Menino gets snow jobbed
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 9, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Ted Fitzgerald (file)
Laid up at Spaulding Rehab, Mumbles Menino is making like Santa Claus. The recuperating mayor is making a list and checking it twice. He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.
And No. 1 on Menino’s naughty list is his predecessor as mayor, Ray Flynn. You might have missed it, but right after Menino’s first TV interviews, Raybo drove out to Ch. 25 to give an interview to Maria Stephanos about the plight of his dear pal.
Ever since, I’ve been waiting to hear that assessors from Boston City Hall have swarmed over One Flint Place, and that the assessment on Raybo’s house has been jacked up to, say, $10 million.
The piece begins with Maria mentioning that she and Flynn have just watched the interview, in which Menino didn’t look so hot, to put it mildly. Maria says to Raybo, “It was difficult for you?”
He stares straight ahead, in rapt silence. For almost 10 seconds. See, Raybo’s overcome with emotion, or something. Finally Maria says, in her concerned voice, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” he says, haltingly, then chokes up again for maybe another three seconds.
Maria finally puts her hand on Flynn’s forearm to console him in his grief.
“It’s all right,” she says.
“All right.” Pause. “Yeah, all right.”
Wow. The average viewer was probably thinking, Raybo must really love this guy.
“I’ve known Tommy for a long, long period of time.” Get that — he calls him Tommy. They must be tight. “To see him as I just saw him, it’s a different Tom Menino than I’ve ever seen before. You know we’ve had our political differences over the years. However, this is not political, it’s personal, and it makes me sad to see him in that condition.”
Let’s consider those political differences.
When Ray returned to Boston in 1996, he wanted to run for Congress. Menino wouldn’t endorse him over a Boston city councilor and a state rep. Ray lost and never forgave him.
After a blizzard, he ripped Menino’s snow removal under a headline, “We did it better.” In 2009 Raybo endorsed Mike Flaherty and Sam Yoon for mayor against Menino. Then this year he went with U.S. Sen. Scott Brown against Menino’s candidate, the fake Indian.
Apart from all that, and a bunch of other disputes I don’t have room to chronicle, the two mayors have always been thisclose.
Maria asked Raybo if he wanted to offer any advice to the only other living mayor of Boston.
“I only can point out, if I had the chance to — I wrote to him, I put in requests to meet with him, maybe this isn’t the time to do that, but if he asked me I’d say there’s a big world out there ...”
And then there was that anti-casino rally in Eastie that Raybo showed up to.
Maria asked Flynn who he thinks is in charge at City Hall.
“I really don’t know. I don’t know how you do that. I used to say you can’t run the city from City Hall, and you certainly can’t run it from a hospital bed.”
If nothing else, with this 3 minute, 58 seconds of videotape, Flynn proved that when he wants to, he can still insert the needle with the best of them. He and Maria started talking about how Menino can no longer move about the city.
“He’s sick, he can’t do it and I think that’s the part — you know, look, it troubles him, there’s no doubt about it. But for me to see that film it’s troubling to me as well — for him — because I know him, I know him well, I respect him. You know it just bothered me to no end.”
If I ever get sick, please don’t let Ray Flynn go on TV to talk about what a great guy I am. It would bother me to no end.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061180554
Menino gets snow jobbed
By Howie Carr | Sunday, December 9, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Ted Fitzgerald (file)
Laid up at Spaulding Rehab, Mumbles Menino is making like Santa Claus. The recuperating mayor is making a list and checking it twice. He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.
And No. 1 on Menino’s naughty list is his predecessor as mayor, Ray Flynn. You might have missed it, but right after Menino’s first TV interviews, Raybo drove out to Ch. 25 to give an interview to Maria Stephanos about the plight of his dear pal.
Ever since, I’ve been waiting to hear that assessors from Boston City Hall have swarmed over One Flint Place, and that the assessment on Raybo’s house has been jacked up to, say, $10 million.
The piece begins with Maria mentioning that she and Flynn have just watched the interview, in which Menino didn’t look so hot, to put it mildly. Maria says to Raybo, “It was difficult for you?”
He stares straight ahead, in rapt silence. For almost 10 seconds. See, Raybo’s overcome with emotion, or something. Finally Maria says, in her concerned voice, “Are you OK?”
“Yeah,” he says, haltingly, then chokes up again for maybe another three seconds.
Maria finally puts her hand on Flynn’s forearm to console him in his grief.
“It’s all right,” she says.
“All right.” Pause. “Yeah, all right.”
Wow. The average viewer was probably thinking, Raybo must really love this guy.
“I’ve known Tommy for a long, long period of time.” Get that — he calls him Tommy. They must be tight. “To see him as I just saw him, it’s a different Tom Menino than I’ve ever seen before. You know we’ve had our political differences over the years. However, this is not political, it’s personal, and it makes me sad to see him in that condition.”
Let’s consider those political differences.
When Ray returned to Boston in 1996, he wanted to run for Congress. Menino wouldn’t endorse him over a Boston city councilor and a state rep. Ray lost and never forgave him.
After a blizzard, he ripped Menino’s snow removal under a headline, “We did it better.” In 2009 Raybo endorsed Mike Flaherty and Sam Yoon for mayor against Menino. Then this year he went with U.S. Sen. Scott Brown against Menino’s candidate, the fake Indian.
Apart from all that, and a bunch of other disputes I don’t have room to chronicle, the two mayors have always been thisclose.
Maria asked Raybo if he wanted to offer any advice to the only other living mayor of Boston.
“I only can point out, if I had the chance to — I wrote to him, I put in requests to meet with him, maybe this isn’t the time to do that, but if he asked me I’d say there’s a big world out there ...”
And then there was that anti-casino rally in Eastie that Raybo showed up to.
Maria asked Flynn who he thinks is in charge at City Hall.
“I really don’t know. I don’t know how you do that. I used to say you can’t run the city from City Hall, and you certainly can’t run it from a hospital bed.”
If nothing else, with this 3 minute, 58 seconds of videotape, Flynn proved that when he wants to, he can still insert the needle with the best of them. He and Maria started talking about how Menino can no longer move about the city.
“He’s sick, he can’t do it and I think that’s the part — you know, look, it troubles him, there’s no doubt about it. But for me to see that film it’s troubling to me as well — for him — because I know him, I know him well, I respect him. You know it just bothered me to no end.”
If I ever get sick, please don’t let Ray Flynn go on TV to talk about what a great guy I am. It would bother me to no end.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061180554
It was a good column, rr; definitely worth reading twice.
thisclose...clever.
Who was it that Mumbles endorsed in 1996?
This only adds to my inability to understand Massholes and their politics and politicians.