible before the bashing).

In New Hampshire it's a different ball game. Their reading the Globe, the New York Times and, I can guarantee you, a lot of copies of Bay Windows. It's a different New Hampshire heading into '08, as evidenced in last year's thunderous midterm elections when Democrats seized both congressional seats and the two chambers at the state house in Concord.

The political death knell for Romney's campaign can be found in the telling numbers from that raucous '07 election. We saw entrenched Republican office holders like Republican Congressman Charlie Bass go down to defeat by such huge margins that it's impossible to suggest the demise wasn't served up with the help of a huge chunk of both un enrolled and Republican voters.

Though the Democratic Primary has a fair share of reasons for un enrolled voters to pull that ballot, the G.O.P. primary has the main attraction of Rudy; and there's not an American alive who doesn't remember how he held our hands through the TV set in the hours and days after 9-11. A slew of voters will be pulling a G.O.P. ballot, the type of New, New Hampshire voters who will never lean as conservative as our man Mitt.

All New Hampshire voters know about Mitt Romney is that he has a distaste for Gay people, but actually takes their endorsements until their careers go down the public restroom toilet, quite literally.

Finally, some predictions: Giuliani takes New Hampshire by atleast 9 points - and - the beleaguered, hypocritical and psychologically disturbed Senator Craig resigns from the senate before you're carving your turkey this November.

And one last forecast, this pertaining to a media pundit of note. I predict that the day may actually come when the Gay Community finally organizes a needed protest at the studios of MSNBC's Chris Matthews, host of the forever feisty Hardball program. Addressing the Craig scandal on Tuesday night, Matthews said of the conservative lawmaker's incident at the airport, and I quote, "maybe this is just a part of Gay culture."

While passing Chris the Ritalin prescription he has needed for decades, could some of us please get organized and call this guy on putrid statements like that??

Guess whose not doing the shooting

2007-08-15T14:48:00.000-04:00

Boston and Beyond

Guess who’s not shooting up the South End?
(This article appears in the August 16th edition of the South End News, on news stands in Boston Massachusetts. The web link is www.southendnews.com)

by Kevin John Sowyrda

contributing writer

Thank God that gun permits have plummeted by25 percent in the Bay State and 30 percent in Boston, as recently reported by the Boston Globe. Quincy Police Chief Robert F. Crowley thinks we should be celebrating: "Fewer firearms on the street makes life safer for everyone. The average citizen who has a gun 24-7 I don't believe has the experience, knowledge, and training to know when and if they should use a firearm."

Really? We’re all safer since fewer law abiding citizens — who’ve been fingerprinted and background-investigated — have firearms in their homes, holsters or pocket books? After all, these are clearly the criminal minds of intent, the scum of society who’ve got one hand on the steering wheel of their Ford F 150's and the other out the window shooting up Blue Hill Avenue.

Yup, we're all better off.

Who’s kidding who? Angel Ortiz was just 23-years-old when he was gunned down on East Brookline Street June 10 by someone with no sense of shame or value for life. Think the shooter was a licensed gun owner? Doubt it.

With a tablespoon or so of our sarcasm tucked away, we called the brain trust at the Schroeder Plaza Police Headquarters for comment. We got Officer Dotten on the phone, God help us. We asked Ms. Dotten for her first name for purposes of this column, and she said, "It's Officer." I guess that means her title is Officer Officer Dotten.

Anyway, our “Q&A” with Officer Officer Dotten went as follows:

Q: Is there any correlation between crime in the city and licensed firearms owners?

A: [Long pause.] I'd have to research that.

Q: Have there been any gun shootings linked to licensed gun owners?

A: [Another long pause — longer than the first.] I'm not aware of any … ah … but there may be information on that. That would have to be researched.

Q: Can you tell me how many people in Boston have firearm permits?

A: You'll have to submit a Freedom of Information Act Request for that.

By the way, that's public agency speak for, "Go take a hike!" I knew the answer anyway. It’s a little over 4300 according to the police source I frequently use when the Boston Police media office is acting like, um, the Boston Police media office.

And with that, our very special quality time with Officer Officer Dotten had come to an end. Now I know how the White House Press corp feels.

Anyway, since there are no tomorrows in my life but only today's deadline, I'll just proceed with the obvious theme of this column, that being that as long as the perpetually misguided continue to celebrate meaningless statistical facts like a drop in the numbers of licensed gun owners in our midst and attribute them to reductions in crime, real criminals will continue to enjoy a great belly laugh at our lack of a working, public policy compass.

Only God knows why the political leaders of our day work so hard, each and every day, to not find the solution to rampant crime. At least Mayor Menino got it right. "We're pleased that the number of gun owners has decreased in our city, but the real issue is illegal guns, and we need more laws to deal with illegal guns in our cities,” the Mayor told the Globe.

Good. Now let’s get the focus back on what really reduces the rates of crime in the city. Which is, well, I’m not sure. And that, I think, is the point. We don’t know. No one knows.

What we do know, however, is that the idea that a reduction in gun permits by law abiding citizens reduces crimes rates is absurd.

Don't blame me, blame Jerry Williams.

2007-07-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

> Don't blame me, blame Jerry Williams.
> by Kevin John Sowyrda
>
> Did Jerry Williams have any idea what he was doing when he gave birth
> to the Hub's media version of Frankenstein? Do you think he's rolling
> over in his grave right now? I suspect the answer to both questions
> is a definitive affirmative.
>
> Williams was the radio giant of Boston during the Dukakis era of
> politics, and had the temerity to organize a successful repeal of the
> seatbelt law about twenty years ago; proof of his media muscle. In
> 1989 he decided to start a segment on his highly rated afternoon radio
> show on WRKO. He called it 'The Governors,' which was a rather
> sardonic group-commentary on the day's political issues. The round
> robin on 680 AM featured Williams, some anti-government lady from out
> of state whose name never mattered, and Boston Herald Columnist Howie
> Carr, known in the print media as a conservative yuckster
> who delighted in "gotcha" political commentary.
>
> Carr and Williams had nothing in common. Speaking even as someone who
> once appeared on Jerry's show only to be eaten for breakfast by the
> host, I can tell you that Jerry Williams was probably the most
> honorable and socially progressive radio voice Boston ever heard,
> second only to the great Gene Burns. His issues of concern were taxes
> and government waste, not who consenting adults were spending their
> time with. Were Jerry still alive today I'd bet the farm that he'd
> have put the same energy into supporting Gay marriage as he had
> successfully committed to killing that seat belt law, which simply
> went against his civil libertarian credentials. Those were the days
> when Boston talk radio had something to say, but those days were
> ending.
>
> It didn't take long for Carr to learn the ins and outs of Boston
> radio. He had a superb teacher and mentor, and like many students he
> finally became the teacher. Williams was unceremoniously booted out
> the door by WRKO in favor of Carr, who became a grating voice of
> socially conservative diatribes, to such an extent that Carr's
> missives frequently made anything Don Imus may have said, pale in
> comparison.
>
> Imus is now in exile in Arizona, and Carr has decided to jump the S.S.
> RKO and take over the morning show at Boston's FM talk station 96.9,
> which had carried the Imus syndicated program until the shock jock was
> fired by CBS Radio in April. Tongues are wagging, and here's why.
>
> First, 96.9 will now solidify its reputation as a place on the
> dial with few progressive oasis. There will be two bookends, both
> leaning about as far to the right as Attila the Hun. You'll Howie in
> the morning, hardly a Socrates of the airwaves who has previously
> stated that the best reason for killing Gay marriage is because it
> will trigger a Gay Community appetite for legalizing bestiality. And
> then there's Jay Severin in the afternoon. Severin, most infamous
> for having been exposed by the Boston Globe for falsely claming to be
> a Pulitzer Prize winner, is basically a carbon copy of Carr; but
> perhaps with better pronunciation and dictum and a greater tendency to
> lisp, which has created all manner of rumor. Squished in the middle
> of this jihad of nationalistic, misogynistic and homophobic talk will
> be progressive commentator Jim Braude who co hosts a midday shift with
> another Herald columnist who writes about things no one cares about.
> But she lives in Brookline, so she can't be all that bad.
>
> On the other end of town is the now hemoraging WRKO AM, which just
> lost their best rated, premadona Gay Basher (they had no qualms with
> the Gay Bashing) while already suffering an identity crisis as it
> tries a plethora of co-hosts to stabilize the sinking ship called
> Finneran's Forum, the station's morning drive time show.
>
> The 'Forum' is perhaps the last hurrah of former Massachusetts House
> Speaker Tom Finneran, who came hat in hand to the station for work
> after he was fired from his $416,000 a year job as head of the
> Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. The council's board of directors
> apparently wasn't too overjoyed by Finneran's guilty plea to
> obstruction of justice charges. Finneran is presently serving his
> eighteen months of unsupervised probation, which means he can make it
> to the RKO Brighton studios where station management actually thought
> it was a smart move to give this guy a job.
>
> Carr felt other wise. The two conservatives - both have showered the
> Gay Community with insults too numerous to catalogue - have shared
> little in common beyond their parochial views of modern life. They've
> been ardent foes for years and their recent on air war was no
> publicity stunt, despite what some in town have suggested. One
> insider at RKO told me that Carr took Finneran's hiring as, "the last
> straw," at a station he, Carr, was no longer comfortable at.
>
> The lack of comfort could stem from the fact that, like it or not, the
> bombastic conservative of Boston talk has become a player (the
> Arbitron Ratings sadly prove it) and outgrown what is seen by many as
> a failing media outlet. RKO's signal is basically inaudible at night
> time in much of New England, and the station's only real profitable
> programming has been Carr's three to seven o'clock drive home shift.
> Further, Carr's book on all things Whitie Bulger, a New York Times
> best seller, has made the scrappy commentator a tidy pocket of change
> as much as it's elevated his status on national media outlets like Fox
> News. RKO no longer has the stage to support the weight of such
> ambitious "talent," which hardly appreciated his nemesis being made a
> colleague; or his afternoon show being frequently shortened by the
> Boston Red Sox games, now being aired on the station.
>
> What to look for and what to do? First, Finneran and Carr are now
> going head to head for the morning drive time advertising dollars.
> Bet another farm, but this time on Carr. Finneran's ratings are
> already at the bottom of Boston Harbor, and this is the death knell.
> Second, send all the Excedrin you can muster to commentator Jim
> Braude.
>
> Sadly for Boston, he's about to feel very out of place both at the
> office, and in a local radio industry that continues to lean more and
> more to the right.
>

Camp Romney

2007-07-01T18:36:00.000-04:00

Boston and Beyond (available in copies of the SOUTH END NEWS at Boston news stands through July 5, 2007.)

Kevin John Sowyrda

The media has shown a fancy of late for a staffing problem at Team Romney, where everybody is presumed to be as straight as they are straight shooters; with at least one exception that is. It appears that coatholder-in-chief Jay Garrity may have been a Mall Cop in another life; which is to say that he’s obsessed with pretending be to a real and bonafide member of the constabulary. To that end, Garrity has been caught with his badge off — or on — as various law enforcement officials investigate him for pretending to be them. Garrity is also charged with flashing in public — his blue lights, that is. Mr. Garrity is now on leave from Camp Romney, which translated from politic speak means his next job in the Byzantine world of campaigning will be licking envelopes for the Mississippi State Republican Party.
But there are bigger staffing skeletons in the multi-million dollar operation which is the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Just as the media made quite the fuss about contender John Edwards hiring two staffers who in another life had written allegedly anti-Catholic commentaries as bloggers, the press should be quite interested in two of Romney’s top advisors who were the de facto managers of the Massachusetts state treasury when it suffered a $10 million embezzlement scandal, the worst in state history.

Eric Fehrnstrom and Beth Myers were hardly shrinking violets at Treasurer Joe Malone’s office when nearly $10 million was heisted from the taxpayers. Fehrnstrom, recently identified by the Washington Post as “always at Romney’s side,” was deputy state treasurer and Myers was chief of staff when the office they ran was pilfered of enough cash to buy a sweet pad near Romney’s grotesquely opulent manse at Lake Winnipesaukee.

Though the Edwards camp was excoriated in the mainstream media for retaining two bloggers who dared to differ with arcane Catholic dogma, there’s been no article I can find in the mainstream media, blogosphere or any other sphere regarding the fact that Romney’s two campaign chieftains had day-to-day control of a public agency where cash was quite literally carried out the front door by political loyalists appointed by them, and the elected treasurer, Joe Malone.

When it was revealed that the cronies of Malone, Myers and Fehrnstrom had been siphoning cash over an extended, six year period, the three quickly became objects of derision in the press. Although none were charged with any crimes, in the court of public opinion, they were seen as guilty of a comical level of mismanagement.

When asked by the Associated Press if he and his top managers were “guilty” of not keeping a proper eye on the store, Malone, a life long Republican, said that he did not have a preference for “micro managing” and that he trusted those working under his chain of command. So much for Reagan’s famous advice, “trust but verify.”

When all was said in done, prison sentences were handed out and the only thing we can say regarding Malone, Fehrnstrom and Myers is that their careers were suddenly in cryogenics. When you manage an office so well that a cool $10 million is slipped by your nose, it tends not to endear you to the employers browsing your Monster.Com resume posting.

But then came Mr. Ethics, Mitt Romney. His Excellency’s first move as governor was to resurrect Fehrnstrom and Myers to run the executive suite on . Myers would become an alter ego to Romney as his thoroughly loyal chief of staff. (It was Myers who was widely reported to have played an instrumental role in advising Romney to abolish the advisory commission on LGBT youth, which had been a meritorious invention of one of Romney’s Republican predecessors, William F. Weld.)

As for Fehrnstrom, he became the highest paid communications director in the history of the governor’s office, and was sometimes making news more than giving the governor’s reaction to it. On one occasion at the offices of New England Cable News, Fehrnstrom was accused by one of the station’s producers of attempting to assault another on-air guest, longtime North Adams Mayor John Barrett. Not much came of the incident, except to reinforce Fehrnstrom’s reputation as a petty, political scrapper.

But today, the petty political scrapper and the ultra conservative chief of staff to a state treasurer, and then a governor, are quite literally running the day-to-day operations of a presidential campaign. They do so with humble people like me still wondering if they were merely guilty of an abysmal level of managerial ignorance.

Either way, the press has a bigger story in Fehrnstrom and Myers than they’ll ever have in the coat holder who likes to play cop.

John Tobin's proposal merits support

2007-04-11T07:24:00.000-04:00

The new city hall shouldn't be
Windsor Castle on the waterfront
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Note - This is an advance copy of Boston and Beyond which will appear in the South End News (southendnews.com) on news stands in Boston this Thursday.

It's shaping up to be the Taj Mahal of Boston, a new city hall to replace the 1962 architectural monstrosity that never passed for one except in the eyes of the less than sober architects who gave birth to that thing; they being Edward Knowles, Gerhard M. Kallmann and Noel McKinnell - all of whom should thank God that creating nauseating physicality is not a capital crime, though I'm sure the Landmark Commission would like to change that.

Mayor Menino finally agrees with this writer and so many others that Boston needs a city hall that can be navigated by pedestrians who left their GPS devices in the glove compartment. Good for the mayor to finally jump on our bandwagon. Great idea, Your Honor. But Mayor Menino seems inclined to build the new complex on highly coveted and valuable waterfront property in South Boston with significant amenities for city councilors. Bad idea, Your Honor. The waterfront should be left to developers who will build and then contribute needed tax dollars to the city treasury. The new city hall should go exactly where citizens can best reach it and be built in the most economical fashion possible with austerity and accessibility being the watchwords for the project.

If bureaucrats desire fancy offices, let them have the sensibility to do what former Councilor Paul Scappichio did - quit and join the private sector.

But the political bellies are nonetheless rumbling with hunger. Political support for the new seat of municipal government at a fabulous waterfront perch has been garnered only with the promise of handsome garnishments. It's common knowledge that many city councilors are communicating regularly with the officials who've already been given $100,000 for initial design concepts. You can bet your property tax bill that members of that august legislative body will want bigger offices, because in politics size really does matter.

First, the mayor should scuttle the waterfront property concept before the feeding frenzy gets out of control. The land is simply too valuable for a government building and the mayor's theory that public sector construction there will stimulate further development is not backed up by the facts. Has the Moakley Court House achieved that goal? Sam Tyler of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau put it this way when I picked his brain on the subject earlier this week. "I don't think we need city hall at Dry Dock Number Four to encourage development. It will develop itself."

So I give you the Tobin plan. The front bencher on the city council, John Tobin, was absolutely the first voice in the city calling for a new municipal headquarters. In an interview this week Tobin told me that the new city hall should be built where the present city hall is today, complete with a sizable, cash generating underground garage. One political observer I spoke with noted that the vast expanse of concrete at city hall plaza can accommodate construction of the new building while the one being put to pasture continues to serve constituents. When construction is completed, the city will have plenty of turf to sell to anxious developers sure to be interested in premium downtown property where public transportation is already excellent, thanks to the Green and Orange lines of the M.B.T.A.

Wherever the new city hall goes, not all the city departments of the day need go there. It would be wise to create a new city hall with a new attitude about government - that only those departments truly worthy of taxpayer support should be brought along for the new ride. Hence, departments like intergovernmental affairs can be left behind for the demo crew. The last time I checked we have a plethora of state reps, a few congressmen and two able senators who are all well equipped to liaison with the state and federal governments. The money saved should go to hiring more cops.

And no space will be needed for the utterly absurd Office of New Bostonians. First, there's nothing for the staff there to do since no sane person is moving here. Second, the money saved is better spent on more cops.

Other departments best left to demolition foreman are the Women's Commission and the Rental Housing Resource Center. These departments may have highly noble mandates, but the money is still better spent on more cops.

If the new city hall is built with economies of scale and architectural sensibility first in mind, it will change Boston's downtown for decades to come. The mayor should immediately adopt Tobin's vision, which merits support.

City Manager for Boston

2007-04-08T15:01:00.001-04:00

Issue Date: 4/5/2007, Posted On: 4/4/2007

Boston and Beyond

Kevin John Sowyrda
kevinsow@aol.com
Crime is “not out of control” and, “this city works” and “the bad guys don’t control the city,” Mayor Menino told the people of Dorchester earlier this week. Between gun shots and belly laughs, that is. Had he continued to share his eccentric view of the world at large, he probably would have added that Elvis is alive, the Celtics play mind-boggling basketball and that he’s soon to be beaming up to the Mother Ship for advice on a presently doomed reelection bid — which would explain his present politically catatonic state of mind.

Mayor Menino is not well, anymore than the city is well. This is the nature of politics given the fact that leaders and their spheres of influence have purely symbiotic relationships. When the mayor is sick, the city is ailing; and when the city is failing, so too is Hizzoner.

With a nearly 50 percent increase in the Hub’s murder rate compared to that of last year, the mayor’s painfully oblivious attitude and his moribund intent to paint a Norman Rockwell picture of a mountain of crime scenes is disturbing, at best. I’m beginning to consider the possibility that Hizzoner just rented the new Marie Antoinette movie staring Kirsten Dunst and simply took to heart the Queen’s blissful oblivion amidst popular suffering, figuring maybe that little Austrian was on to something. But the mayor must have missed the movie’s ending, don’t you think?

Today’s suffering will be ignored by our leaders only at their peril. The suffering can be seen in the faces of victims’ families who seem ill satisfied by a figure head at city hall who wants us to eat cake. After all, Hizzoner is hardly affected by pedestrian life in Boston — given the many armaments I suspect are tucked underneath the JC Penny suits of his around the clock body guard detail.

Accordingly, putting all hyperbole in a lock box for however brief a moment, we should consider the following. It’s time for the city to self-revolutionize and form an entirely new government structure which has the expertise to address the mounting challenges of the day.

The era of boss hog politicians running the melting pots of America should be over and give way to the growing trend of professionalizing municipal government. This wave of depoliticizing local services first began in the Commonwealth in the 1950s. Since then there has been a gradual march to reform and improve city and town governance by vesting executive powers in appointed public policy wonks, as is the case in Cambridge which is administrated by City Manager Robert W. Healy. If you ever wondered what people do after graduating from the Kennedy School of Government, now you know.

Boston should just do it. An appointed, ceremonial mayor — from the ranks of the city council — would be just fine for the mundane tasks of ribbon cutting and parading handsomely at holiday occasions. But a qualified city manager, given a lengthy contract for cover from undue political influence, will clearly alleviate the growing anxiety in the neighborhoods that there’s no one at the City Hall helm who has the intellectual power, the imagination or the political independence to lead the Hub through the tough times ahead. Imagine a city chief executive forbidden to raise campaign funds. Imagine a city chief executive who doesn’t have to worry about what the pollsters say or what the developers want him to do. Imagine a city chief executive who can actually speak the English language.

I’m not holding my breath for things to change in Boston overnight. I sadly anticipate that Menino’s failure to lead during this crime crisis will continue long after my hair turns even grayer. That’s why those citizens who are able to will continue to pack up the U-Haul and head for the ’burbs because many people think that Boston is no longer a safe home for families.

But before the Diaspora of the middle class reaches a critical stage, Boston needs to terminate business as usual. The overtly strong mayoral form of government has done little to improve life in Boston, and a significant change in the city charter is long overdue.

It would be difficult for present circumstances to be any worse under the changes I propose. And I’m the first man who will support Tom Menino for the position of ribbon cutter and parade marcher at large.

Hardly a profile in courage

2007-03-30T18:51:00.000-04:00

Political Intelligence

Kevin John Sowyrda

Here’s a question to ponder as state lawmakers recklessly careen ahead with plans to take a second vote on an amendment to the state constitution that would take away the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples: Where were these very same legislators in 2000 when voters, by 60 percent to 40 percent margin, ordered them to roll back the state income tax from 5.85 percent to 5 percent?

It’s a fair question. The argument they make today for holding a vote on the anti-gay marriage amendment is that they have a “constitutional obligation” to do so. Of course, they had a “constitutional obligation” to follow the law in 2000 and adhere to a legally binding plebiscite calling for a tax cut. But they ignored it for what they claimed was the good of the state.

You know what? They were right not to roll back the tax rate — which has been a topic of political debate ever since. The state went into a financial freefall in 2001 and lawmakers did something we all claim we want them to do: They acted like leaders.

Where is that leadership today? In 2004, when Gov. Mitt Romney was posturing about taxes in a spending bill he submitted to the legislature that June, declaring in a press conference, “It’s time to do what the voters recommended — not only recommended, but insisted on” and roll state income taxes back to 5 percent, state Sen. Therese Murray, who was then the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, criticized Romney, according to a State House News Service account of budget flap.

Good for Murray for going with her conscience and not the mob. Good for her for rejecting the easy populist politics of tax cuts and standing up for what the Commonwealth needed.

Fast forward a couple of years. Murray has just brokered an historic political deal to become the state’s first Senate President. One of the first questions on the minds of reporters is whether Murray will force a vote on the anti-gay marriage amendment coming up at the next constitutional convention. If the amendment is approved (only 50 votes are needed), the question will be put to voters in a statewide popularity contest.

Murray, to the disappointment of everyone in the Commonwealth who wants to be spared the bloody battle of a statewide referendum on gay rights, says she is committed to holding a vote. “My vote is going to be just what it was the last time,” she told the Boston Globe, referring to her vote against the amendment. “But I am not going to move to adjourn. … I think it’s important that we vote.”

Hmmm. Why is it important to vote on an ugly, anti-gay signature-fraud-ridden measure — a vote, as Murray knows, we are all but certain to lose — rather than strangling it to death via any means possible? When it comes to being obedient to a duly held, state-wide election mandate, Murray goes with her conscience, and I say three cheers for her. But when it comes to saying no to petition papers for an initiative seeking to end civil marriage rights for same-sex couples, papers that were signed by a mere fraction of those who voted in that 2000 election, Murray sings the petitioners’ song. What are we to make of this? Do leadership qualities evaporate once one has achieved a leadership position?

Before I go any further, let me tell you just how much I respect Terry Murray. Although I’m at serious risk of engaging in an obnoxious Brian McGrory-esque rhetorical device, I’ve got to say that the Terry Murray I saw last week is not the Terry Murray I know.

I’ve worked with Murray in the past and unlike many politicians I know (like, say, her immediate predecessor in the Senate President’s chair), Murray is persuaded by few factors beyond walking distance of her heart and her conscience. I should note here that once upon a time I quarterbacked a fundraiser for Murray as a political consultant. And prior to that I worked with her in my capacity as a member of the Weld Administration. I was lobbying for the so called “dead beat dad bill” and Murray was an avid supporter of it. I found her to be one of the most savvy politicos I’ve ever observed at work on Beacon Hill. And she is savvy. Witness her new title: Senate President.

All that said, her statements last week about the amendment disappointed me. Murray is in a position to do something her predecessor Robert Travaglini refused to do. She can kill a poisonous amendment that could 1) impact the 2008 presidential election; 2) bring millions of evangelical ad dollars into the state in an attempt to convince voters to take away our rights; 3) reverse the most dramatic civil rights advance this country has seen since 1955’s Brown v. Board of Education. The Terry Murray that I know and have worked with not only knows what needs to be done but she knows what should be done. But that’s not the Terry Murray I saw last week.

Here’s what I’m hoping. I’m hoping that she’s even savvier than I ever believed and has something up her sleeve. As much as I wanted her to just come out and say to the reporters asking about the marriage amendment something like, “My belief in civil rights for all people tells me that the ballot box is not the venue for proscribing the personal freedoms for people in the Commonwealth,” I know that she can’t.

At least she can’t this week. But she sure can say it after she’s killed the amendment. And the Terry Murray I know, the Terry Murray I hope is still in office, despite her change of title, will do just that.

POSTING ALERT - PRIORITY

2007-03-21T09:11:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Posting Alert for March 21
STAY TUNED FOR A BREAKING BLOG POSTING ON THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD IN THE STATE SENATE. Expected posting - THIS EVENING AT APPROXIMATELY 8:00 PM EST.

Patrick's two front battle

2007-03-17T23:38:00.001-04:00

Boston and Beyond - The South End News - www.southendnews.com
Kevin John Sowyrda

Perhaps this is the inevitable consequence of piling on, the drip-drip-drip-drip of incessant and shallow investigative stories. Stories penned mostly by the city’s broad sheet paper. With the Commonwealth’s First Lady now ailing from depression — does anyone at Morrissey Boulevard dare feign ignorance or surprise? — questions abound on how fairly or not the media giant in Boston has covered the governor they endorsed and heaped praise upon when he was the 200-pound gorilla candidate of 2006.

Since assuming office, we’ve been treated to stories about the millions Gov. Deval Patrick has spent on tapestries, the billions he’s spent on personal transportation (helicopters and Cadillacs) and other “scandals” we are supposed to care about. There was the scheduler hired for Mrs. Patrick and the trumped up “story” about a fattened state pension for the husband of a state senator. The only story worth the trees that were killed to print it would be Patrick’s ill-considered call to former treasury secretary Robert Rubin on behalf of Ameriquest Mortgage, a predatory lending company that Patrick was, until this summer, affiliated with. God — I mean the Globe — only knows what else the state’s most influential newspaper will inflect on us (and Patrick). I’m sure any day now the New York Times subsidiary will discover that Patrick once double-parked in front of an orphanage back in 1972 or that Mrs. Patrick failed to get her inspection sticker on time in 1973 because her driver’s side blinker was burned out in her lime-colored Ford Pinto.

So why is the press having Deval Patrick for breakfast day after day as if he were the morning omelet at Garden of Eden? There are at least four theories being floated by longtime observers of the press and politics in this town. First, the Globe is infamous for building careers one day and nuking them the next. I call it their “love ‘em and leave ‘em” policy. It’s one of the many eccentricities of a Byzantine newspaper organization that is as much a political entity in this town as it is a news outlet. Second, the Globe is facing a tidal wave of red ink, sort of like that scene from The Day After Tomorrow, where New York City gets wiped out by an uncontrollable wall of water. What better way to generate interest and (maybe, hopefully, pretty please with a cherry on top?) some ad dollars than with some good, old-fashioned muckraking? Third, the Globe is just a pathetic, not worth the two quarters — or is it three? — it costs on the newsstands and, well, what’s to be expected from such a rag?

The fourth theory is only tangentially related to the Globe. And this is the one I believe is the closest to the truth. Patrick and his team have handled the media in general, and the Globe in particular, like a bunch of amateurs. Here’s something any press officer knows before his or her first day on the job: if you don’t give the press something to write about, they will find something to write about. Patrick’s problem? He hasn’t done — or proposed — anything big enough to fill the void that daily deadline oriented reporters need to fill.

This dynamic is illustrated perfectly in my favorite line from the film The Paper starring Robert Duvall in the role of a crusty tabloid editor. “Everyday we start from scratch,” Duvall tells his troops. It’s a truth that sums up the daily news business better than any other. And it’s one that Patrick and his team seem unaware of: The reporters who float around the fourth floor of the State House looking for stories start each day from scratch. They need to write something if they’re going to get their bylines in the paper, which is what they need to do to keep their jobs in their increasingly unstable business. So guess what they did when Patrick didn’t give them anything? They went on the prowl, dug up some minor indiscretions and filled the void that Patrick wasn’t smart enough to fill himself. It’s that simple.

Patrick needs do the following. First, keep the lieutenant governor busy and go home on time. It will be the first time in state history that a lieutenant governor has actually earned their salary. Mrs. Patrick’s health is far more important than the evening cocktail circuit. Second, the governor needs to present a Contract with Massachusetts. Pardon the Newt Gingrich-like sound of the thing, but ideas garner ink just as much as political trivialities. This means making the big, out of the box proposals he promised (or at least seemed to promise) on the campaign trail. How about increasing the school year from 180 to 240 days, phased in over a six fiscal year period? If that doesn’t keep the Globe’s political reporters scribbling substantive news copy, I don’t know what would.

The next few weeks could be the most significant we’ve seen in Massachusetts politics in many decades. Patrick is simultaneously facing a personal crisis and a political one. It’s a two-front war that would test the mettle of any man. The days ahead will show if he’s up to the task.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator.

Posting Alert for March 14

2007-03-14T08:56:00.000-04:00

STAY TUNED FOR A BREAKING BLOG POSTING ON GOVERNOR PATRICK's TWO FRONT WAR. Expected posting - THIS EVENING AT APPROXIMATELY 8:00 PM EST.

WRKO's LOVE NEST

2007-03-12T20:51:00.001-04:00

Howie Carr is a "fat phony, fraud hypocrite and cry baby." No doubt, many Bay Windows subscribers would embrace that sentiment about the Hub's most acerbic and socially right wing commentator, however less than diplomatic it may be. And it's purely ironic when this delicious declaration of war comes not from the usual suspects but from the airwaves of Carr's own crow's nest, WRKO AM 680.

You can attribute the verbal blitzkrieg to Carr's eternal nemesis, former Massachusetts House Speaker Tom Finneran. The freshman talk-master explained on the air Tuesday morning, "we're havin a little feud heeaah at aaahko." So it was actually Finneran who lectured us on Carr's girth and other shortcomings. This was after Carr had delivered an endless soliloquy on Finneran's moral shortcomings and Carr's view that a convicted felon - Finneran - has no place hosting the coveted morning drive time slot at RKO.

Even presidential candidates don't get this down and dirty and we'd be remiss not to cover the nuclear exchange between two of the most prominent - and shameless - Gay bashers in Boston; who, if we're lucky, will prove true the Cold War theory of mutually assured destruction.

First, a brief history primer for those of you who've been sunning and getting buffed in South Beach. Finneran is the newest addition to the ultra conservative line up at RKO, having been fired from his lucrative gig at the Bio-Tech Council. The council unceremoniously dumped the speaker after the Mattapan Democrat did an about face and pled guilty on perjury charges involving a long forgotten legislative redistricting case. Like most convicted fellons, Finneran went into radio. If it works for Oliver North and G.Gordon Libby, why not he?

Finneran's retainer at RKO is reminiscent of when the Boston Herald sheepishly hired deposed Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnacle, after having made a cottage industry for vilifying the street savy, broad sheet writer over a period of years. On the RKO airwaves, Finneran was similarly demonized with regularity, with Carr as the cheerleader-in-chief. Hence, Carr's welcome matt to Finneran has been imbedded with land mines and Finneran is fighting back, like the scrapper he is.

When Finneran recently jested with Governor Deval Patrick on the RKO airwaves that they should both take "Howie Carr for a ride," and return without him (sounds like a Mario Puzo plot line) the gloves were off and an obvious publicity stunt ensued. In what's the most ridiculous stunt follow-up I've seen in Boston journalism history, the Boston Herald actually ran a front page story that Carr, their coveted columnist, interpreted the jesting between Finneran and Patrick to mean that he'd soon be sleeping with the fishes. Carr even penned a letter to Judge Richard G. Stearns, who would have jurisdiction concerning Finneran's probation. The Herald had the audacity to imply in a news article on Tuesday that the judge was taking the matter under advisement. Please!! "I'd call it a stunt and I wouldn't even call it a giant stunt," said Boston Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy, who teaches journalism at Northeastern University. "This is just Howie being Howie and the Herald having fun with it."

What will all this fun do for the ratings? About as much as all the other Hail Mary passes have done for a station which once defined civilized talk radio - something that isn't necessarily oxymoron if you are actually smart enough to hire talk show hosts who aren't morons. The once, great WRKO is being managed just like the Titanic was navigated and it's increasingly hard to remember that this is the place on the dial people once flocked to for real, substantive discussion on the issues of the day courtesy of Gene Burns, Paul Benzaquin, Jerry Williams and other adults who behaved like adults.

Here's how I see the feud of the homophobes playing out. Given Carr's uncontrollable propensity to incessantly utter slurs about Gay men and women (am I the only one to notice that Howie Carr and Ann Coulter have never been seen together at the same place?) and Finneran's on-air incest with the anti Gay lobby - these groups grow like mold on the political careers of the Finneran's of the world - I predict the giant stunt will shortly leave both careers in further ruin. And the radio station which loves to hate Gay people will soon be garnering Arbitron ratings second only to those of the campus station at Westfield State College (and I mean no disrespect to the great scholars at Westfield State).

The only thing that could make this episode even sweeter would be for 96.9 FM radio entertainer and homophobe Jay Severan to jump into the frey. Time will tell.

2007-02-25T14:45:00.000-05:00

Boston and Beyond

Kevin John Sowyrda

The golden boy is now the poster boy for bad behavior. And speaking of posters, you should take down those pics of Tom Brady handing in your young daughter or son’s room right about now because Brady represents everything that’s wrong with American sport culture. Think I’m overreacting? Maybe. But I’m not alone in being absolutely fed up with the bad behavior of overpaid jocks.

It would seem that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is having a baby out of wedlock with ex-girlfriend Bridgt Moynahan. Monynahan’s publicist made the announcement Monday and since then, the gossip columns (hello, Page 6 and Track Girls) have had a field day with this story. As of this writing, we have the battling “friends of” giving the backstory — as in friends of Tom claiming that he didn’t know Monynahan was going to go public with the pregnancy when she did and that she got pregnant on purpose because she didn’t want their relationship to end, and friends of Bridget saying that he dumped her after he learned that she was pregnant.

What Brady doesn’t seem to realize is that his sole statement on this issue — “Tom and his family are excited about the pregnancy, and want to thank everyone who has shown support, and particularly for their consideration of Tom’s privacy.” — is, well, disgusting. “Tom’s privacy?” What planet is this guy living on? What about a simple, small expression of support for the woman who will be the mother of his first child? Am I being too harsh? I think not and I promise I’ve never bet money on the Colts.

Here’s what we’ve learned this week, aside from exactly what it takes to bump Anna Nicole Smith from page one. First, Brady has all the sense of a pair of cleats. I know I’m not the only person who believes that Brady forgot to put something important on during one passionate evening. Kevin Mirarchi, owner of the online store CondomMan.com, has sent 2000 condoms to Brady free of charge. Second, when every media outlet in the galaxy accuses you of dumping her while pregnant, you can’t afford to jet off to Paris with Leo DeCaprio’s one time fling and overrated model Gisele Bundchen, whose own peculiar claim to fame is that she fits into clothing designed for people who don’t eat enough food. Last, we know that Brady is either being very poorly advised right now, or is simply rejecting the advice of any sensible public relations figure which would be to get in front of the story instead of playing duck and cover.

Brady needs to fly back to quaint, little Boston — I recommend not using Jet Blue — and save his reputation. The rules of Media 101 say that he should simply start this way at a press conference that would attract every camera in town: “I want you all to know how much I still care for Bridget and I’d like to ask you to respect her privacy. I’m the father and I’m going to play an active and loving role in our new child’s life as long as I’m alive.” End of story.

But God forbid that a Boston sports figure be bothered with the mortal responsibilities the rest of us must carry. As we’ve seen so many times before in this business, the perceived nobility and honor and class and good sportsmanship of famous sport figures, when put to the real test, is often found to be exactly that — perception. And perception doesn’t fill the baby’s bottle.

The macro issue here is that we worship the not worthy-to-be-worshiped personages in our society. Their lives are dedicated to frivolous entertainment and the best methods to avoid groin injuries. Somebody who plays football for a living should be lucky to make 30k a year in the better world I envision, which we’ll never see. I’d rather see the millions of greenbacks going to teachers, EMT’s, corrections officers and social workers. But in America we give our loyalty and affection to those with athletic prowess, even when they prove to have no sense of shame and no common sense at all.

A public figure, who knows that’s he’s a role model for millions of kids, should quickly step up to the plate — excuse me, the fifty yard line — and set the record straight, not to mention a good example. Brady doesn’t seem to appreciate the responsibility he has to those kids who emulate him, for reasons I may not agree with but certainly acknowledge.

Every day that Brady ignores this, his golden image dissipates more and more. This was the guy every mother wanted their daughter to come home with. After this mess, those same mothers would prefer their daughters date Pee Wee Herman.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator. You can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com.

Finneran's last forum

2007-02-16T19:59:00.000-05:00

Issue Date: 2/15/2007, Posted On: 2/14/2007

Political intelligence

by Kevin John Sowyrda | kevinsow@aol.com

Does WRKO Radio in Boston have some sort of death wish? Do the folks in charge want to blow up the station once revered for its employment of talk master icons like Gerry Williams and Gene Burns? Unlike the present cast of not-yet-ready-for-prime-timers at 680 AM, the late greats did not spend their valuable mic time beating the LGBT community over its collective head with a baseball bat. Yet that’s the main shtick of this publicly licensed member of the electronic media in the Hub, and the beating goes on this week with one new, though very beleaguered, player at bat.

This week, WRKO introduced its latest impediment to profit making: Tom Finneran, the former House Speaker and former president of the Mass Biotechnology Council who is a convicted felon on five years probation. He may not have his law license anymore, but he does have the coveted drive time slot at Boston’s best known gay-bashing station. We’ve documented many of their worst moments here — the most notorious of which was when mid-morning host John DiPetro called gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross a “fat lesbian.” He lost his job soon thereafter, but any notion that he was canned for having called Ross both “fat” and a “lesbian” is wishful thinking given what else is said on the air about the gays at WRKO. Just take the childish banter of Howie Carr, whose list of anti-gay slurs runs longer than the route of the Boston Marathon.

Finneran was hired to replace Scott Allan Miller, who was the only regularly featured host at WRKO who didn’t engage in anti-gay pejoratives, stereotyping or hysteria. Miller was a distinctly civil voice at a station where livid and obnoxious diatribes are the talk de jour. Why he was replaced by Finneran, whose legislative career was noteworthy for its unwavering commitment to political posturing, shenanigans and a diehard, socially conservative agenda which would have seemed unduly harsh to June and Ward Cleaver is a mystery. But it was one that interested me, so on Monday and Tuesday of this week, I gave the state’s only right-wing Dem a listen.

I’ve suffered through Tom’s radio persona (think blowhard, windy, boring) before; he’s guest hosted in a vagabond way on other Boston stations. I thought he’d be better this time around because the stakes are much higher. Finneran needs this gig to pay his bills (invoices from his defense lawyer alone are probably stacked higher than the Hancock Tower).

I must admit I’ve had a high stakes bet going with a friend of mine, who was willing to put down a C note if Finneran played it safe and avoided “the gay marriage thing” for at least his first week behind the mic. Take a guess at who’s $100 richer today.

Just two days into his new job, Tom came back from the break and welcomed us to “W aaaaah K O.” Apparently no one’s thought to inform this burned out pol from Mattapan that the grating, oh-so-70s Boston accent went out with the Brady Bunch. Nor is he aware of the fact that if you speak like you studied English with Tom Menino, you are not long for the world of radio.
But I digress.

Tom, and his teenage sidekick Holly-something-or-other — who speaks as if she were Lee Atwater reincarnated — are aghast, appalled, perplexed and simply livid at the treatment of poor Republican State Senator Scott Brown who has been vilified for reading obscene emails to about 60 students at Wrentham’s King Philip Regional High School last Thursday, where the senator was fulfilling his constitutional duty to remind Massachusetts voters exactly why they voted for Democrats in November.

Brown had been filleted like a catfish on a website on Facebook.com, created by a student at the high school. The student and some friends were less than diplomatic in some of their web postings about how they felt about Brown’s zealous opposition to civil marriage rights for same-sex couples. Brown read the emails aloud, and in detail (he dropped the f-bomb twice), ignoring the protests of teachers monitoring his guest lecture. It will obviously be his last sojourn to His Majesty’s school.

Finneran had Brown on Tuesday to talk about the incident; it’s about 8:13 a.m. and Finneran is throwing every softball question imaginable to Brown. Brown drowns us with his “who me?” tag line from all his other interviews of the past few days, and then Tom announces: “We’re holding the wrong person accountable,” staunchly defending Brown as an exceptional legislator and a martyr for the cause of protecting the American family, and all that sort of fluffernutter.

Finneran is beginning his media career on the wrong foot, to no surprise. The Brown affair — that has a ring to it, doesn’t it? — should be seen from the macro perspective and not the micro. One would think the public sympathy would first lie with those who continue to be victims of prejudice and discrimination, as opposed to those who must endure a less than gracious web posting from time to time — a rather normal fact of life, one would think, for politicians. Especially one who’s being touted by the state GOP as a potential challenger to U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2008.

So it only took Finneran two days to bring his 1950s view of America to the airwaves. The next few months will simply solidify the indisputable fact that the once great WRKO has degenerated to a station which doesn’t just lean right, but runs right. You’ve got Rush Limbaugh — enough said — and the work day is finished with Howie, whose often joined by Republicans (like Brown) who make comments and slurs regarding gay families which pale in comparison to anything a couple of students at King Philip Regional High School may have written about the senator.

My research is over. Having gathered my fair share of material by about 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, I turn back to WBUR where Bob Oakes proves there’s some decency left on the Boston airwaves. But let me make one thing clear: Finneran didn’t make me turn the dial just because he’s verbally awkward and tongue tied, or because his presence on the air is college level radio at best, or because his finesse is non existent, or because he couldn’t do a good interview if a gun were held to his head, or because the show’s intros by former Channel 38 “great” Dana Hersey are just plain, old silly. No, Finneran makes me turn the dial simply because he’s the same old Finneran — utterly obsessed and angered by what other consenting adults, different than he, do in their bedrooms.

Let me end with a prediction. Some executive at Entercom, the owners of RKO, won’t tolerate the inevitable ratings slide at the station for long. Finneran loses this gig by Christmas and joins the presidential campaign staff of Mitt Romney. A perfect fit.

Susan Ryan Vollmer, editor of the South End News/Bay Windows, edited and contributed to this column.

A botched response

2007-02-06T21:10:00.001-05:00

"Mooninites" don't even like pipe bombs.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

If Ted Turner had any guts - and he has a cargo ship load - he'd personally renege the sham deal with Boston to cough up two million dollars in needless reparations which are intended, in truth, to assuage the embarrassment of political egos and appease constituents who are led by the most vividly incompetent constabulary in the world, second only to the Aruba Police Department, as we all viewed and suffered last week.

The Turner TV Network caved after days of Hellish publicity following the January 31 public safety meltdown in the Hub; when public officials deemed Turner's Cartoon Network advertising gadgets to be a massive terrorist bomb plot. The fourteen devices 'apprehended' by police in Boston depicted something called a "mooninite", who is a character from the cartoon network. Yeah . . . just the symbol the terrorists have been using for years.

So instead of playing kiss-you-love-you with Attorney General Martha Coakley, I think Turner would enhance his cult like status in America - and for once in a positive way - if he jaunted over to the Moakley Federal Court House and turned the tables - filing a federal law suit against Boston for infringement of free speech. It would be nice to have a public, federal trial to find out why Mayor Menino and his Keystone Cops needlessly created a mass hysteria, which is just the mentality the Bush Administration wants us to be exercising these days. And Menino is a Democrat?

The conclusions police officials decided to hastily make last Wednesday were potentially dangerous, and certainly inept and definitely costly. Boston proved that we have the equipment and manpower to respond to emergencies, but that we lack a crucial ingredient to preparedness - the intellectual prowess and the psychological demeanor to discern between a clear and present danger and something purely innocuous.

A pile of blinking signs spread across the Hub to promote another brain numbing cartoon network program was never going to turn Boston into a mushroom cloud. Somebody at Schroeder Plaza has been watching way too many episodes of "24".

Since I'm not Matt Damon I don't break bread with a great many al qaeda members, or even sympathizers thereof, but I dare suggest their incendiary devices of choice are limited to the torsos' of fanatics and very unremarkable containers - which will not likely blink for your attention or give you the finger, as the "mooninites" did. Simply put, there was no 'm.o.' here, indicating a terrorist attack; which is exactly why none of the other cities where the advertising blitz occurred on the same day went to Def con One as we strangely did. If Peter Sellers were still alive he'd resurrect his Dr. Strangelove character and make a movie and a few million out of this.

Of course, Police Commissioner Davis would justify his department's "the sky is falling" mentality by reminding us of the Tufts-New England Medical Center incident. It occurred just as police were panicking about the Turner Broadcasting blinking advertising signs. Two very fake pipe bombs had been discovered at the Longfellow Bridge and in an office at the hospital; allegedly the dirty work of a former hospital employee. Accordingly, the police operated under the false premise that there was a relationship between the fake bombs and the "Mooninites". This argument is sheer sophistry.

First, "Mooninites" don't like pipe bombs. I've asked them. Second, the pipe bombs were very quickly proven to be very "un pipe bombs" and their similarity to the flashing cartoon character is simply nil. Davis lacks a cogent argument that two prank pipe bombs and some blinking boxes spread across the city had any measure of dangerous relationship. The only common denominator is that they posed no real threat. In my opinion Davis was not sufficiently experienced or trained to assess this and needs to quickly recruit some of the real pros at the N.Y.P.D. for his executive staff.

In retrospect, they're calling this the mother of all pranks; guerilla marketing gone a little too wild. And of all the cities where it was implemented on January 31, only Boston's mayor and his Praetorian Guard had a full blown panic attack. What does this say and how should we proceed?

First, Commissioner Davis, if not publicly, should atleast privately consult with the real pros and decide what could have and should have been done differently. Falling prey to very false alerts isn't just costly but dangerous. Second, the mayor was off his game, and that is being overly generous. The only thing more disturbing than his lack of good judgement here was the way he communicated to the national media in the aftermath of the high-octane response. He hardly looked mayoral and he deserved to be the fodder for Jay Leno's monolog, and many others.

Finally, a suggestion to one of the few people at city hall who does not subscribe to the belief that Menino is above the temporal afflictions the rest of us must endure. City Council President Maureen Feeney would be well within her rights to appoint a blue ribbon commission - yes, the council can do this - to find out what medication is best prescribed for a mayor and police department which need to avoid future histrionics. Some say their actions on January 31 were prudent and precautionary. I say it was panic from the top down, and hardly professional.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political commentator and writer. You can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com and read his daily blog at www.thebostonmemo.blogspot.com

CORRECTION: In my column last week I wrote that City Councilor John Tobin had called for the resignation of Boston School Committee Chairwoman Dr. Elizabeth Reilinger. In point of fact, the councilor had called for Dr. Reilinger to resign from the superintendent search committee only. Reilinger did resign from the search committee this week. I regret the error and stand corrected.

2007-01-31T21:19:00.000-05:00

Boston and Beyond

By Kevin John Sowyrda
Madness has gripped the city. And Mayor Thomas Menino is at the center of it. Manny Rivera, the extra super superintendent of schools of Rochester, N.Y., was hired to replace retired Boston Schools Superintendent Thomas Payzant. Everyone was excited about the hire. Rivera is uber-qualified. But last week, he backed out to take a job in New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration.

Since then, a whispering campaign has blamed Rivera's decision not to come to Boston on School Committee Chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger: Reilinger was making it hard to come to terms with Rivera on a contract. She was trying to make key hires for Rivera. Within seconds of this news breaking, At-Large City Councilor Michael Flaherty was calling for Reilinger's resignation. He was quickly joined by At-Large Councilor Felix Arroyo and District 6 Councilor John Tobin.

Don't buy it. This is nothing more than crude spin, which is so reminiscent of the Kevin White days that I'm having deja vu. Knowing what I know about Menino, his advisors and how they think, this has the fingerprints of Menino politburo chief Ed Jesser all over it. Yes, Menino has publicly defended Reilinger, but that's easy to do when your surrogates (hello Flaherty!) are out there doing your dirty work for you.

Let's step back for a moment and put this in a larger perspective. The Mayor had a terrible year last year. Let's call it his Annus Horribilus — not that Menino is a queen. But I digress.

How did things unravel so quickly for the "urban mechanic" who no longer has the ability to even sew up a contract with a perspective superintendent of schools? (Is Menino or anyone else in his administration familiar with the practice of having a high profile hire sign a memorandum of understanding that he or she will stop looking for other employment until a contract is signed?) I'm not sure. But evidence of the unraveling is everywhere.

Last year, Somerville — Somerville — beat Boston on crime stats. Crime was out of control because Menino thinks he has the competence to run the police department when it should be run by duly sworn professionals. That's why Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole departed for the Emerald Isle and that's why the crime fighting measures promulgated by the administration at City Hall were often comical in nature, if not out right, demented. That gun buy back program was just a smashing success, wasn't it? Those Target gift certificates were the ultimate enticement for the criminal element to surrender their lives to Jesus, weren't they? Please.

Then there's the no small matter of property taxes. Property taxes aren't simply stifling; they're fueling a Diaspora of middle class wage earners to locations outside the city limits. Here's a stat that's so obscene I hesitate to print it in a family newspaper: over the last four years, the average increase in property taxes for single family homes in Boston have increased 50 percent. No, that's not a typo. That information comes courtesy of Sam Tyler of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. Boston is the nation's ultimate municipality of extremes: A misled and mismanaged abode for the very rich, the very poor — and a decreasing element of working-two-jobs people squeezed in the middle, waiting for the real estate market to finally pick up so they can dump their flats for the best price and get out of town.

Other indignities: The grand tradition of Santa's Village was allowed to wither away. Menino said he hoped that to replace the tradition with a new one: Decorating the outside of City Hall with holiday lights instead. The demise of Tower Records — the building on the corner of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue will become luxury condos.

Menino has tried to bounce back. He's apparently staying up late surfing Google to resurrect old ideas, even those he once ridiculed. Case in point would be the proposal to sell that pathetic excuse for a City Hall and relocate the Emperor's Court to better digs at the waterfront. Does this sound familiar? It should, since this ball was first thrown into the court of public consideration in 2004 when Tobin filed a formal order before the city council proposing basically the same idea. When he did so, he was viciously lambasted by Menino's then press secretary, Seth Gitell.

Lambaste it one day, put your signature on it the next, I suppose. You gotta love city politics.

But we're already seeing signs that 2007 is going to be just as difficult for Hizzoner as 2006 was. Say it with me now: City Council President Maureen Feeney. The district councilor is going to rock City Hall like as if it were sitting on the San Andreas Fault.

Feeney has been an anomaly in Boston for many years for the simple fact that she refuses to kiss Menino's toes every time he strolls the aisle. This absence of bad habit distinguishes her from the plethora of political and business sycophants who pollute this metropolis. Though Feeney's council is legally handicapped by a city charter in serious need of rewriting, it's nonetheless an elected body politic which can garner media attention, if, that is, it's run in a gutsy, independent way. Expect just that of Feeney.

The first sign of that is Feeney's refusal to sign on to the Reilinger bashing currently underway at City Hall. "President Feeney has full confidence in Dr. Reilinger's ability as chairwoman of the school committee," spokesman Justin Holmes told me this week.

Let's just hope this latest mess — and this is a mess, Boston needs an extra-super superintendent and I don't know where we're going to find one now — jumpstarts the 2009 mayor's race. Politicians smell blood better than sharks and they know a wounded and miserable political animal when they smell one. Should Menino run for reelection, it really doesn't matter. People are tuning him out. The heir apparents to the throne include Tobin. He can usually think out of the box, projects a refreshing level of blunt honesty and exhibits all the qualities of leadership lacking in the mayor's office today. (Though Tobin joining the chorus for Reilinger's resignation this week was a disappointment, but predictable — since when does the old boy network at City Hall tolerate strong-minded women?)

Add to the contender's list a very well financed At-Large Councilor Michael Flaherty, venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli — who I dare say has one last run left in him. And, with any luck, names we may not even imagine at this moment in time.

Susan Ryan Vollmer, editor of the South End News, contributed to and edited this column. Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and analyst. You can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com and check out his daily blog at www.thebostonmemo.blogspot.com

Kelly was hard not to love

2007-01-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

by Kevin John Sowyrda

Jimmy Kelly and I were living proof that sometimes you have to make an enemy to make a friend. Having roasted him like a baked potato in an admittedly scathing column I wrote on the colorful councilor back in the mid nineties or so, I didn't anticipate that at a later date we'd be breaking bread together at a posh Boston luncheon club; or that we'd cultivate a mutual admiration and a genuine friendship which I think we both valued greatly.

I'll admit Kelly won me over, as they might say in journalism. But he didn't do it the old, Boston way. Kelly was not the phony political gadfly who used fakery and thinly veiled charm to assuage his political opponents, as I once was. He hailed from the Joe Moakley school of politics where you had political opponents, not enemies. Like his mentor Moakley, Kelly could brawl with you on the front burner issues of the day and then grab dinner with you in a flash, sincerely inquiring about your family and how things were going in your life. That's what appealed to me about Jimmy Kelly the most, and it's why I wish he had lived for many more years.

Jimmy Kelley was hardly the embodiment of social enlightenment of our times. He was the scrapper from Southie - not a student of the Old School, but its stubborn and determined headmaster. He was convinced that the "good old days" were best kept in perpetuity.

But Jimmy Kelley, despite his workaholic ethic and his phenomenal passion, was fighting a torrent even more powerful that his indomitable spirit and his unquestionable love for the City of Boston. Jimmy Kelley was swimming against the tide of change, a supremely powerful force even more compelling than the veteran councilor's iron ideology. America is more socially progressive that the world Kelly knew and cherished in the 1970's, when he first achieved political stature in the Hub. As much as he may have wanted the clock to stop, or atleast slow down, it was not so inclined.

And now let's be blunt. I'm sure there's a temptation for more than just a phalanx of Bay Windows readers to privately view Kelly's death, though tragic, as a political blessing for a community which was diametrically opposed to the councilor on issues of pivotal importance. My retort is that if Jimmy Kelly was a homophobe, I pray on bended knees that the remaining homophobes in our little, American kingdom emulate Kelly's love for people. To put it quite simply, if the man truly was a bigot he was probably the only bigot in the world who never hated anyone, even though bigotry and hatred are usually a purely package deal. I can't help but thinking that he was Archie Bunker brought to life; uttering things that may have made us cringe from time to time but also exuding a humanity and a nature of simplicity which made him much more likeable than fearful.

In the South End Jimmy Kelly may have had enemies, but data from past elections prove he also had a fair crop of friends. When the Boston Globe rather shamelessly promoted Kelly's most recent election opponent as the inevitable dragon slayer, Kelly responded by doing what he does best - ignoring the Globe and campaigning full speed ahead. He was handily reelected, leaving the Globe with plenty of egg on its face. And many of Kelly's votes came from the South End; where there's apparently some tolerance for Southie Conservatives, atleast when they're hard working and real.

As for hard work, Kelly's diligence as a tireless ombudsman during the South End floods was prolific evidence that he embraced our neighborhood as much as his own. He may have rejected large components of the Gay Community's legislative aspirations, but it would be disingenuous to assert the he rejected the Gay neighborhood itself.

Is this ironic? Of course it is. That's because Jimmy Kelly was ironic. His ironies were as endless as they are intriguing to consider in retrospect. He didn't want us to march in his parade, but he'd march here at full speed to help us. He was hardly the city's champion for Gay marriage, but he will be mourned by more than just a few Gay men and women. He was the most conservative leader in city government, but its commonly known that many of his closer friends were Gay men and women whose company he cherished.

History may well remember Kelly as the unabashed conservative's conservative, who upon closer inspection was hard not to love - even by those who don't usually embrace conservatives.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political commentator and writer. You can read his daily blog at www.thebostonmemo.blogspot.com

2006-12-25T12:51:00.000-05:00

Issue Date: 12/21/2006, Posted On: 12/18/2006

Political intelligence

Kevin John Sowyrda

The hoof prints are still on the faces of anxious New Hampshire residents who flocked to touch and gawk at the very junior U.S. Senator Barak Obama, who visited the first-in-the-nation primary state Dec. 10. People were trampling each other to get a glimpse, to nail down a photo or actually touch the personage himself. You'd have thought Elvis was back in the building.

Obama hails from the Land of Lincoln and his strategy, thus far, is hardly as noble as his state's namesake. His playbook seems to have three themes: to not be Hillary Clinton, to not be Hillary Clinton and, last, to not be Hillary Clinton.

So what's behind this simplistic strategy of not being that other senator — from New York? And what's behind the suit, the pretty face, the distinctive, baritone voice and the half-way decent communication skills? Glad you asked. Behind it all is very young and overanxious progressive-on-not-all-issues who lacks the integrity and conviction and intestinal fortitude to take a brave stand on whether same-sex couples should get the civil right to marry. Obama is publicly opposed to such rights and first said so when he successfully ran for the Illinois state senate in 1996 (the year that the federal Defense of Marriage Act was passed by Congress and signed by then-President Clinton). Let me drive this point home. Before you donate your hard earn green backs to the draft Obama web page, consider the fact that the man who preaches freedom and justice for all believes in a proviso that you and I get the entire package of 'rights-Americana,' except that chunk of the package called marriage. This tells me one thing about Obama: Like most other politicians, he makes his policy decisions with the help of a wet finger to the wind. Those afflicted with Obama-mania, which is the belief that Obama is a new kind of politician, one who speaks truth to power while honoring and respecting all sides of a debate (not to mention, um, the fact that desperate Democratic politicos believe that Obama can connect with evangelicals), fail to realize that he’s no different than every other pol. He listens to political consultants. "Your abortion views are going to cost you enough problems in the South and the Rust Belt," I can imagine them chirping in his ear. "But if you champion causes like the Marshall Ruling in Massachusetts, legalizing gay marriage, it will drive too many moderates away for you to have a chance in a general election."

Had I just five minutes of face time with Obama, I’d advise him against making decisions based on conventional polling data. Many people appear to be strongly opposed to gay marriage until you follow the question with two others — how important do you rank this issue and do you want your gay friends and family members to experience prejudice? Second, I'd ask Obama to do what he says he wants to do — lead! Leadership is about saying the things other people are afraid to say. Leadership is about putting it all on the table. A real leader would put this issue in the context in which it belongs and pose the question this way: With one of out two marriages ending in divorce, does anyone seriously believe that letting same-sex couples marry will make things worse?

But none of this will happen. Obama's pre-campaign is about the proverbial dog and pony show. Look great. Say very little. And ride the wave of adulatory mainstream coverage by boomer political reporters who are dying to prove that they’re color-blind by, well, injecting color into the 2008 presidential race. A prime example of this, by the way, can be found in the current issue of Newsweek.

The cover story of the Dec. 25 issue, titled “Is America Ready for Hillary or Obama?” deals with the issues of gender and race in American presidential politics. But writer Jonathan Alter inexplicably failed to include the results of a Newsweek poll, which I found via PR Newswire, showing Clinton kicking Obama’s ass 50 percent to 32 percent. But that’s not all. The survey of 1000 adults, age 18 and over, on Dec. 6 and 7 showed that in a match up of Clinton versus Sen. John McCain, those polled prefer Clinton 50 percent to McCain’s 43 percent. The same goes for Clinton versus former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (48 to 47). She stomps our own Mitt Romney 58 percent to 32 percent.

Obama doesn’t fare nearly as well. Those polled prefer McCain over Obama 45 percent to 43 percent and Giuliani over Obama 47 percent to 44 percent. The only candidate Obama can beat in this poll is, you guessed it, Romney: 55 percent to 25 percent.

You’d think Alter would have found this relevant to his story. But think again.

Unlike Obama, Clinton says that marriage should be a state’s rights issue. She recently softened her opposition to civil marriage rights for same-sex couples by saying that she would support a gay marriage bill in New York, should the state legislature pass one. That distinguishes her, by the way, from the third big foot in the Democratic presidential follies coming soon to New Hampshire hamlets — our way our own Sen. John Kerry, who believes that the Massachusetts constitution should be amended to prevent same-sex couples from marrying.

So for Democrats in 08 the choice is clear: Clinton over Obama (and Kerry). But if Giuliani should win the GOP nomination, all bets are off. He supports the rights of same-sex couples to marry. And when his marriage finally disintegrated, where did he go? He moved in with his gay friends, of course. A loving couple, by the way, who are currently prohibited from marrying.

So if by some phenomenal act of fate Giuliani is the GOP nominee come November 08, gay voters and their friends will have a big reason to vote Republican.

Stay tuned.

My editor, Susan Ryan Vollmer of the South End News/Baywindows, contributed to this article.

Barney has a plan

2006-11-21T07:24:00.001-05:00

Frankenomics.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

A long time ago I attended a banquet where I was seated next to Paul Levy, now a hospital executive in the Longwood District and at the time the absolute wunder kidd of the fledgling Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, charged with just the tiny task of cleaning up the most filthy harbor this side of Bangladesh. When you fly over Boston today and see those egg-like structures at Deer Island, you should send a mental telepathy thank you to Levy, who made the sewer treatment plant there a reality. Those 'eggs', or digesters as the engineers call them, have miraculously cleaned our waterfront using state of the art technology, bringing Boston Harbor back to life, literally.

As Levy and I broke bread together he made some observations of his recent trip to Washington, as the federal government was a key player in the harbor cleanup project. It was the Eighties and Levy was mesmerized by the parliamentary genius of a guy named Congressman Barney Frank, who he carefully observed while watching the House from the vantage point of a visiting dignitary. He told me the Republicans were scared to death to debate Frank and his second observation was the most compelling. "He'll be Speaker some day," said Levy with conviction; still respected today as one of the best policy wonks Massachusetts has ever employed, and maybe a man who has a crystal ball. Today, Frank is proving his abilities to lead with a proposal which is already making front page news across the country and may become the most significant economic plan to come out of Washington in decades.

Thus far, Levy's prediction is on trajectory for achieving reality. Frank is the chairman-apparent of the ever-powerful House Finance Committee, poised to become one of the most powerful men in the United States, directing legislative oversight of everything from banks to the New York Stock Exchange. I think that will also make him the most powerful Gay man, that I know of, anywhere on the planet.

As we observe a Gay Man transiting to tremendous temporal power it's not only historic but mesmerizing to watch Barney in action. It's ironically occurring in the era of an ADD electorate with thirty second appetites. But Frank won't accommodate on that point. As the Boston Globe first reported on Sunday he's engaging in high level conversations with the nation's business elite on a huge contract between they and government which resembles something which may have been jointly authored by Franklin Roosevelt and William F. Buckley. "I've been talking about this for sometime," Frank told me in an interview this week.

Frank's theory is nothing less than fantastic and revolutionary. He proposes a new deal between corporate America and working America. Frank proposes that business be given measurable breaks in regulatory burdens in exchange for their commitment to seriously improve workers' wages and benefits - this including support for an increase of the minimum wage, which is a key election promise the Democrats must deliver on to hold the House in two years.

What's going on here? The man who was vilified by Vice President Dick Cheney as a Marxist Leninist poised to nationalize everything from GM to McDonald's (yes, I'm embellishing Cheney's bombastic campaign season rhetoric), and further vilified by a now defeated Republican congressman from Indiana as the man who was only interested in the "Homesexual agenda," has turned out to be a little bit Ronald Reagan in crafting a completely Jack Kemp-esque economic agenda that may see American business and labor coexist - actually coexist peacefully - for the first time since before Eugene Debs was pounding the pavement screaming "union forever!".

Frank's plan is honorably quid pro quo. Should business rally behind the minimum wage increase and shelter employees from the negative impact of trade agreements, the new chairman will deliver to business things they covet; such as blessing free trade deals and adopting the business community's plans for alternations to the immigration laws.

Frankenomics proves true what I've always observed from my conversations with the congressman. He's a populist pragmatist; and he would be categorized as a liberal devotee only if one is to be lethargic in their observation techniques.

A more studious view of all things Barney reveals a complexity which is beyond the limited sensibilities of the Dick Cheneys of the world, and a desperate Indiana congressman.

Barney has shown that he's no more 'far left' than he is 'far right'. Populist pragmatist seems to do him better justice, as he tries to bring the working class more justice by using a carrot without much stick approach with business. Frankenomics may be a controversial philosophical crock pot, with ingredients that are both appetizing and unappealing to all who partake; but it's refreshing in its approach because it bears no resemblance to partisanship and every resemblance to bold leadership. "There are somethings about which I'm not prepared to be conciliatory, such as human rights, but bi-partisanship means real compromises," Frank told me. "The time has come to either work together or we can stay deadlocked."

The leadership comes none to soon, as the country is finally noticing the canyon which divides working America from those who seem to control America.

"Essentially, I think Barney Frank is turning to corporate America and is saying you've been making money hand over fist, the gap between you and workers has expanded exponentially during the Bush years, and it's enough already," said Democrat Susan Tracy, president of the Strategy Group in Boston. "But what's of great note is that he's not coming in there with some crazy proposal. It's a thoughtful plan that asks for a fair contribution from a class of people that has seen their wealth grow at record levels where as the 'average Joe' has seen wages dramatically decrease. it really has been the rich getting richer," said Tracy. "Others are raising the issue but Barney has an answer to deal with it."

I predict that Frank will be speaker of the new House of Representatives before this decade ends. I see Nancy Pelosi, Frank's protege, as poised for success but not destined for a destined for a lengthy grip. It's no secret that Pelosi already relies on Frank heavily, for the same reasons that most members of his caucus do. Frank is amazingly focused, highly ethical (a survey of chiefs of staff voted him as such) and quite literally the most brilliant man in Congress. Of even greater note, he says exactly what he thinks and believes - that personal ethos being sufficient reason to consider him a political anomaly in modern America.

When I spoke with Barney Frank this week I heard someone whose enjoying every moment of the new challenges before him. But he's also conscious of the burden of leadership as he told me about the difference between being in the minority and moving to the majority. "Getting people to say no is easy, but you have to put them together to say yes."

My money says Frankenomics will trump Reaganomics in the history books.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and you can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com

2006-11-03T18:27:00.000-05:00

Christy Mihos deserves a thank you from Progressive Community voters.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Watching Christy Mihos is a lot like eating Chinese Food. He's delicious, he fills me up rather quickly, but about an hour after the event I'm simply starving and looking for another meal.

The convenience store magnate and Republican Party defector - turned independent candidate for governor - will no more be elected next week than will I. But he's made this campaign interesting, he's had an impact as the unofficial official dope slapper of the lt. governor, and what he lacks in depth and philosophical prowess he's more than compensated for with a rare sincerity and a very noticeable commitment to civil rights for Gay men and women.

I'm sorry to put Mihos on the same table with the pork fried rice and boneless spare ribs, but the analogy does fit. Despite millions in campaign expenditures and proof positive that he blew the whistle on Big Dig corruption when no one else could find the whistle, the voters have simply not taken to Mihos' bid for the highest office in the Commonwealth. He just doesn't meet our appetite needs for now, and I suspect the reasons are as follows.

First, and God knows I hate this word but it does fit so perfectly here, Mihos seems to lack gravitas. A vote for governor is a "vote up" as a congressman once described it to me, meaning candidates like Mihos need to better verbalize their message and must also project a polished image if they're to succeed in the endeavor for leadership of a state. I love that Mihos talks like the "regular guy" but even the "regular guy" doesn't want a leader who talks like himself. We're looking for more, and Mihos often communicates like a slendor Mayor Menino, with just a slightly better level of dictum.

Second, though it's been nothing less than free entertainment to watch Mihos regularly eat Kerry Healey for breakfast at the many debates, at the end of the day it's done nothing for his campaign and everything for Patrick's. Since I'm very fond of Patrick I've no beef on that point, but why spend millions to get anybody but yourself into the corner office? Could the answer be a vendetta against the Republican establishment for the tawdry way Mihos was treated while a member of the board which oversees the Big Dig? I think not, but the perception is there nonetheless; and voters rarely vote for candidates who appear to have too big an ax to grind.

Third, Mihos' ads have been perfect.......were he to be running for state senator. For governor, they're unacceptable because they lack maturity and have in one case been over the top. Mihos has been poorly advised and used by advertising pros who see him more as a cash cow than a real contender, which is ironic given the fact that he "coulda been a contendaa", as Marlon Brando once exclaimed.

Which leads to me speculate that a well financed independent candidate, who toiled on the campaign trail for as long as Deval Patrick did, might be a more threatening challenger in today's contest. But Mihos hasn't spent the shoe leather and 'went dark' as political strategists put it; meaning he was no where on television until very late - too late - in the campaign season. In fact, Mihos' ads are presently invisible. He sees the writing on the wall and even the sale of more than 100 Christy stores to the 7-11 corporation doesn't make your pockets bottomless. In other words, he's not spending any more of the family fortune on a lost cause.

Fourth, Mihos never should have run as an independent. As Maine goes, so does not go Massachusetts. Though our neighbors to the north did the independent governor thing, the Bay state, despite a flock of un enrolled voters, is too accustomed to the hierarchical traditions of the two party system to vote 'I' in November in such large numbers. I dare say that Kerry Healey's political roots are so not-deep, even in her own party, that Mihos had every reason to hope for a Republican party victory had he challenged her in the primary. Detached from Romney's ball and chain affect and immune to the anti-incumbent fervor so evident since the Big Dig scandal escalated, Imagine how Mihos as the Republican nominee would have changed the dynamics of the present contest?

Finally, some soul out there owes Mihos a thank you, maybe even something more than a little editorial about what a nice guy he is, which he is. What's impressed me most about Mihos, besides the ten thousand spicy hot dogs I've purchased from his retail chain over too many years gone by, is that under the truth telling klieg lights he's exhibited a genuine love for and kindness towards the Massachusetts Gay community. While one of the lower tier candidates in this race has pretty much kept her sexuality in the race a dirty, little secret, Mihos talks about Gay people as if he tends bar at Club Cafe every Thursday night. I mean, his obvious comfort level with Gay marriage and Gay issues is so Weldian (remember that tall, redheaded guy who first took the governor's office for the G.O.P. in 1990?) that I wish members of the Gay community could cast one vote for Patrick, and then an honorable mention vote for Mihos.

Christy's day in the sun is almost over. His fifteen weeks of fame have cost him a pretty penny, though his debate performances have atleast made him memorable, in a mostly positive way. But wouldn't it be great if he finished second on Tuesday night, a message from socially progressive voters across the spectrum that Christy said a lot of things that his former party used to say but stopped saying under Mitt Romney's misguided leadership, which was so stupidly piggish on the conservative social agenda.

Tuesday night the Romney-ites will discover what Barry Goldwater and other Republicans were warned about by Nelson Rockefeller about a generation ago. When the G.O.P. goes too far to the right they lose. Goldwater never listened and Romney has been no different.

Getting down to the wire.......and Holly Conflict

2006-10-27T07:47:00.000-04:00

Too many mistakes.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Should Deval Patrick assume the seals of office in November, the Commonwealth will slip into an abyss of government-sponsored criminal enterprises, where the office of His Excellency coddles the perpetrators of heinous, unspeakable acts of violence and succors them, just as Romulus and Remus were nurtured by a she-wolf.......or so the advertisements of Republican aspirant Kerry Healey would have us believe.

Unfortunately for Healey, there are two endemic problems inflicting her bid for high office, to say nothing of the fact that most people shouldn't care who Romulus and Remus were (Romulus killed Remus and then founded Rome. For further information just rent the 'I Claudius' DVD box set.). First, the citizenry is no more apt to buy Healey's commercials than they're lined up with cash at the spinach aisle. Second, Healey's campaign has been one of the worst produced, orchestrated and executed political events in state G.O.P. history; for the following very specific reasons.

First, Healey's in the wrong race. She should be the Republican roasting Ted Kennedy now, who instead faces some mouse of a candidate who won't break seventeen percent. One must admit that it's time for Old Ted to face another Joe Malone, somebody who gets him back on his toes and actually makes him defend some of his economic policies which apparently haven't been too gloriously successful, unless you refuse to glance at cities like Lawrence, Holyoke and Springfield.

Had Healey run a highly positive effort against the man embraced by Democrats and considered anathema by most Republicans, inevitable defeat aside, she would have made a national name for herself and in a few months would be deputy secretary for such and such for the last two years of the Bush Administration, which beats the future she's looking at today - a lot of free time for High Tea at Myopia.

Second, Healey's time is so incredibly off cue, one wonders who can possibly be advising this woman. Anyone putting their finger to the wind even a year ago would have seen the growing anti incumbent sentiment and the fact that it was simply going to be the 'Democrats' turn' this cycle.

Third, we need not wonder whose advising the lieutenant governor because we know his name is Rob Gray. You can't discuss Kerry Healey absent a mention of Rob Gray, anymore than you can analyze the Bush Presidency without studying Karl Rove. Gray is Healey's Rove, with more the bravado and ten times the venom. I was speaking at length Tuesday morning with one of the best known Republican officials in Massachusetts, a man with years of experience in G.O.P. politics. He agreed that Gray's "go for the throat" campaign tactics have not only destroyed Healey's chances for victory but that the stratagem is a throw back, an antiquated plan for victory that no longer works in an era when voters have become immune to negative advertising - to such an extent that its effectiveness is already being questioned by the more savvy strategists on both sides of the aisle.

Fourth, Healey does not know how to answer questions. If I didn't know better I'd swear her debate coaching came from the same crew that ill prepared Shannon O'Brien four years ago. Healey's debate performances rate poorly because even when handed a softball she still can't hit it out of the park. Take this querie from that pathetic - more on this later - debate at Fanueil Hall last week. New England Cable News reporter Allison King asked one of the few decent questions of the night when she nailed Healey on Romney's adnauseum use of Massachusetts political culture as a one liner on the Republican fundraising circuit in the Midwest and other regions. Healey could have played it sharp and to the point, without throwing the old man under the buss. "Mitt Romney will always be my friend, but he's campaigning for president right now in a way I wish he would not." The crowd would have cheered, though to no avail long-term.

Last, but not least, Healey has violated one of the most basic tenets in big-time American politics. You don't go nuclear on the T. V. ad thematics until you've first identified yourself to the electorate; in the process establishing a base of support and a reservoir of respect. I think Healey's 'who am I' ads lasted about a fortnight before she started behaving like North Korean dictator Kim IL Jung, a bomb tosser without much of a cause.

And now for just a little bit more on that political debate last week, which reminded me of Winston Churchill's famous quote, "Democracy is the worst form of government; except for all the rest." Last week, David Gergen had me convinced that it's really "the worst" on such occasions as that. Am I the only person who, having watched this man try to moderate for one hour, can no longer fathom how or why leaders of the free world ever sought his advice and counsel.

As for the questions, my reaction was to call CVS to see if they'd get me some quick cyanide. Would it have been so unnatural for someone to ask Grace Ross, "As the first Gay woman to run for governor of Massachusetts what is your opinion of this administration's statements regarding Gay citizens and what do you have to say to the lieutenant governor this evening that might change her mind as to your right to marry in Massachusetts?"

The losers in this race will hardly be just Ross, Healey and Mihos. The press has lost credibility. Take this week's edition of the Boston Herald featuring G.O.P. strategist - a strategist is a consultant with no clients - Holly Robichaud. For the umpteenth time she shredded Christy Mihos in her analysis sidebar which is featured regularly in the tabloid. God forbid that the paper disclose (and it never has) that until recently Robichaud was on the Mihos payroll as a highly paid consultant until the Mihos people fired her for what one top Mihos commandant told me was "erratic behavior." Nothing like a strategist scorned.

The election clock ticks and Patrick's lead surges. But the race might have been atleast close had Healey relied on some real, adult advice from savvy players instead of yielding to those who can't fathom the new times we live in.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator. You can email him at kevinsow@aol.com and read his daily blog at www.thebostonmemo.blogspot.com

Grace Ross is disconnected.

2006-10-19T22:00:00.000-04:00

by Kevin John Sowyrda

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Geneva Convention, is a clause or two regarding the humane treatment of gubernatorial aspirants and the acceptable methodology for torture versus those techniques which cross the line of even Bush Republican acceptability. One expects those seeking fortune in the plebiscite to suffer the pummeling of unearthly questioning from Boston 'journalists' who have yet to hear from their dentists that they're definitely too long in the tooth. Candidates must also endure the ignominy of the proverbial nasty political ads and the danger that most people will swallow anything if it's fed to them in sufficient quantity on the television set. But do these candidates really deserve Grace Ross?

Henri Dunant is one of the men who inspired the Geneva Convention, first convened in 1864. But now that I ponder it further even he, the greatest humanitarian I've ever studied, could not have forseen Green-Rainbow Party candidate for governor Grace Ross, who would look more natural in a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream commercial than she has ever appeared to be on the Massachusetts gubernatorial debate stage. If Dunant were alive today he'd agree that two of the candidates who lose this race are due reparations for having to endure this 1968 throwback; that's presuming that the winner will forgo reparations in lieu of winning the corner office.

It's just too much to bear. Here you are, a Christy Mihos, a Deval Patrick and a Kerry Healey, all polling at least significant numbers, and your opportunity to engage and go at it Lincoln-Douglas style is atleast waned by a "who the heck is she" whose yet to measure a nano-point of support in any poll outside that little concrete enclave at Harvard Square by the magazine store; where they still smoke the funny stuff until the Harvard University cops get too close for comfort.

The fact that Grace has been given entry to a dimension properly and ethically reserved, atleast before now, to those who exhibited legitimacy through their past practices and potential for success is one of a plethora of examples proving the ongoing mental retardation of the Boston media establishment. Yeah, she got the ten thousand signatures to get on the ballot. Big, fat, hairy deal. One of these days a neo Nazi is going to do the same thing, but that doesn't mean we'll prop them up, elevate their stature and give them the bully pulpit they never deserved.

No, I've yet to see Grace doing the Goose Step, and the comparison is purely theoretical. It's just for the past many weeks, as I've observed Grace utter generalities broader than Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoulders and some one liners that are more childish than actually funny, I've wondered what she does to elevate the debate, improve the substance or show me the beef. After serious consideration I've come to the same conclusion as you have, according to the most recent poll, and that is that she has been a complete waste of everyone's time and would be better situated as a candidate for the board of selectmen in Athol. And that's being very rude to Athol.

Did you ever watch Hogan's Heroes. If Major Hockstedder were here he'd exclaim, "Vut is dis vooman doing here!"

She's here because the Boston media doesn't want Kerry Healey to win, or atleast you'd think so. If only Nixon could go to China, only I can throw this bone to Healey. My missives on this administration have been of such a demeanor that I should hire those body guards Wilkerson used should I ever venture near the office of His and Her Excellency at Beacon Hill. But fair is fair and I'm beginning to have my suspicions, because any half sober political novice will agree that the over crowded debate formats have made the Republican nominee's position tenuous at best - though for the record her debate negotiators were sufficiently masochistic to agree to it in the first place.

How Healey stands it, I'll never know. I'm wondering if Alfred Lord Tennyson had visions of Healey when he wrote The Charge of the Light Brigade, "cannon to left of them, cannon to right of them," and all that sort of stuff. Healey shows up on stage and sustains body blows from Christy Mihos on one flank and the irritating sarcasm of Ross on the other. "Boldly they rode and well into the jaws of Death. . .," yeah, that's been Healey under this absurd debate format which might be fine and dandy for Patrick but nonetheless intellectually dishonest on the part of the debate sponsors.

Why is it dishonest. Flash back with me to the Democratic Primary race for president when national media titans felt oddly compelled to include the Rev. (I use the title Rev. loosely here) Al Sharpton in the televised debates. It was an absurdity only journalist Lawrence O'Donnell would speak out against. You've seen him on the McGlaughlin Group and know him better as one of the creators of the NBC series, 'The West Wing.' Larry took his colleagues to task when he talked about debate segregation being perfectly acceptable, meaning that you don't let just anyone on the stage. There's got to be an elevated bar, and if you don't reach that point of distinction and credibility you should be home watching the debate like the rest of us, not faking it on stage like Ross has gotten away with here in Massachusetts.

Ross doesn't irritate me just because she's frumpy and could use about eighteen months of counseling from Queer Eyes for the Straight Guys, or just because her Green-Rainbow Party is so horrifically far to the left that the party's platform would scare the hair off Karl Marx. What gets me is that she has absolutely, positively nothing to say; and maybe that's exactly why the Boston media has cozied to her so much, because most of the time they have nothing to say either. Birds of a feather, as they say.

The race for governor is almost over, but not the suffering and humiliation for some. Grace Ross is like the bad cold that won't go away and there's no zinc cough drops that will make her disappear. The candidates will have to share the stage with her again on October 19 and then again on November 1. She's gotten more than her fifteen minutes of fame while what we've gotten is a diluted debate series that was great for Ross's cell of supporters and negative for the democratic process, which should not allow every Tom, Dick and Harry and Grace to get on stage and babble.

Finally, Ross's media exposure has apparently not translated into a bulging campaign war chest. I called her campaign headquarters for comment on Tuesday night using the number 508 754 3505 as displayed on the candidates web page. But the number was disconnected, just like the candidate will be in a few, short days; thank God.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator.

The inevitable election results.

2006-10-05T21:00:00.000-04:00

Healey is one Humpty Dumpty of many to fall.
By Kevin John Sowyrda

Perilous polling data is rarely a Sunday brunch any candidate for governor cares to munch on, so I'm surmising that Her Excellency the Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey is still reaching for the big bottle of pink stuff to assuage her nerves upon learning Sunday morning that the gap between herself and her principal opponent Deval Patrick is one she couldn't close in time for November; unless she discovers Jimmy Hoffa's body, the cure for cancer and the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart. And even then she'd lose, because it's her political destiny, just as it's the destiny for national Republicans to take a shellacking in the up coming Mid Term Election because of a 'final straw' named Congressman Mark Foley.

Locally, the die was cast the day Healey assumed office as a joined to the hip entity of an ultra conservative who had a disjointed, if any, domestic agenda while lashing out at domestic rights for Gay men and women. Forget the fact that the UNH poll, commissioned by the Boston Globe and CBS4, shows Healey some twenty-five points behind her opponent, with just days till the election. What proves true her inevitable downfall is two ultimately compelling inner polling data factoids which are more telling than any polling data we've seen in this campaign in an entire year, both of which deserve some inspection.

First, the poll shows Healey's association with Romney prompts voters to avoid supporting her own bid for office. So much for the 'standing up for the institution of marriage' and all that stuff. I believe history will write that Romney made a political blunder his party will not recover from for years. He shattered the tradition voters loved to embrace since 1991, a tradition of moderate Republican governors who, as one of them so succinctly put it, wanted to "keep government out of your pocket books and out of your bedrooms."

Romney invaded bedrooms with utterances perfectly in Goose Step with the dark agenda of radio talk show hate mongers like Howie Carr and Jay Severin, both of whom have polluted the airwaves with their disgusting, anti-Gay rhetoric with Romney - a bishop in the Mormon church - serving faithfully as their yucking-it-up side kick on a painfully frequent basis. Not very gubernatorial, and hardly presidential; and evidently damaging to the woman constitutionally serving as Romney's deputy.

The poll's second revelation is the most devastating for Healey and shows that all compartments are flooding. The UNH poll documents that people who absolutely disagree with Deval Patrick on issues straight across the public policy spectrum are nonetheless enthusiastically supporting him because they prefer his demeanor; which is to say his positive message and his inspirational persona.

This second facet of the UNH poll is unquestionably a death knell for Healey. It's something we really haven't seen before in a Massachusetts campaign of any sort and it's proof positive that the fat lady won't bother singing on election night, but has already emailed her ballad to Healey Headquarters. You can't beat an opponent when he's miles ahead of you, at this point in the race, with thousands of those supporting him admitting they don't concur with him but prefer him anyway. As one high ranking Democrat told me the day the poll came out, Patrick would have to commit "an incredible gaffe" for this race to swing the other way. Personally, I think if Patrick paraded down Beacon Hill in his birthday suit, on a Pink Elephant with Howard Stern, he'd still win this by double digits. This guy was born a winner and he's on fire right now, a political juggernaut no one and no event can stop. Should you doubt me just ask two guys named Reilly and Gabrieli what they're doing these days.

The dynamics leading to Healey's foundering campaign have unfolded in a predictable way for everyone; except those paid to advise her. First, she's an unimpressive incumbent at the exact moment in time when voters have no appetite for incumbents. You can blame the big dig for this powerful sentiment and Healey might as well be ousted Big Dig Czar Matt Amorello himself running for office because voters obviously view her as an integral part of the problem - make that catastrophe - of the day. Second, Christy Mihos' relentless blitzkrieg on Camp Healey has been more affective than the Healey "braintrust" was intellectually capable of preparing for. Healey's not ready for prime time advisors, like G.O.P. adventurist Rob Gray, must be having a deer-in-the-headlights week. What to do, what to do, what to do - he must be thinking while not chewing gum at the same time - when one's client is twenty-five points behind a guy who people don't even sync with on the issues of the day.

That's definitely a bigger challenge for Gray than the year he mysteriously lost the state of Maine for the Bush Campaign while both of the state's US senators were Republicans and Maine itself was overflowing with Christian evangelicals. (It would be like managing Ted Kennedy's campaign for US Senate in Massachusetts right now and losing.)

My advice to Healey? Save the kid's inheritance and plan for another day. If there's anyone around her who cares about Healey as a person and her own future - trust me, there isn't - they'll tell her that now it's about preserving her reputation and not being remembered as a desperate, way-behind candidate who started launching nuclear missiles like she were the Barry Goldwater candidate of Massachusetts politics. If she were a chum of mine I'd say fire your go-for-the-throat consultants and go super positive and prepare to eat the political caster oil you've got no choice to drink. Politics is often about another day, lieutenant governor.

Meanwhile, Healey's defeat in Massachusetts may be third page news at national G.O.P. headquarters on election night given the fact that they yell bon voyage to the House and send the thank you note with flowers to Mark Foley, a congressman from Florida with all the ethics of a lizard and friends who apparently regarded covering for his abhorrent behavior the same way you and I would look at giving an excuse for a co-worker late from lunch break.

Foley has admitted to soliciting a minor and his calumny is overshadowed only by the admission of House G.O.P. leaders that they had damning information regarding Foley dating back to last Autumn, but casually dismissed it. Who would have thought the Republicans in Washington were taking advice from Cardinal Bernard Law on such matters.

The only thing more disgusting than the facts flowing like sewerage from the House G.O.P. caucus is the pathetic attempt at spin control by some people who just never get it. Newt Gingrich was on Fox News Sunday this week defending the "cover up" because, as he put it, had the G.O.P. leadership gone public they would have been accused of "Gay bashing." Host Chris Wallace seemed a little stunned and questioned Gingrich on why they'd be accused of Gay bashing. Kudos to Chris.

Are you completely insane, Mr. Speaker? A man soliciting a boy for sex is not Gay, anymore than a man soliciting a girl is Straight. It's all the behavior of pedophiles and has about as much to do with Gay people as you have to do with Martians.

November will be a landslide month for Democrats, locally and nationally, for two reasons. Locally, Mitt Romney spent precious time obsessing with the behavior of consenting adults; time that should have been invested in crafting a real vision and agenda for the Commonwealth. He's consequently contaminated his 'number two' and she can't recover. Nationally, Republicans can't recover from documented evidence that they protected a colleague who was attempting to abuse a minor.

Locally and nationally, the G.O.P. has broken faith with many of their own doctrines and certainly the people. The price they will pay, in Massachusetts and Washington, will be steep indeed.

It's inevitable.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator. You can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com and read his daily blog at www.thebostonmemo.blogpost.com

A huge protest against Wilkerson

2006-09-27T09:02:00.000-04:00

Look for Chang-Diaz in 2008.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

If I had told you just two years ago, despite her myriad of legal problems and an attitude of self-entitlement that could fill Foxboro Stadium, that 13 year incumbent state senator Diane Wilkerson would be nearly beaten in a sticker-write-in-campaign by a 28 year old social studies teacher and neophyte to electoral politics, you would have rejected the concept out of hand with good reason. But Sonia Chang-Diaz almost did it, and how and why it happened is to be ignored only by the propagandists who continue to cover for Wilkerson, a law maker whose odd journey through life is worthy of a dramatic series on Masterpiece Theatre.

Chang-Diaz garnered more than 5,000 votes, nearly besting the incumbent in a state where incumbents are rarely toppled in their own primaries. But Wilkerson is a rare breed of politician and the enormous protest vote is a message to be ignored only at the senator's own peril, should she wish to run successfully again in two years.

Yes, it's apparent that Wilkerson probably survived this unlikely challenge and may win again in November. Despite her status as the most scandal plagued Bay State legislator of the day, Wilkerson has proven to be a quintessential anomaly to cover, the incontrovertible survivor of bad press. Ronald Reagan's infamous Teflon coating would be inert when compared to Wilkerson's uncanny ability to soar above the storm clouds and turbulence of her self created political controversies. George Bush must look at this woman with green envy in his eyes.

Though serious Democrats no longer take her seriously, the misplaced loyalty of some of Wilkerson's constituents - good people who deserve better - have fueled her insufferable campaigns to cling to public office despite a credibility ratio on par with the credit rating of El Salvador. There's certainly a junta in the Hub that's built a Berlin Wall around Wilkerson for her protection sake, certainly a necessity given the phalanx of state investigators who continue to unearth inscrutable evidence that the senator simply lacks any semblance of senatorial judgement. Her months as a prisoner in a half way house - for pleading guilty on tax evasion charges - have done little to humble Wilkerson. The "do you know who I am" demeanor is omnipresent and clearly exhibited, almost weekly, by the decisions she makes; I hope in bad conscience.

But somebody forget to tell Chang-Diaz that running against an incumbent in the incumbent's own primary is a fruitless endeavor, where the challenger will be utterly blown away and humiliated, never able to eat lunch in this town again. I think Chang-Diaz ran a first class campaign and has proven to be a woman who is not easily intimated by what can often be the aggressive tactics of veteran political operations. Chang-Diaz had ideas, Change-Diaz was graceful, and, apparently almost half of those who voted in this contest considered her worthy of the senate seat. That's an event worth analyzing.

A seemingly inevitable recount and unusually harsh words from State Secretary Bill Galvin regarding election procedures have left a dark cloud over the Primary Day results. However, recounts thus far show that Chang-Diaz will unlikely be sitting in the senate chamber this January.

However, out there somewhere are more than 5,000 people who made the unorthodox effort to write in the name of a very young woman whose never held public office in her life. Those 5,000 people are emblematic of a growing frustration with an intelligent incumbent senator who needs to start behaving intelligently.

I for one could survive without the daily briefings on who Wilkerson owes money to and how many rubber checks she tried to pass by her condo association. "That's got nothin to do with me," as an old South End friend told me this morning. But there is something we should care about. The ongoing state investigation of thousands of campaign dollars spent illegally by Wilkerson, allegedly, is one of the most damning cases I've witnessed in years against a public official in the Commonwealth.

Campaign treasuries are, by legal definition, public funds; and must be treated with the appropriate prudence. To read the "indictments" from the attorney general and the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance as to what Wilkerson has done with these public monies is painfully ironic given Wilkerson's background as a trained lawyer and officer of the court. But, in this writer's opinion, the evidence is simply overwhelming that the senator has clearly treated her campaign fund as a personal reservoir for self aggrandizement.

The abuse of public trust by a public official should be heinous to anyone who cares about preserving a vibrant democracy and a healthy state government. If Wilkerson were a gray haired Republican, under these same circumstances, you can bet the house that the Globe and other papers would have demanded her resignation long ago. Apparently more than 5,000 people agree with me on this point.

Additional Wilkerson embarrassments will swell the ranks of the loyal opposition and propel Chang-Diaz to a highly credible rematch in '08. If the senator's behavior is not much improved, it won't take much to swing just a few hundred votes to defeat the state's most controversial legislator in about 24 months.

PATRICK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-19T22:52:00.000-04:00

It's Patrick's to lose in November
by Kevin John Sowyrda

It was an Al Gore-like political defeat for Chris Gabrieli Tuesday night, full of bitter ironies and painfully hard for him and his supporters to digest. He ran for Congress in 1998, spending millions to lose. He was a powerful and compelling compliment to his running mate when he was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2002, spending more millions only to lose a second consecutive time. This year, Gabrieli spent more money to win a primary race than any other person in Massachusetts history, and yet the venture capitalist was soundly defeated by a political neophyte, an under funded underdog who just eighteen months earlier was a name recognized only by people who browse political almanacs in their spare time.

In total, Chris Gabrieli has spent at least 15 millions dollars in his three nosedive bids for public office in the Commonwealth. That's enough money to buy about 500 Chrysler 300 luxury sedans.

Time for Chris to find another way to serve mankind. His triad of defeats prove that there truly is an element of either luck or fatal misfortune to the electoral venue, because a guy this eloquent, this smart and this filthy rich should have picked up an elected office by now. Political fate has treated Gabrieli in a Machiavellian way. The best conclusion I can devise is that the political Gods that be will not give their blessing to Chris Gabrieli holding any of the seals of public office, at least not for now.

I'm not suggesting Gabrieli revert to the fetal position or become a political Howard Hughes, especially given the fact that he's a man with many worthy things to say. However, 'tis the season to avoid the ballot boxes and better invest that enormous fortune in an innovative think tank, thus avoiding the inevitable and unenviable label of 'perennial candidate.' (Though I'll admit Boston Mayor Gabrieli is still appealing to my sensibilities.)

Segue to one Deval Patrick, whose about to do something the founders of this colony never could have conceived possible or tolerable. This person of color, a Black kid from the Chicago projects where children are literally consumed by an unforgiving environment of drugs and crime, is poised to be the governor of the state that makes presidents. Not too shabby, Patrick.

Next time your son or daughter says the word 'can't' to you, show them a picture of Deval Patrick. He kicked political.....you know.....on Tuesday night because the only word he knows is can. People saw that and embraced it. That's why he won.

Now for November. Sensing that she's poised to be the last in a string of disengaged Republican governors the Commonwealth has suffered, the G.O.P. standard bearer Kerry-Healey will be pressured by her inner circle to run against Patrick the most negative campaign we've seen in the Commonwealth since the more infamous blood feuds of years gone by. Here are the candidates' strengths and weaknesses, and what will be the dynamics of the campaign this Fall.

First, Deval exudes excitement and beats his opponent on the charisma quotient as much as Kennedy did Nixon. It's a simple proposition, almost rudimentary, but it's noteworthy because it's already proven to be a key factor to Patrick's enormous success. Fresh and radiant; untainted by any connections to the incestuous beast that is Bay State politics, Patrick shines like a new penny when compared to the incumbent lieutenant governor.

On the money front, forget what you've heard about Deval not having the resources to compete with the very deep pockets of the well healed Kerry Healey. Deval will absolutely not be outspent. Democrats will unite behind his candidacy which will attract national attention and national dollars. The lieutenant governor's personal fortune pales in comparison to the money that can be raised by Democrats named Clinton, Solomont, Kennedy and Grossman, to name just a few.

Further, Deval comes out of this primary tried, true and better tested than his opponent. While the lieutenant governor was lucky enough to be unopposed in her primary, she was also unlucky enough to be unopposed in her primary. Deval got fresh debate experience and looks like the proverbial eight hundred pound guerilla following this fantastic primary win. For atleast a week, the only articles you'll read will be how in the world did he do it, hence relegating Healey to the back pages in what is a brief stretch to November.

Next, there is the anti incumbency fervor which will dictate the final terms of the general election more than any other factor. This is Healey's true Achilles heal and Patrick's greatest asset. Healey faces the daunting task of boasting her credentials as 'co-governor' while also attempting to dispossess all responsibility for Big Dig mis-management these past four years. Her advisors already have the ads in the can which they believe will raise Patrick's negatives, to compensate for this predicament. It's the only way for them to win, from their perspective, since Patrick has no strings attached to the corrupt beast which is our state government.

And here lies Patrick's weakness - that his opponent's lieutenants are disciples of the philosophy that the end justifies the means. The nuclear bombs will start this week, and Healey's own Dr. Strangelove has his finger on the button. Meet the city's most right wing, zealot; Rob Gray. If politics has war criminals, Gray would be the Slobodan Milosevic of Bay State elections, and there are the political corpses to prove it. "He doesn't take prisoners," a retiring G.O.P legislator told me Tuesday evening as I watched the candidates concede and celebrate. "Politics is definitely a contact sport for him, and he prefers to hit his opponent below the belt where it will hurt the most," he told me.

So Patrick will have to prepare for a negative campaign and not complain about it, as he very unwisely complained during the second Democratic debate about tough ads. Reilly made one brilliant comment that night, which is if Patrick thinks the primary fight is tough, wait till the Republicans start their attacks.

Last, but hardly least, there's the independent candidacy of Christy Mihos, a wild-card factor to some people, but by many estimates nothing less than a death knell to Healey; as Mihos is likely to siphon more votes from Healey than he ever would from Patrick. If Patrick wins this, he'll owe Mihos his old seat on the Turnpike Authority.

As of today, the whole enchilada is Patrick's to lose. And being the sophisticated candidate he's proven to be, he'll prepare immediately for the capabilities of Healey's minions. To do otherwise could prove politically fatal.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer. You can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com and read his daily blog at www.thebostonmemo.blogpost.com

The race for governor.

2006-09-13T21:17:00.000-04:00

It's Patrick's to lose.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Little did we know that Irwin Allen, the Jedi Master of big screen disaster flicks in the 1970's, was back from the dead - literally - and prepping Attorney General Tom Reilly for last week's debate, which will be better remembered for who tanked than for who triumphed.

Clearly, Reilly must have been carefully tutored by the man who brought us such quintessentially 70's genre as "Earthquake," "The Towering Inferno," and "The Poseidon Adventure." The state's top elected Democrat began last week's Harvard hosted event by shaking the stage with some only-insiders-could-understand-it bomb tossing and was breathing fire shortly thereafter, doing a simply dandy job of turning off any soccer mom in sight. By the debate's sixty minute conclusion he had pretty much capsized, dead in the water with all compartments flooded. The only thing missing from the sad demise of this once powerful politician was the hefty Shelly Winters jumping into that oil slick so that Gene Hackman could get the remaining survivors to the engine room propeller shaft.

Not until last week did I think it conceivable that a man could finish fourth in a three way race. Fifty bucks says it happens next week. Don't forget, some people actually blank the top race on the ballot and I think the A.G. should be worried about the growing popularity of Mr. Blank in comparison to himself.

What was Reilly's strategy, so dissected these past many days by all of us? To be perfectly blunt, knowing some of the people affiliated with his campaign I find it almost inconceivable that any of them, with dreams of top, state jobs still dancing in their heads, would have advised Reilly to behave so recklessly and crass, so bitter and off message. I think Reilly pulled a Reilly. I think he got up on that stage and simply resented the fact that two guys who between them don't have a half his government experience seem poised to trounce him on Primary Day and dare to cheat him of what he actually perceives to be "his turn". I think it's possible that Reilly simply lost it, and let his gut do the talking while his mind and political sensibilities were put in a straight jacket by his own, very peripatetic psyche.

The consequences for Tom Reilly are quite significant. This was the first post Labor Day political event of the campaign. A lot of people were watching and a lot more read about it. For many voters it was their first, real impression of the candidates. What they saw and what they read about - that vital, first impression - was a cantankerous and irritable incumbent versus two other guys who conducted themselves with a good measure of class and dignity. Maybe there wasn't a clear winner, but there sure as Heaven was a clear loser.

Reilly's career is over and the only logical, political conclusion is that he should do what's necessary to stop the present bleeding so that his third place finish is not such a distant third that it is historically humiliating. However, I sense there's little he can do. In a matter of day's he'll be an afterthought in state political history. A Reilly campaign donor told me that morale at headquarters could not be lower. I sense there's about as much action there these final days as you'll find in Tom and Katie's bedroom.

Now for what matters. Their names are Gabrielli and Patrick. I say Gabrielli won last week's debate on the visual factors. He dwarfed his opponents, literally, was perfectly situated at near center stage, to the debate moderator's left, and he simply "looked" gubernatorial. But for my money, Patrick had some of the truly poignant moments and may be the real winner from last week on points of substance and ingenuity.

Take this moment for example. A question was put to the Democratic threesome about disaster response by whoever is the next governor. Reilly's answer was nonsensical, Gabrielli's was a tad week, but Patrick's is still resonating. He told people what he would not do, using as the perfect metaphor the surveying of Hurricane Katrina damage by President Bush from the comfort and distance of his Air force One.

Patrick said he'd be the chief executive who would get out and meet the people and comfort those suffering. Every person in that audience applauded Patrick's answer.

Another Patrick strategy which was brilliant - and one he should use a great deal more if he wins next week - was to associate himself with the late Senator Paul Tsongas, who represents the spirit of moderate, pro-business Democrats. Patrick was trying to fend off the bone breaking question of the night which came from WBUR's Bob Oates, the best and most solid journalist the debate had to offer. When Oates asked Patrick if he was too liberal for November voters, Patrick used the Tsongas principles respectfully and effectively. Quite frankly, I think he took the toughest question of the night and hit it out of the park without sweating for a moment.

So what do we look for in a matter of hours, when three careers of three famous people are on the line. First and foremost, watch the turnout. I say Patrick has mobilized battalions of volunteers who will get his people to the polls, whereas Gabrielli's campaign is solely an electronic one, powered by superior financial resources and scant foot soldiers. A moderate turnout favors Patrick, whereas an enormous turnout could be a positive bell weather for Gabrielli. Second and more specifically, watch the turnout not only in the urban areas, but in progressive suburbs like Newton, Cambridge, Brookline and Somerville. If turnout there is off the charts, Patrick can start to celebrate.

It's a tough race to call because the anxiety of voters is high given recent state scandals, making the atmosphere more volatile than usual. But if I had to bet the house, I'd put it on Patrick winning this one in a squeaker. He's just what the doctor ordered; the ultimate outsider who proved in the debate that his eloquence and intellect are more than up for the job of being governor.

For Gabrielli, there can still be one more run. If he loses Tuesday, watch for him to prepare for a Boston mayoral bid in 2009. It's what he should have done in '05.

Cocaine and guns don't mix - not even for cops.

2006-08-22T21:49:00.000-04:00

Cocaine and guns don't mix - not even for cops.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

If dozens of Bostonians who were licensed to carry firearms were discovered to be cocaine ridden, this Second Amendment advocate would be the first to advocate the suspension of their firearms licenses as regulated under Mass. General Laws. However, if you work for the City of Boston and wear a blue uniform, being high on cocaine in no way means that the Gaston Glock handgun in your holster will be taken away.

That's nothing less than deplorable public policy, worthy only of a banana republic regime.

As first reported by the Boston Globe's Suzanne Smalley on July 30, 75 city cops have failed their mandatory drug tests since testing began in 1999, with results showing that a good time was had by all, including one officer who tested positive for heroin. But the drug of choice was evidently cocaine - with some ecstasy for good measure - and the decision of the present administration was, in accordance with the police contract, to give everybody a second chance.

You see, unlike you and I, and unlike police officers in New York City for example, Boston police officers have a highly unique contractual immunity; a right to be coked up at least once. And one need not be Angela Lansbury to figure out this mystery. A member of the constabulary testing positive for cocaine once, is probably using the substance on a more than casual basis. Cocaine is not equivalent to that occasional glass of splendid Chablis.

Mayor Menino will tell you his hands are tied. The contract, enforceable in a court of law, says that Boston police can test positive for drugs at least once without termination, and technically that is indeed correct.

I say shred the contract, burn it before every television camera in town at City Hall Plaza during a major press event, and slug it out in court while the nation watches - and the nation would indeed watch and debate.

Any responsible chief executive officer who signed a contract allowing multitudes of drug addicted police officers to continue on the job, heavily armed, has more explaining to do - in my book anyway - than does Matt Amorello right about now, the ousted big dig chief whose looking better by the day in comparison to the stories coming out of city hall, the other mess in town second only in size-of-mess to the Big Dig.

This question is hereby put to every Bostonian - would you have signed a contract that allows any police officer to put his gun back in his belt, and get behind the wheel of a police cruiser, with all the powers incumbent a peace officer under state statutes, after testing positive for cocaine or heroine or ecstasy? If we consider the question with sober consciences and not political minds, we come to the inevitable answer that all is not well at Schroeder Plaza.

The fact that Menino has so clearly failed the city in his fiduciary responsibilities via negotiating the public workers' contracts is a sad story so old, so long and so sordid that I'd need all the ink in town to compose it. Therefore, suffice it to say the time has come to simply move beyond the mayor's inability to negotiate and insist that he restore at least some semblance of integrity to our public safety department - which has exhibited all the competence these past many months of the Boulder City Police Department.

Moving forward means exactly that. Mayor Menino should immediately order Acting Police Commissioner Albert Goslin to dismiss all officers on the force today who have failed any drug testing yesterday. Though the union would immediately huff and puff and proceed to court seeking an injunction, temporarily those officers would be off the job and an absolutely vital, spiritual message would be sent - that being, Boston has a zero tolerance policy for police corruption.

Beyond that imperative message, the mayor should retain a team of competent attorneys (I assure you he'll have to look well beyond city hall to find them) and slug this one out before the judge. A paragraph in a contract does not make an action right, and a judge ruling that a public employees union is not entitled to a protection they otherwise felt entitled to would hardly be an unprecedented ruling in America, where contracts get struck down in court every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I'm not naive and I know the mayor and his inner circle of sycophants will not subscribe or surrender to the aforementioned points of advice and admonishment. However, for the sake of a hurting city - and his own legacy - Mayor Menino should listen to this message.

The past few months have shown us a city mayor more interested in behaving like a heftier, blue suited Queen Elizabeth than the can do mayor we once perceived His Honor to be. Mayoral events have become purely ceremonial with ridiculous trappings. We observe the usual confusing speeches which are no more decipherable than rap music; and the occasional missives from city hall appear to be falling on the deaf ears of a citizenry increasingly yearning for some leadership from that obtuse bunker at Downtown Boston.

The mayor cannot afford to be the Queen. Her Majesty's forebears may have once ruled here but I think we won that war. We deserve a proactive, Democratic leader whose not afraid to say the following, "This is wrong, this contract is wrong, I was wrong to ever sign it, and we are proceeding to court - and we are not going to let cops who have been proven to be serious drug users to wear the badge."

Unfortunately, the mayor doesn't have the will of spirit to do the right thing in this matter. His lack of vision, his evaporating energy and his inability to comprehend the many crises consuming this great city like fire have painted him as a political King Lear, handicapped by serious events as much as by his own strange, persona. He's simply counting the days to January 2011, when he takes his generous retirement to Boca Raton and hands the seals of office to his unwitting successor.

Regular Bostonians are also counting the days.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator.

Restless political thoughts.

2006-08-15T20:59:00.000-04:00

Restless thoughts of a meandering summer mind
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Tom Reilly's media barrage proclaiming his virtues as the political antitheses to George Bush, defender of the elderly and ever watchful chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth seems to be hysterically ironic for ignoring one key issue for an attorney general running for governor at this precise moment in state history. His ads purposely ignore his role, or non role, regarding Big Dig corruption. It should naturally be the only issue for any law enforcement chieftain at the precise moment the world is focusing attention to the most obese public works corruption scandal in American history, right here in Massachusetts; a scandal which is ruining the already fragile reputation of Boston and jeopardizing any chance to reclaim population and desperately needed economic growth for the Hub.

It all makes Tea Pot Dome - the infamous public works scandal of 1922 - pale in comparison, and yet Reilly appears nothing less than awkward for not mentioning the words "big" or "dig" in any of these ads flooding the three major Boston networks of late. He's like the Warren Harding of the modern day, the naive president consumed by Tea Pot who never quite understood how events surrounding him were also sinking him.

It all proves true my theory that Reilly's simply not in the hunt in this campaign and will soon end, courtesy you the voters, his long but uninspiring Massachusetts political career.

I attribute it to the perception that Reilly's not the aggressive prosecutor one would expect but instead the politically effeminate "enforcer-negotiator" whose shied away from one too many fights for the fancy of an electorate demanding their A.G.'s be tough and steadfast; a rather reasonable expectation for such an office holder.

The "Reilly Whimp Factor" began to grip our imaginations and irritate our sensibilities when the state's top elected Democrat refused to pursue the crimes of Cardinal law, a pathetic omission of law enforcement savvy which I believe infuriated Catholics more than non-Catholics. Further, ever since the Big Dig exposed so many politicians for being negligent in not minding the store on behalf of their constituency, Reilly's credibility is right were I think it belongs; in third place in a three way primary contest.

History may well summarize Reilly's media blitz for what it didn't say more than for what little it tried to say.

Meanwhile, the emerging eight hundred pound guerilla in the Democratic Primary race is certainly Chris Gabrielli, whose on-the-air-now media buy, which makes specific mention of the Big Mess, is helping to compensate for his understandable absence from the campaign trail since the very sudden death of his mother, who in her own right was a very affective political activist. One Gabrielli advisor told me this weekend that the venture capitalist, who squeaked his way on to the ballot after some amazing bargaining at the party convention months ago, has been "hit hard" by his mother's death and "will need some time" to get fully back in gear.

He can take all the time he needs because this race is now his to lose. I base that on the following obvious suppositions. First, the only political issue in this race is the Big Dig. A candidate could come out in favor of legalizing Heroine for sale at Kindergartens state-wide and all voters would care about is what he or she plans to do about this monstrosity which could have made us the pride of the nation had our elected officials been a little less piggish. Since Gabrielli is clearly the de jure political outsider, having never held a public post in his life, moderate voters bound to flood the Democratic primary will easily gravitate to him - and his new ad preaching the need for "accountability" is an ad Reilly wishes he could also run were it not for his own guilty conscience.

In other words, we're all witnessing an '06 repeat of 1990, when a huge state budget crisis croaked the political ambitions of political pros like Evelyn Murphy and Frank Bellotti; and instead gave birth and credence to political neophytes like John Silber and Bill Weld in that year's barn-burner election. Voters went for the more sane of the two, and wanted nothing to do with politicians during a crisis triggered by the same people running for the chance to fix it.

This is 1990 "biggie sized", with the same electoral distaste for the Massachusetts political establishment.

And what of Duval Patrick, you say? I don't see a Governor Patrick in our future. I think he gets overshadowed by the growing Gabrielli media blitz and though he's not tainted by having ever held state office, his credentials as a Washington bureaucrat suddenly play against him. That leaves his admittedly impressive corporate executive credentials for bragging rights as an outsider, but you can bet the house that for every dollar he spends on television ads - something we've yet to see - Gabrielli spends about ten.

Meanwhile, one question remains unanswered during this pre primary advertising season - where in the world is independent candidate Christy Mihos and when does he plan to spend some of the millions he's made selling all those Slurpies on some critical television time. Here's the guy who can really say "I told you so." It's a consultant's dream come true, and though Mihos - once fired from the board which oversees the Big Dig because he was seen as overly critical by then Governor Jane Swift - has no primary hurdle to worry about it, I'd be on the air right now nonetheless if I had his credibility on the issue and his fat, check book in my pocket. His frequent appearances on WRKO radio might be fine and dandy for him, but it won't put the election in his pocket.

Oh yes, there is a fourth candidate and in my book she's back to her prior state of being; "governor what's-her-name," if I may quote myself. Lurking in the shadow of born-again hard hat Mitt Romney, the state's number two Republican and also the standard bearer for November, Kerry-Healey, a.k.a. "what's her name," sort of reminds me of that immortal moment in time when Ray Flynn was on the front page of every newspaper in the country holding that giant, black umbrella above the Holy Head of Pope John Paul II when the Pontiff once visited the U.S.

Sometimes pictures are a political handicap (just ask Joe Lieberman if kissing the presidential cheek was such a brilliant move), and the more Healey is seen in Romney's shadow touring this ramp and surveying that ceiling, the more she appears like a low-level courtier and a bad bet for anxious voters seeking someone with a little more gravitas.

Prediction - if the Democratic Primary were held today Gabrielli would win by an impressive margin, leaving Patrick about eight points behind and Reilly utterly in the dust. The only way the dynamics of the race change is if Patrick gets help from his secret weapon - his old boss, Bill Clinton; whose magnetism in the eyes of Massachusetts Democrats cannot be underestimated.

It could happen. Keep your eyes open for secret service agents scoping out the Park Plaza Hotel, Clinton's favorite digs while visiting Bean Town.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political commentator and writer. You can reach him at kevinsow@aol.com

Menino Hall??????

2006-07-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

Business as usual at city hall.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

Had Tommy Menino been on board the Titanic as the bow slipped slowly into the icy waters of the North Atlantic, I suspect he would have approached one of the frantic stewards dispensing life jackets and innocently inquired, with quite the straight face, "so what's for brunch tomorrow?"

If Matt Amorello is detached from the realities of the final days of the Massachusetts Empire, then His Honor the Mayor is absolutely politically catatonic, as exhibited by his deafening silence to the sycophantic proposal being bandied about by his praetorian guard at city hall that Boston's new convention center in Southie be named in honor of His Honor.

Let's ponder this together. At the exact moment in time when Pandora's Box, which is Bay State politics, is being exposed for every journalist's delight from here to Hong Kong, and just as an internal debate brews regarding the Tamney Hall-like politics which promulgated this political and engineering Chernobyl called the Big Dig, and just as Americans arrive at the logical conclusion that Boston politics is a sewer, the Menino clique considers it perfect timing to float an idea that millions in naming rights for the South Boston Convention Center be tossed like a salad so that instead we name the giant edifice - embroiled in it's own mountain of lawsuits - in Honor of the city's most powerful political chieftain.

Now I know we're not in Kansas anymore.

We clearly need to rush the city's czar back to Beth Israel, but on this occasion it won't be for gastrointestinal agony triggered by those nasty Red Sox cracker jack; but instead for desperately severe ear wax build up, which is keeping the lame duck mayor (God, that sound's sweet!) from hearing the clarion call for change in how we govern.

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

The Hub we love is facing a future more bleak than anything we could have imagined. Census data proves the population is declining. The middle class is bolting quicker than the Big Dig bolts are snapping. Most commuters say their rosary before attempting inner city travel of late; and only a CEO who was recently lobotomized would locate his company here given the recent headlines.

And amidst this locust of problems the big worry at that concrete bunker of a brain trust downtown is doing something nice for the Prince of the City.

I proudly disclose my bias, having been a media consultant to the convention center authority's past executive director, Fran Joyce. A Billy Bulger lieutenant, Joyce was gradually harassed away by a beefed-up Republican board of directors largely controlled by the Republican governor's office. One of Joyce's relentless critics was Menino. But were he still the man in charge, I can guarantee you that Joyce would be raising Holy Perdition at the thought of sacrificing millions in naming rights for the sake of glorifying a contemptible municipal ego.

Unfortunately, Menino has taken control of the convention center authority. His former chief of staff now fills Joyce's job as executive director and seems intent on violating his professional duty to seek out a corporate customer for the naming rights, in lieu of pleasing his master, Menino. As one convention center authority board member told me off the record, "We're kissing away millions here so that we can give a big kiss to the mayor. The idea stinks but I'm beginning to think they'll get away with it."

To steal a line from a favorite movie of mine, these are serious times, and we need serious leadership. You won't find that at City Hall Plaza unless there happens to be a visiting dignitary from out of town. The naming rights controversy only highlights what we already know - the city we love is sinking under the weight of corruption more quickly than those poorly engineered tunnels are also sinking.

I'll make a deal with the Prince of the City. If everyone is so insistent on denying the public coffers the money we can use from the naming rights, and, instead, committed to naming the new $800 million convention center after a person, I'll agree to the following - let's name it after all the people who've been gunned down since the Prince was reelected.

The are much more deserving the honor than His Honor.

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and can be reached at kevinsow@aol.com

WRKO AM Hate 680

2006-07-25T16:38:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. John Depetro.

Yes my friends, there is a God after-all. WRKO talk show host John DePetro was suspended from his morning gig this week after using a historic slur word for a Gay man while referencing Big Dig Chief Matthew Amorello. I suppose it was an obvious spin off on afternoon gabber Howie Carr's favorite nomenclature for the Big Dig Chief, which for exhausting years has been "Fat Matt." DePetro, whose anti-Gay diatribe led us to urge a relatively successful boycott of the WRKO radio station last spring, called the man at the center of attention since last week's tragedy in the Ted Williams Tunnel, "Fag Mat."

Ah yes, nothing like intelligent and stimulating dialogue at WRKO, whose airwaves are owned by you, according to federal law.

Boston.com reported on Tuesday evening that DePetro, who lives in Rhode Island, was suspended for two days, meaning he could be back on the air for his usual 9:00 a.m. slot this Friday.

DePetro's foot in mouth syndrome garnered him national headlines, which he appeared to relish like a child at Christmas, when he appeared to be less than sensitive to the murder of John Jay College student Imette St. Guillen, cruelly slain in New York City on February 25. St. Guillen came from Greater Boston and her ugly homicide captivated the nation's attention for many weeks. DePetro, quick to capitalize on the tragedy like the cheap used car sales man he is, implied that any female out at late hours was only asking for trouble, an idiotic philosophy most of us hoped had been conquered by the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

It was later revealed by New York City Police that Guillen was targeted by a night club bouncer, Daryl Littlejohn; who was working at the bar St. Guillen had been patronizing with her friends. Littlejohn has pled not guilty and the bar has since been closed.

The world according to DePetro also revolves around a philosophy that all Gay men must be pedophiles. Why, of course. In fact, when a state trooper was recently captured by authorities for allegedly soliciting sex from an underage male (who was in reality an undercover federal agent), DePetro said the Gay Community should be held accountable. I'm still trying to figure out that twisted brand of logic, but to get into the head of DePetro is like getting into a "head full of mush," as Professor Kingsfield would likely say.

In a statement to the Boston Globe, WRKO program director Jason Wolfe said his organization had "zero tolerance for racial intolerance." Apparently the station's parent company, Entercom, enforces the "zero tolerance" policy with all-too-brief periods of dress keeping suspensions for the sake of public relations. In 2003 the company briefly suspended sports commentators John Dennis and Gerry Callahan following their racial slur directed at an African American, when they clearly compared students of color to Gorillas. The duet is back on the air, as DePetro was expected to be last week. Meanwhile, Howie Carr continually utters some of the more in-the-gutter diatribe at RKO without any apparent consequences.

Ironically, and I think most sadly, the Boston Red Sox, ever conscious of their image, will broadcast their games on the station next season.

Our boycott of RKO had it's fair share of success and should be considered ongoing. Following our column on the subject of RKO hate speak, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of Boston, a key WRKO advertiser, said for the record that they had launched a protest with the station's manager, expressing their concern with RKO's format regarding Gay issues.

Should you care to invest about two minutes of your precious time this week, give the station a call at 617-779-3400 and tell them to do the Hub and their own business a favor - make DePetro's suspension a permanent affair and hire someone whose actually all right in the head and who has something to say. As for the Red Sox decision to give WRKO a contract reported by the Globe to be worth as much as $14 million a year, you can let them know what you think by calling 617-267-9440.

It all comes down to bolt-and-epoxy fasteners

2006-07-22T16:24:00.000-04:00

Thank God for bolt-and-epoxy fasteners.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

A highly placed source in the Romney Administration has told me that early next week the Republican governor will announce his plans to suspend his underdog bid for president in lieu of assuming a new leadership role in the ongoing Big Dig investigation and repair efforts.

My source tells me that Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, is working in concert with nationally known Republican political consultant Mike Murphy to draft a planned-to-be-televised speech that will "definitely use the word suspend," the source told me. Murphy, a Republican whiz kid with a batch of victories under his belt from years of running stunning national media campaigns, left the Romney headquarters months ago citing some potential political conflicts of interest. Apparently he's back; just as Romney's back is against the slurry walls of the Big Dig tunnels.

Romney's announcement is not prolific and does not nail the coffin in his presidential aspiration, necessarily. Most potential candidates are foregoing their campaign announcements until '07, and Romney inevitably leaves the governor's office, and the Big Dig mess, to his successor on January first of that year; allowing him to jump back into the national political waters with ease, he hopes. But for now, the man so often criticized for his out of state sojourns to the cornfields of Iowa and the industrial heartland of his late father's home state of Michigan, is home bound in a political wheelchair. He's handicapped by the biggest construction scandal in global history, and that is no exaggeration.

Clapping his hands and yelling, "Help, I can't get up," won't help the governor. Instead, he'll have to self-morph into the world's greatest engineer, and he's got just five months to accomplish his goal of fixing a royal mess; if he's to be worth anything tangible to G.O.P. operatives next year.

As one Republican National Committee member told me this week, "Of all the political characters here, the one with the most to lose or gain is Romney."

Indeed, the stakes are high, but that national committee member is accurate - they are high for just one of the many political players in this drama. I mean, do you really think Ted Kennedy is going to lose his reelection bid this November because of this? Do you think state Senate President Travaglini or House Speaker Di Masi are sweating bullets, or screws? Their seats of power are as secure and comfortable as ever. Do you think John Kerry will cancel his Vineyard getaway? All this lot of pols has to worry about is wearing additional sun screen because the state house is filled with more klieg lights than usual.

But Romney was the guy trying hard to get out of Dodge. Having served a rather uneventful term - and I'm being extraordinarily generous here - Romney is dead set on national ambitions which could garner him some federal prize of significance. The presidency is probably beyond his reach. But his campaign is about gamesmanship; making a good enough showing here or there to guarantee him a cabinet posting or better in a Republican administration, if that is the nation's fate in January of '09.

So now we know what it took to get Romney to stop obsessing about Gay Marriage - bolt-and-epoxy fasteners. As humiliating as it may be for the perfectly groomed governor, His Excellency's life is now that of a "hard hat," a glorified repairman whose new obsession is screwing; I mean screwing things back together so mega tons of concrete don't fall on our Puritan heads.

For my money, Romney's damaged by this beyond the extent his inner circle is willing or intellectually able to understand. My mole in the governor's office tells me that Romney's political confidants, including chief of staff Beth Myers and Republican operative Charles Manning, see this is a "golden opportunity for Romney to do here what he did in Salt Lake City," my source said. The source was referencing the Olympic games of 2002 in Salt Lake City Utah and an infamous bidding scandal there, where high ranking figures were accused of bribing members of the International Olympic Committee to bring the coveted games to Salt Lake. Romney, having high political clout in the western state, was brought in as the fix it guy and earned high, bipartisan praise for his efforts.

Unfortunately for the governor, and Massachusetts, comparing the Salt Lake mess to the Big Dig meltdown is like comparing a summer brush fire to Chernobyl. Our broken, multi-billion dollar project is a national joke and no matter how hard Romney re-screws the screws into all those ceilings, his likely opponents are already piling the clippings and evidence which will be damning to his presidential ambitions.

Don't think for one moment that senate majority leader Bill First doesn't have at least a dozen staffers researching what Romney didn't do but could have done over the last four years. Bet serious cash that legionnaires working for folks like Rudy Guilliani, Senator John McCain, Senator George Allen of Virginia and God knows who else are watching the Bay State and preparing the text for the first Republican presidential scene.

It will go something like this. Romney will boast that when the sky fell during his watch he took command and all was well. Just when you think he's scored big, Frist, with a grin on his Tennessee face, puts a simple question to the Massachusetts governor - what were you doing all the years before that woman was killed to keep it from happening?

We call that a slam dunk in politics, and not for Romney.

2006-07-02T18:34:00.000-04:00

The Two Bishops
by Kevin John Sowyrda

When Beacon Hill starts to resemble an episode from Monty Python's Flying Circus you know that all is not well in the province which gave birth to America. But there he was, His Excellency The Part Time Governor Mitt Romney joining hands with the Catholic Church Cardinal Sean O'Malley on June 28th, in an effort to promulgate a populist movement of support defending marriage against what must be the inevitable perils of Gay marriage. I'll say this from the start; beware of any pair of bishops whose proposals are hypocritical and laughable.

Let's gently place on our back burner the oh-so-obvious points of logic; that divorce rates haven't skyrocketed since the Marshall Court ruling and that they could hardly be higher anyway; and that bigotry shrewdly shrouded by moralistic hyperbole is nonetheless bigotry, even when the hyperbole emanates from a Church of Mormon bishop and a poorly dressed one of Catholic ilk as well. What was striking about this television event, which had a John Stewart comedic quotient to it, was the pure irony - the Roman Catholic church, through it's local potentate, lecturing anyone on a moral issue of any measure. This is the institution that sanctioned the rape of literally thousands of children, and I say this as a beleaguered member of the institution; who knows, just as anyone who can read, that endless court documents prove that Cardinal Bernard Law "punished" pedophile priests by nonchalantly transferring them to other parishes, rich with naive and unaware victims to be. It was obstruction of justice at the very least and my primary reason for urging friends to boycott Attorney General Tom Reilly in his increasingly ridiculous pursuit for governor is the fact that he let the cardinal take a walk on this cardinal sin, something history will not pardon him for. Much more on that in weeks to come.

You'd think public relations 101, or for that matter decency 101, would motivate the Boston Catholic Archdiocese to keep a low profile on high profile issues; atleast for a few years as the dust settles around their scandal plagued glass house. They are sadly not so motivated and the utter arrogance of this institution was so transparent last week that I'm convinced the state-wide belly laugh could be heard in Iowa, which is where Romney basically resides these days anyway.

But the story behind the story here is the utter fallacy of two sanctimonious bishops engaging in the art of political persuasion when they are so ignorant as to the actual pulse of Massachusetts politics. They are therefore destined, thank the Mormon and Catholic God, to fail miserably in their cause celebrant.

Here's what Massachusetts voters care about right now - jobs and the price of bread. What they don't care about, what does not blip on their radar screen, is what occurs in the bedroom between consenting adults.........just as the Catholic Church never cared about what occurred in the bedrooms and confessional booths between priests and minors.

So, viewing Cardinal O'Malley deliver his homily last week with Bishop Romney faithfully by his side like a loyal cocker spaniel - for a moment I thought it would turn into a Broke Back Mountain moment - reminded me of what it would be like to observe other such absurd ironies, for example;

O.J. Simpson writing a book on the epidemic of domestic violence, or,
Mayor Menino teaching English at Harvard, or,
Tom Cruise giving a lecture on the country's need to embrace those who seek help for mental illness, or,
Mike Barnicle preaching the evils of plagiarism, or,
Diane Wilkerson filing legislation for tougher campaign finance laws, or,
Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole telling other cities how to cut down their murder rates, or,
Bill Clinton talking up the virtues of celibacy, or,
George Bush giving his weekly radio address on the importance of respecting freedom of the press.

I think you sense not my outrage, but my intellectual inability to take this big press event of last week at Beacon Hill with any level of seriousness beyond that which I would subscribe to Monty's Circus.

Finally, a few important thoughts on the politics here and how this plays out in a critical state election year. Massachusetts voters, for that matter Americans in general, tend not to embrace the lobbying efforts of religious leaders. There's something that simply goes against our national grain when we see church leaders telling our elected ombudsmen how to vote and, therefore, the rest of us how to behave. I suppose one could call it the spirit of Henry VIII inside us; a natural disdain for both spiritual and temporal authoritarianism, but an inclination to prefer the temporal authority should we have to chose between which dimension governs our daily lives and patterns of behavior.

For my money, the Romney press conference was a political anomaly the likes of which I've never witnessed in many years of covering Massachusetts state politics. Governor Romney is quite literally the only one of fifty governor's in the country who simultaneously serves as a bishop of a significant religious organization. To my knowledge we haven't seen anything like this in domestic politics since the days of Congressman Drinan, who was also an ordained priest while serving as a Democrat in the House. He was compelled to sacrifice his congressional powers at the behest of his Pontiff. That's probably the last time we witnessed such a visual example of spiritual and temporal offices so obviously overlapping; and truth be told, Americans find it distasteful in any case, whether thought to be malevolent or benevolent.

Do I hear separation of church and state, anyone?

But the anomaly is this. Here's Bishop and Governor Romney creating a political alliance with the embattled Catholic hierarchy on an issue that was always polarizing and is increasingly dissipating in interest to moderate Americans. Romney should know that if he's to be a national player he can't be perceived to be the Pat Robertson of the 2008 primary. His out-of-touch demeanor helps to explain national polling numbers showing Romney to be gaining little traction as an aspiring presidential contender. The political reality is this; despite what a few charlatans political advisors may be whispering into Romney's ears in the corner office, the issue of Gay marriage is not political manifest destiny for the majority of voters. People are looking for more gravitas than just cheap attacks on a given minority.

But From what I'm told and from what I see it doesn't matter what those advisors say, because Romney just honestly thinks and feels this way regarding Gay couples. I suppose that's the saddest commentary anyone can offer on the man himself.

As for O'Malley, I would simply ask him precisely what Joe Denucci, now state auditor, once asked his colleagues in the Massachusetts House when they considered the first legislation protecting the rights of Gay citizens; "Why should I hate these people?"

Kevin John Sowyrda is a political writer and commentator.

Bill Weld - a brief paragraph in history.

2006-06-13T21:57:00.000-04:00

Bill Weld - we hardly knew ya.
by Kevin John Sowyrda

When in Rome, do as the Romans, or so was the credo of former Bay State Governor William Floyd Weld, whose aspirations for new glory in his state of birth, New York, were dashed on June 6 when he took his campaign for governor off life support, and what a campaign it never was.

I remember a frantic call from a pretty solid reporter at the New York Daily News who asked me months ago what I thought about this Yankee of all Yankees entering the court of New York politics, which makes our game of same pale in comparison. In Massachusetts we play political hardball, but in New York they play political bio-warfare. None the less, I predicted in print that the wealthy Brahmin, whose recreational tastes range from ceaselessly quoting Melville's 'Moby Dick' to worshipping the garbage which is the drug infested Grateful Dead Band, would be to New York what he was to Massachusetts - an extremely colorful and vibrant candidate whose eccentricities were more than compensated for when considering his intellect and what that brought to the table of modern-day public policy making.

I was flat, out wrong. Bill Weld's campaign, run in large part by right-wing G.O.P. operative Rob Gray, was an amalgamation of back peddling, lame excuses for suspicious business dealings which did not pass "the smell test," to use the governor's more remembered quotes, and a platform of such outdated, unappealing and "we've heard all that before" pabulum that even Weld's fellow moderate Republicans - few in New York - did not come close to embracing the candidate. His attention deficit disorder is rarely discussed but was so obviously the primary reason for his peripatetic and brief New York political career.

Weld instantly suffered from an Achilles heel in his nascent bid for New York governor when the press there had a feeding frenzy regarding his role as CEO of Decker College in Kentucky, which went bankrupt and is accused of stealing student aid money. It was reported that Weld's annual salary for working at the college was $750,000 annually, which hardly facilitated his ridiculous efforts to downplay his role in the school finance scandal. If the New York media is to be believed, Weld participated in the type of business dealings he would have investigated when U.S. attorney for Massachusetts.

Suddenly, the Massachusetts governor missed his press pals in Boston, that gang of giggly, soft-hitting reporters who hoisted more beers with him than anyone could count and gave him a free pass on more events than we can recount in this space.

Weld and his aid Rob Gray forgot something early on - the New York press has no friends and is not bought by a few rounds of brew. It ain't Boston.

Divorced from his Harvard Professor wife of fifteen years and now remarried, Weld's race for governor was more than casually observed by the nation's Gay Community for very obvious reasons. While reigning in Massachusetts, Weld's pro-Gay agenda secured national headlines and established His Excellency as both the de facto leader of the moderate Republican movement in America and the scorn of conservatives, who could not countenance a party member embracing the Gay constituency with such utter enthusiasm. There were times in the 90's that if I didn't know better I'd swear Weld was himself......well, forget that for now.

But New York was a very different place - make that different dimension - and it's in this race that we were sadly reminded that politicians are not frequently chastised as camellions for little reason. Finding himself captured by a vituperative Republican Party apparatus and a separate Conservative Party, neither of which relished Big Red's Jacob Javits like social liberalism, Weld was suddenly back peddling on his most famous stand, that being support for Gay marriage. He ran away from the issue quicker than Johnny Damon bolted Boston for the Yankees. Clearly, Weld's personal ambition for a new crown and scepter in Rome exceeded what we were all naive enough to think was his commitment to his own core values.

The emperor started to lose his clothing last summer When the New York Post asked Weld if he supported Gay Marriage. Weld delivered a terse "No" to the asking reporter. It was after the Post article that the big press in the Big Apple, the New York Times, upped the anti. In a lengthy article, the Gray Lady clarified, to the detriment of Weld's reputation with the Gay Community, that the former "Mr. Pro Gay Governor" supported Gay Marriage when limited to Massachusetts and not allowed beyond those borders. For New York Gays, civil unions would have to suffice, said Weld. The hole enchilada was just for his pals back in Boston and Cambridge, apparently.

It was an ironic born-again philosophy for a man who once preached to numerous Gay organizations that he believed Gay men and women, nation wide, should enjoy the same rights as any other taxpayers. He even intimated, in a speech to the the Log Cabin club last summer, that the Massachusetts Supreme Court Ruling legalizing Gay marriage was a sensible boiler plate for all states. Directly referencing the Marshall majority opinion he said, "I'm surprised that that is not a more broadly held point of view."

The civil libertarian streak in Bill Weld seemed so completely solid and deeply spiritual that his abandonment of this so-Weldian belief in Gay marriage may have ironically hurt the guv with conservatives themselves, oddly enough. Let's face it, even your opponents respect you for sticking by your guns and ignore you when you turn out to be so plastic. Suddenly, friends and foes saw the new, New York Bill Weld. Here was a guy just bursting at the seams to spill what ever words sufficed to get into the political hunt. It was cheap, and beneath the man's intellectual reputation.

He just started to represent a needless sideshow, like one of those tents at the Topsfield Fair where they charge you five bucks to glare at some oversized cow or pumpkin.

Weld's political career is in more than hibernation today. He's age 60 and his bid for New York governor did nothing to enhance his reputation. In my opinion his political career is, based on ethical lapses in judgement and lack of self-honesty, completely dead and meriting just a paragraph or two in the history books. And his abandoning the Gay community, the same group which clearly made him governor in that incredible 1990 Massachusetts election, was just all too common politics of betrayal.

Farewell, Mr. Weld. It's unfortunate you pursued the life of Ahab - the Moby Dick character you so relish and now resemble. In pursuit of an unreachable goal you forgot yourself and you forgot decency.

Gabrielli's big weekend

2006-05-31T12:03:00.000-04:00

Great ads, wrong audience - Gabrielli could sink or swim on Saturday.
by Kevin John Sowyrda
Entrepreneur Chris Gabrielli's television ads would be a winning formula for electoral success were the audience of the moment normal, moderate voters. Unfortunately for the Democratic Party's 2002 nominee for lt. governor, the audience du jour is neither; and that's why there's a pretty fair chance that Gabrielli will fail to receive the nod of his party's delegates this weekend in Worcester to appear on the September primary ballot. Gabrielli faces off against Attorney General Tom Reilly and former U.S. Justice Department official Deval Patrick.

Gabrielli desperately needs atleast fifteen percent of the historically left of center conventioneers to vote for him if he's to have his chance for the corner office. Without that precious, all be it anachronistic, fifteen percent threshold, he's got no where to go; and it's too late to pull a Christy Mihos and run as an independent candidate. That would leave Gabrielli a political loser for atleast the third time in his life; to say nothing of the fact that he'd be out a few million - but for Chris that's pocket change and rather incidental, indeed.

It's a damn shame, but I predict it could happen. The convention this weekend is for conventional thinkers, which Gabrielli isn't. These are the quintessential, died-in-the-wool Democrats who come from the very old school of politics. Make that the ancient school of politics. They believe in big government, big spending, big taxes, big projects and very traditional thinking. I'll bet a few of them don't know there's an Internet and think A.T.M. stands for "all taxes matter."

As Gabrielli has shown in his advertisements, he's Mr.out-of-the-box politico if there ever was such a man among us. He's everything the party bosses can't stand and know they won't be able to control. He proposes, for example, to make Massachusetts the stem cell research capital of the world. Before that, his reputation was built on his love affair with charter schools and school vouchers and school choice, themes which are nothing less than anathema to public school teachers who dominate this convention via their extremely muscled union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). The MTA has grudgingly supported Patrick despite some favorable statements he's made on the subject, but to them Gabrielli is too much the education reformist. And trust me when I tell you, the MTA is many things, but God help us, never reformist.

I think likely primary voters - that means people who don't even know there's a convention this weekend - love Gabrielli's newest ads. I know I do. I think they're absolutely delicious and simply rock. They're everything our present state and national leadership isn't - creative, inventive, bold and imaginative. But this crowd sojourning to the Worcester Centrum doesn't care about those noble qualities, suddenly packaged into a last minute electronic ad buy. It's all falling on shamefully deaf ears. They're loyal to a fault to the progressive man of the hour, Deval Patrick, who by now knows the state's highways and byways better than Map Quest. They resent Gabrielli - for no logical reason - for his untimely entry into a contest which has been, from their parochial perspective, going on since last year; with little room for tardy membership. Unless you've attended the Needham Democratic Town Committee meeting atleast fifteen times, you must be a mole for George Bush.

And as for new ideas, these delegates would get much more fired up if a candidate saturated the airwaves with a proposal to abolish Proposition 2 1/2, or some other foolhardy missive. In point of fact, this crowd of delegates is so unabashedly left wing that had Gabrielli spent his suit case of cash on a very different ad campaign, let's say one that preached George Bush should be impeached by the state legislature for his 'crimes' in Iraq, he wouldn't get his 15 percent - he'd get about eighty. (For those of you who missed seventh grade civics class, the state legislature can't impeach the president, thank Heaven.)

So how have past non-liberals like Gabrielli survived this once-every-four-years liberals only festival. Well, in the case of the most conservative Democrat ever to survive the convention, he had a secret weapon. He had a consummate deal maker named Billy Bulger. That uber conservative candidate was John Silber, known for his iron fisted leadership of Boston University, his very right of center social agenda and his close friendship with Bulger, then the state senate president and master manipulator of political voting. Silber garnered his fifteen percent, barely, because Bulger corralled the votes with near ruthless tactics, for which Bulger was always infamous. Bulger pulled it together for his comrade Silber with his unique brand of arm twisting, deal making and cajoling - and it worked perfectly.
Silber was not too conservative for his party's open primary voters. He went on to win the September primary. The same could be the case for Gabrielli - who not so incidentally, is much more socially progressive than the retired Boston University president will ever be.

But Gabrielli has no Bulger. And according to my political intelligence, he has no deal makers; atleast none of Bulger-like caliber. That's his problem going into Saturday.

However, Deval Patrick would be wise, or atleast some of his supporters told me this week, to make a deal quicker than Monty Hall. The man who could be the state's first African-American governor needs more than a one on one contest to win in September. Attorney General Tom Reilly, for all his faults and political blemishes, has a campaign treasury which is intimidating when compared to Patrick's. I think Patrick's chances in September are better if he's one of three candidates, and not just one of two. Gabrielli and Reilly would split the more conservative and moderate Dems (both Reilly and Gabrielli support tax cuts), and Patrick could, so the theory goes, sneak a win with the progressive and minority voters.

Either way you look at it, Gabrielli is in trouble; because the convention is not representative of Massachusetts. One delegate told me this week that he's had call's from the Gabrielli camp "literally begging" him to defect to their bandwagon. My friend declined, as I'm told have many others who committed to Patrick or Reilly long ago.

Gabrielli's got great ideas but bad listeners in Worcester. And if he's denied a place on the ballot the ultimate winner is the G.O.P. nominee Kerry Healey. Healey will be watching intently this weekend because she knows the real truth - she can certainly best Reilly, and possibly best Patrick, but she gets eaten for breakfast if her opponent is Gabrielli.

Because of that political likelihood, it's time for this convention to take a reality test and not to look a gift horse in the mouth, regardless of how late he arrived to the cotillion. Gabrielli brings deep pockets to the race which even the wealthy Kerry Healey can't compete with. That means he can win in November, and it won't just be the money. Gabrielli's message is ironically Weldian (as in the former governor) in nature. He's a social liberal and a fiscal moderate, the perfect ideological mix for the November electorate; and Weld proved this twice at the ballot box. Gabrielli has proven that he's got the tenacity to take on the Democratic establishment while remaining perfectly faithful to key, party values. His social progressive credentials are quite solid, as is seen in his strong support of Gay Marriage. And last, but not least, in the era of political cacophony Gabrielli is a breath of fresh air because he's actually got something to say, as opposed to most politicians who, lately, can only banter. Gabreilli's ideas are deeply substantive and timely.

The Democrats have been exiled from the governor's office since January of 1991. They've got a very good chance to take back the prize if they only dare open their minds and ears this weekend.

Romney's Chuck Colson

2006-05-16T21:44:00.000-04:00

Romney's Chuck Colson
by Kevin John Sowyrda

One of these days, right about the same time I figure out how to download music to that I-POD thing I got for Christmas, I'm going to discover what ever went wrong with the formerly moderate Massachusetts Republican Party, its leadership, and certain key disciples who, once upon a time, were perfectly comfortable with Gay people and Gay Community issues; only to be transformed into hostile opponents who manipulate even minutia issues to slap Gay people and Gay youth down, and down hard.

Case in point, one Beth Myers, the new bad girl in Boston. Myers is to the Mitt Romney Administration what Chuck Colson was to the Nixon White House in the Seventies. You know her if you're a political junkie and you've never heard her name in your entire life if you're a normal, Joe-voter type. She's become the - I won't say ruthless - but the hatchet lady governor's office chief of staff whose put her own personal beliefs in a lock box in favor of pushing a right wing agenda which even the party's present nominee for governor is distancing herself from a mile a minute.

Beth and I have broken bread together on many occasions and have had more than our fair share of great conversations; though on Tuesday she was apparently too busy to respond to my two phone messages which fairly warned her that I planned to eviscerate her in this week's column as you will see and which she so richly deserves.

Disloyal? Me, never. I just can't stomach it when I see people who once professed the civil libertarian creed of the G.O.P. - something I have always admired about the party and still do in some of its members (anybody remember Bill Weld and Lowell Weicker?) - degenerate their own intellects and forsake their own hearts and take up this cheap and shallow cause of social agendizing, where it's their way or the high way when it comes to life style.

The background is already known to you because Bay Windows broke the story that His Excellency was apoplectic that the state sanctioned gay youth council, invented by former Governor Bill Weld, was marching in a parade and promoted same with state stationary bearing Romney's name. The typically over-rehearsed and never-to-be-found-with-a-hair-out-of-place presidential aspirant had an uncharacteristically pre-schooler temper tantrum and tried to abolish what is officially known as the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth - though it's never really been Romney's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. He's always viewed it as sort of a mother in law type thing; it comes with the package, if you get my drift.

You would have thought someone had whispered in Romney's ear that jack-booted teens with brown shirts were going to be doing the goose step in His Excellency's name down Park Street to Tremont. It was Myers, from what my governor's office deep throat (I really have one) tells me, who made sure than an executive order was typed pronto. The imperial edict abolished the group so heralded by the progressive community and educators when Bill Weld had the intestinal fortitude to create it years ago.

But as proof that there's still a check on the absurd antics of this governor's office, Myers told the commission chairwoman, Kathleen Henry, that His Excellency had reversed himself. This all happened in the same business day and the positive political flip flog came only after Romney was reportedly flooded with protests from Beacon Hill lawmakers who, unlike the governor, are to the left of Attila the Hun, not the right. There was some debate about whether or not an executive order killing the council was ever, in reality, drafted; but few people on Beacon Hill take seriously any denials, or for that matter any statements at all, which emit from the office of gubernatorial communications lieutenant Eric Fehrnstrom. He was deputy state treasurer when over 9 million dollars was embezzled from that office - the biggest theft of public dollars in Massachusetts history. Of course, Eric didn't know anything about it. I mean if he did, he'd be in jail right now instead of telling the press that the governor didn't want his name associated with "that parade".

First, some facts you already know thanks to the cracker jack reporters at Bay Windows who broke an important story the very pompous governor's office wishes had stayed, excuse me, in the closet. "That parade," was always privately paid for. Second, what is the big deal. In the era of television's Will and Grace and Dick Cheney's Gay daughter roaming the talk show circuit, what in the name of Heaven is the preoccupation of this executive office with anything and everything with the letter 'G' tagged to it. I mean, do they actually know it's the year 2006 and not 1956. And is there nothing more important on their plate, such as stopping the reported exudus of Bay State residents who can no longer afford to live here.

Yes, some - not all - of the evangelicals in Indiana get a kick out of kicking Gay people, but the nation is changing and Mitt Romney isn't. His stagnant social agenda is so archaic that his presidential bid will be perfectly successful; if his goal is to be ambassador to Bermuda, a historic consolation prize to those who tried too hard in the primarys and spent way too much for way too few votes. As that character in 'Broke Back Mountain,' might say, Romney "just can't quit" that Gay bashing - and it could be his undoing. I mean think about this for a moment, other than fighting against Gay Marriage and now this group that tries to help kids, what is this governor's moniker? What in the world does he have to say that matters to real people??

The governor is being so abysmally advised that two very practical responses should be prompted by his almost execution of a council whose only crime is that it tries to help kids who are often bullied. First, Mitt Romney knows prejudice and should therefore be expected to sympathize with those who know exactly the same and so frequently face it, such as Gay youth. The governor is Mormon and members of his faith have been sadly persecuted in our society for years. Many find the faith to be much more queer than Queer people. One would think Romney would be the empathetic governor to this issue instead of the hostile politician he is. I've always thought JFK was able to fight better for civil rights because as a Roman Catholic he understood the evil of social labels and ignorance. But Mr. Romney; I've met you, I've covered you, and you're no JFK.

Second, who advises this guy whose favorability ratings are on par with those of the president's? My deep throat says, and a flock of politicians on Beacon Hill will tell you also, that Beth Myers has become the very right of center, key advisor. She's a sort of ultra conservative version of Mary Lee King; who was the last high ranking woman to counsel a Massachusetts governor, and in my opinion do so very wisely. In King's case she was the reasonable and mature voice prompting Bill Weld to act on his beliefs and lead, as opposed to following polling data. In Myers case, she's the harsh-toned conservative who imagines that the presidency is decided by Indiana and Georgia. She was almost successful in prompting the governor to do something that would have made great headlines with conservative bloggers but hurt kids here in Massachusetts. That's definitely Chuck Colson's style - or atleast his style before he discovered Jesus.

Soon, none of this matters. Romney's relevance is almost depleted, a new poll shows his traction is nil at the national stage, and, I predict that should the next governor be Republican Kerry Healey you will ironically see a much more diplomatic relationship between the corner office and the Gay Community. That would be refreshing after nearly four years of gubernatorial hostility encouraged by political advisors who decided to forget the most important lesson Bill Weld ever taught his party - "keep the government out of people's pocket-books and out of their bedrooms".