wed column ping
Finneran will sing like a canary
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, November 28, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo
Photo by Christopher Evans
You’re Felon Finneran, the disgraced ex-speaker of the House, and you’ve apparently been immunized to testify in the Probation Department scandal.
You’ll be just fine, that’s what you’re telling your payroll-patriot pals.
All you have to do is answer truthfully any questions the grand jury asks you. OK, so you’ve had a problem or two with that in the past, but back then, it was appeals court judges you were lying to, not 23 good men and true.
You look at it this way: You’re just following in the tiny footsteps of Billy Bulger. And at least you’re not going to have to testify on national television, with that wiseguy sitting behind you rolling his eyes and making faces.
Oh sure, some of your old Beacon Hill lackeys, maybe even a guy or two you went to high school with, might end up in the jackpot once you raise your right hand, but at this late date, at age 62, what exactly were you supposed to do?
You’ve already lost your state pension.
And your ticket to practice law.
And your $400,000-a-year lobbying job.
And your radio show.
What would your hero, Winston Churchill, do? He once said there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at and surviving. Although being indicted, and pleading guilty, and not doing any time probably comes close.
But the feds aren’t going to give you a second base on balls. Sure you could be a stand-up guy, but stand-up guys with one felony already on their rap sheets generally do 45-52 months.
And you sure as heck aren’t going to take them on. Sal DiMasi tried that. Enough said.
When the SJC commissioned its kangaroo court “investigation” two years ago, you refused to talk to Paul Ware. But now the word is you’ve gotten an offer you can’t refuse.
You’re Felon Finneran, and you feel sorry for Jack O’Brien, your vassal, the bumkisser you installed to run the Probation Department as your own personal hackerama after you muscled in on the judges a decade ago. But if you could still talk to Obie, you’d tell him, the feds don’t care about you. They’re interested in Mr. Fat — er, Mr. Big. And maybe the woman across the hall who kinda looks like Michelle Kosilek.
You’re Felon Finneran, and the number you keep hearing is five, and no, it’s not the Fifth Amendment. It’s how many solons may be getting target letters in the next round of indictments.
You’re Felon Finneran, and boy, could you use a handful of Advils right about now. But not as much as some of the people you may soon be ratting out.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com
Fri column ping
Stupid is, as Tim Cahill does
By Howie Carr | Friday, November 30, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Angela Rowlings
If the charge were stupidity, former Treasurer Tim Cahill would have already been found guilty.
But being a boob isn’t against the law.
The problem is, Tim is in fact guilty of one thing: He got Deval Patrick re-elected in 2010. Oh sure, maybe Deval would have been won a second term anyway, but Cahill made it way too easy for him.
In the end, remember, Patrick only got 49 percent of the vote.
Tim no doubt thinks he’s been punished enough without these trumped-up charges that could send him to prison. And he seems to have learned a lot, but unfortunately for all of us, he learned it too late.
Talking yesterday about the advice his coatholders gave him as he tried to resuscitate his doomed campaign, he said: “It’s not always easy to get an honest answer when you ask someone for an opinion. They say yes. They laugh at your jokes.”
Speaking of jokes, that’s what his campaign was. I remember telling him repeatedly in 2010 that he was out of his mind to run for governor. Back in 2002, he had somehow lucked into the second best job in state government. He could have been treasurer forever, like Bob Crane.
For eight years, Cahill got to shake down Wall Street (in a legal sense, of course) for millions of dollars in campaign funds. At least one of his daughters went to Harvard. Everybody he knew in Quincy got a job either at the Treasury (good) or at the Lottery (better — Braintree is closer to Quincy, and they have a union that means that after six months, you’re at the public trough for life).
But Tim had to run for governor, as an independent. It reminded me of the scene in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” where Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney are listening to John Lennon on the radio singing his idiotic “Power to the People Right On” song.
“That poor fool should have stayed where he was,” the attorney says. “Punks like that just get in the way when they try to be serious.”
Tim Cahill was nothing more than a straw for Deval Patrick. Maybe he didn’t know he was a straw, but the best straw is always the one who doesn’t even know he’s a straw. In the debates, Deval used Cahill as a shield to deflect attacks from the real opposition candidate, Charlie Baker. It was a rerun of 2006, with Cahill in the role of Christy Mihos. By September, Cahill told the jury yesterday, he knew that winning “would take a miracle. Someone would have to drop out or get caught doing something.”
And guess who got caught. And now Tim Cahill is being railroaded. But it’s hard to feel much sympathy for a boob who got an even bigger boob re-elected.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061178341