Sun column ping
End of the road
It’s time to send Tim Murray packing, Deval
By Howie Carr | Sunday, July 8, 2012 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Photo by Nancy Lane
Will somebody please, please put Lt. Gov. Tim Murray out of our misery?
Tiny Tim is a lost soul, the abandoned puppy of Massachusetts politics, neutered but not de-wormed (as shown by his relationship with Mike McLaughlin).
Surely someone can find him a new home, preferably in the country. Gov. Deval Patrick, this means you.
Tiny Tim doesn’t need anything big. I pulled his bar-exam records at the office of the clerk of the SJC, Suffolk County. Like most of Crash Murray’s curriculum vitae, it’s below average: Took the bar exam July 1994. Took the bar exam February 1995. Took the bar exam July 1995 – and finally passed!
No surprise. Remember January 2007, when he was being sworn in by future felon Sal DiMasi. DiMasi says, “Raise your right hand,” and up goes Murray’s southpaw.
At heart, Tiny Tim is still what he used to be — a city councilor. Something can always be arranged for these ham-and-eggers. Look at the state rep from Worcester, Vinny Pedone. A sheep in sheep’s clothing. He got some kind of job with state colleges — excuse me, “universities.” Anyway, he’s making about $130,000, more than the lieutenant governor.
Charlie Murphy, another rep, from Burlington, ended up on the wrong side of the last speaker’s fight. He just quit to take a new job. Ditto Sen. Steve Baddour, and Rep. Jim Vallee, and some guy from Holyoke who just got hired by the gas company. They’re dropping like flies up there.
Governor, surely you could arrange some sort of Jim Brett-type job for him. He could go on NECN every Sunday morning and talk with Paul Guzzi about bicycle lanes. Forgotten but not gone.
Have you seen Murray lately? He looks hunted, and I think it’s Mike McLaughlin he’s sweating. Let me tell you, I would hate for Mike McLaughlin to have something on me, especially if he was jammed up with a grand jury, which he is.
One thing about McLaughlin, he has always been an astute judge of weakness, and he surely knew what he had on the line the first time he hooked the “mayor” of Worcester.
Most people figure now that’s why Tiny Tim was doing 108 mph. in the Crown Vic at 5:20 a.m. in Sterling last November. He was scared. He still is.
Two reasons to move Murray out right now. No. 1, Barack Obama could lose. No. 2, he could win.
If Barack loses, there’s a new U.S. attorney in January, a Republican. Deval Patrick is said to want to run for president in 2016. Murray has already testified under oath in the McLaughlin matter. Do I have to draw you a diagram?
No. 2, Barack wins, and (more likely) Deval decides this is his big opportunity to grab some serious Vernon Jordan money — steam control, as Tom Wolfe put it. Deval resigns and, well, remember “acting governor” Jane Swift?
I know, Tiny Tim has some awesome responsibilities. He’s “poised” to become leader of the, drumroll please, National Lieutenant Governors’ Association. Just this week, he made his first visit ever to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. — ending years of disappointment in which he was inexplicably passed over for a trip to the annual Easter Egg Hunt on the White House lawn.
He’ll go, Deval. Just promise Tiny Tim another trip to the White House next Easter. He may not believe you, but just give him a note from the Easter Bunny and he’s gone.
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