Free Republic

Paul Cellucci was not a nuisance. That’s what H. L. Mencken
wrote on the passing of 
another Republican governor of Massachusetts — Calvin Coolidge — and can there be any higher praise for a politician, especially one of the Bay State variety? OK, he wasn’t perfect — Jane Swift and Margaret Marshall come immediately to mind. But he really 
always did try to do the right thing, and when he departed 
office in 2001, the state was in immeasurably better shape than when he and Bill Weld took over in the wreckage of the Dukakis disaster known as the Massachusetts miracle....

BOSTON - Former Gov. Argeo Paul Cellucci, who led Massachusetts from 1997 to 2001 before becoming U.S. ambassador to Canada, died Saturday at his home of complications from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 65. His death was announced by Dr. Michael F. Collins, chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where Cellucci spearheaded an effort to raise funds for ALS research after publicly revealing his diagnosis in 2011.

As early as January of 2005, high-ranking officials were discussing the best way to sell the idea of North American “integration” to the public and policymakers while getting around national constitutions. The prospect of creating a monetary unit to replace national currencies was a hot topic as well. Some details of the schemes were exposed in a secret 2005 U.S. embassy cable from Ottawa signed by then-Ambassador Paul Cellucci. The document was released by WikiLeaks on April 28. But so far, it has barely attracted any attention in the United States, Canada, or Mexico beyond a few mentions in some...

BOSTON — Former Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas Finneran has enlisted the help of four former governors in his bid to get a pardon from President Bush on an obstruction of justice conviction. The Boston Globe reports Friday that Finneran submitted an application for a presidential pardon last month. The four governors — Democrat Michael Dukakis and Republicans William Weld, Paul Cellucci, and Jane Swift — followed with a letter of support. In the letter, obtained by the newspaper, the governors says Finneran has been severely punished and has "learned the error of the episode." Finneran, currently a radio talk show...

I guess you didn’t like it when I called Sarah Palin “a whack job,” did you, Argeo Paul Cellucci? Or compared her to Ann-Margret in “Kitten with a Whip.” Or obsessed over Sister Sarah’s double piercings and $89.96 Naughty Monkey Double Dare red open-toed patent leather pumps.

Gov. Mitt Romney's advance staff – young aides who spiff him up for public appearances – is twice the size of the advance staffs under Govs. William F. Weld and A. Paul Cellucci, aides to those former GOP governors said. The eager young Romney aides, clad in dark suits and outfitted with U.S. Secret Service-type earpieces, refer to Romney at events as ``70'' because he is the 70th Massachusetts governor. The four-person staff makes up an increasingly prominent coterie of handlers around the image-conscious governor, in sharp contrast to the unaffected style of Weld and Cellucci, former staffers said. ``Despite...

OTTAWA -- The United States will decide when to fire missiles over Canadian airspace whether Canada likes it or not, says America's ambassador. The blunt warning from Paul Cellucci came minutes after Prime Minister Paul Martin announced yesterday that he will not sign on to the controversial U.S. missile defence program. "We will deploy. We will defend North America," Cellucci said. "We simply cannot understand why Canada would, in effect, give up its sovereignty -- its seat at the table -- to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming toward Canada." The warning was no slip...

Ottawa – Canada's announcement that it won't join the U.S. missile shield provoked an immediate warning that it has relinquished sovereignty over its airspace. From now on, the U.S. government will control any decision to fire at incoming missiles over Canadian territory, declared the top U.S. envoy to Canada. "We will deploy. We will defend North America," said Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada. "We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty — its seat at the table — to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada." The...

Ottawa says 'no' to missile defence CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA - Canada's announcement that it won't join the U.S. missile shield provoked an immediate warning that it has relinquished sovereignty over its airspace. From now on, the U.S. government will control any decision to fire at incoming missiles over Canadian territory, declared the top U.S. envoy to Canada. "We will deploy. We will defend North America," said Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada. "We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty - its seat at the table - to decide what to do about a...

U.S. perplexed by Canada on missile defence FROM CANADIAN PRESS Canada's apparent decision to stay out of a North American missile-defence system has dumbfounded Americans as an unnecessary giveaway of sovereignty, Washington's envoy to Ottawa said today. "We don't get it," Paul Cellucci said in Toronto. "If there's a missile incoming, and it's heading toward Canada, you are going to leave it up to the United States to determine what to do about that missile. We don't think that is in Canada's sovereign interest." Despite strong pressure from the U.S. to sign on, Prime Minister Paul Martin was expected to...

On most issues affecting the U.S. and Canada, Paul Cellucci is a model of common sense. Despite our differences over things like same-sex marriage and lumber, he says, what sets us apart is only that "Canada is a little more liberal than the United States; the United States is a little more conservative." But turn to the subject of marijuana, and the outgoing U.S. ambassador loses his logical composure. He also comes perilously close to interfering in the way we conduct our domestic affairs. "Why, when we're trying to take pressure off the border, would Canada pass a law that...

OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin has urged Carolyn Parrish to withdraw her latest anti-American slur but hasn't demanded she apologize. The maverick Liberal MP says she won't back down. Parrish was just stating the obvious when she called missile defence supporters a "coalition of the idiots," she said in an interview. And she'd do it again. "I believe in free speech and I am a colourful speaker. I occasionally will use terms that other people find bold. "That's me, and I'm going to stop trying to fit into some cookie-cutter mould that somebody else has tried to design...

U.S. Envoy Applauds Canada for Terror Aid By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: March 25, 2004 NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci said Thursday that the United States greatly values Canadian help in securing the northern border against terrorism. ``We must be on guard,'' the ambassador about 60 members of the Canadian Society of New York. ``We cannot protect our homeland without Canada's help.'' He said the traditional warm ties between the two nations -- strained by Canada's refusal to back the war in Iraq -- have returned to ``excellent shape.'' Cellucci's assessment comes amid pledges by...

Liberal senator: 'Screw the Americans' Laurier LaPierre ready to quit over disputed quotation in Senate transcript By Jack Aubry and Robert Benzie The Ottawa Citizen Thursday, March 27, 2003 A Liberal senator has been thrown into the firestorm of shaky U.S.-Canada relations after the Senate's Debates quoted him shouting "Screw the Americans" during a Senate sitting this week. The quote was attributed to outspoken Senator Laurier LaPierre, who has expressed anti-American sentiments in the past, in the official transcript of Tuesday's Senate sitting. Opposition MPs and senators were quick to jump on the quote as another example of the Liberal...

U.S. ambassador chides Canada By GLORIA GALLOWAY Globe and Mail Update Toronto — Washington delivered a stern message to Canada on Tuesday, saying Americans feel disappointed and betrayed by the Canadian decision to stay out of the war in Iraq. At a breakfast speech to the Economic Club of Canada, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci said "there is a lot of disappointment in Washington and a lot of people are upset" about Canada's refusal to join the United States in its efforts to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Although the relationship between the two countries will endure in the...

OTTAWA -- Canada's response to the terrorist attacks of last Sept. 11 has been "overwhelming and generous" in every respect but one, says U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci. For the first time, Cellucci explicitly stated Tuesday that concerns about Canada's anemic military budget reach the highest levels of the Bush administration in Washington. "We have been saying for quite some time - long before Sept. 11 - we were concerned that the decline in the percentage of GDP and the percentage of the budget that was going to the nation's defences was a problem," Cellucci said in an interview with The...