Wed column ping slightly late
Murphy’s Law, it’s not
by Howie Carr
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
No good deed goes unpunished.
Remember that old saying, Barney Frank. Because what just happened to Boston City Council President Steve Murphy yesterday is going to happen to you soon.
Like Murphy, you’re about to be passed over for a job you really want. The only difference between you and Murphy is Murphy actually should have gotten the sheriff’s job he coveted, because he once did a favor for the appointing authority.
I’m drawing a blank on anything you ever did for anybody else, Barney. If they ever name a street after you, it’ll have to be a one-way.
Anyway, Steve Murphy wanted to be High Sheriff of Suffolk County, succeeding Andrea Cabral, the new public safety secretary. Gov. Deval Patrick makes the pick. Deval picked Cabral’s flack, Steve Tompkins. Never mind that back in 2006, Murphy was Deval’s go-to guy in the 87 precincts of white Old Boston.
Everybody else was with Tom Reilly or, if they were for sale, with Chris Gabrieli.
There was one other white Irish pol from Boston with Deval — then-Sen. Maid Marian Walsh.
Murphy lent Deval bodies, Walsh lent him her “name,” such as it was. So after Deval won, when Marian’s hack husband had to retire from the bench at age 70, Deval put him on the Industrial Accidents Board for $113,000 a year. Deval also tried to hand Sen. Walsh that phoney-baloney $175,000 hack job that blew up in both their faces. But the point is, Deval didn’t give her one hack job, he tried to give her two.
And Murphy got the doughnut.
Granted, Murphy had a lot going against his stealth campaign for sheriff.
No. 1, his heavy lifting for Deval was way back in 2006. Deval’s motto: “What have you done for me lately?”
No. 2, Murphy is white, Irish, Catholic and a Boston native.
No. 3, Andrea Cabral hates Murphy. He ran against her once.
No. 4, Mumbles Menino hates ex-city councilor Michael “Flats” Flaherty.
“What?” you ask. What does No. 4 have to do with Nos. 1-3? Well, if Murphy had been appointed sheriff, then Flats, who ran against Mumbles in 2009, would be back on the City Council.
But wait, does Mumbles really think Flats could run again for mayor this year? Or even more absurdly, does Mumbles believe he’ll be seeking, what, his seventh term in 2017?
That’s Mumbles for you. He’s Italian, but he has Irish Alzheimer’s. He’s forgotten everything but the grudges.
Just remember Barney, when you get passed over for the Senate, don’t accuse anybody of homophobia or bigotry of any kind. This happens every day. This is Boston.
If Hillary had worked for Nixon during Watergate she would have testified: 'Who cares who broke in - that's not the issue - what matters is what do we do now..."
The Washington Post would tells Nixon how 'brave' she was - and Woodward and Bernstein would inquire if they could kiss her butt. The New York Times would come in late (as usual) and request the right to kiss her butt too.
Another reason the press was respected then - and isn't now...
That's the equivalent....
Thanks for the ping raccoonradio
By Howie Carr / Boston Herald
None of his fellow solons was impolite enough yesterday to ask U.S. Sen. John Forbes Kerry the only question anybody really wants him to answer.
“Senator, are you really worth $193 million?”
Secretary of state? Who cares. I want to know how he got all that dough, and please, no jokes about how he made it the old-fashioned way, he married it. Whatever happened to prenups?
I’d always heard Mama T gave him a couple Old Masters oil paintings or some other kind of art worth maybe $10 million so he wouldn’t feel like what he is, and has always been, which is a gigolo. I remember him saying a few years ago that “my wife is independently wealthy, but I rely on my Senate salary ...”
This may have been when it came out that he’d given $60 to charity the previous year.
But now this $193 million number is all over the Internet, except when it’s $194 million. I read somewhere yesterday that a lot of it came from “four trusts inherited from Forbes family members.”
Of course, none of his fellow senators wanted to treat him with anything except kid gloves. He got no questions about unpaid sales taxes, fire hydrants or penis straws. It is, after all, the world’s most exclusive club, although if you’ve ever watched them from the gallery, what it really looks like is a convention of mid-market weekend TV anchors, all of whom wear Size 42 long.
Nobody questioned Kerry about his famous initial 1971 appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recounting the stories of other Vietnam veterans (which he’d been told, he made sure to say) “of times that they personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable radios to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ...”
Which he pronounced Gin-ghis Khan.
No senator called him on that slur, either. Here’s another question he should have been asked: “Sen. Kerry, name one foreign policy issue you’ve been right about. Just one.”
Like, say, the nuclear freeze. Or the first Iraq War (against) or the second (he was for it). Do you still think Bashar al-Assad of Syria is a reformer, a fine fellow indeed? And speaking of being a fine judge of character, how’d you happen to pick John Edwards as your running mate in 2004?
But Kerry did hit one out of the park: “I will not take it personally that this is the one thing in Washington that seems to have united Democrats and Republicans — to get me out of the Senate.”
You got that one right, Liveshot. In the name of God, go.