Blue Mass Group

Last week’s Globe story on the orgy going on between United States Senator Scott Brown and the National Guard’s top brass is a must read for those of us obsessed with Scott’s grift on the voters. There are two takes on the story. The highbrow and the lowbrow. Allow me to present both.

First the low-brow. For non-cultured BMGers Rudy was a movie about  a pain-in-the-ass-kid who, although without any ability, talked his way onto the Notre Dame football team as a walk-on. On the final play of the final game of his senior year he got in. It’s based on a true story.

So at the very top of historic ND football is the famed Gipper and Knute Rockne. At the very bottom, the fraud, the guy who really was never part of it, the guy that just wanted to say he played ND football is Rudy.

Now read about the POW type arrival home from war for Brown.

Tanned, his hair cropped closely on the sides, and dressed in fatigues, Senator Scott Brown looked every bit the dashing soldier coming home from war when he returned from National Guard duty in Afghanistan a year ago.

His wife, Gail Huff, raced to meet him in a crowded terminal at Logan International Airport. Photographers captured their kiss and long embrace.

The scene has played out across Massachusetts countless times during the past decade as Guard units have returned from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brown, though, returned not as a veteran of a protracted period of duty but after a 14-day Army National Guard assign­ment he requested. During that span, he spent seven days in Afghanistan itself.

While there, he participated in training exercises with the troops, but he also spent considerable time meeting with generals, ambassadors, and other leaders, an experience more akin to his role as US senator.

And during his latest debate with Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren Wednesday night, Brown noted that he “served in Afghanistan” as he protested potential cuts in military spending.

The quintessential Rudy move.

The high-brow problem, unlike the Rudy one, concerns congressional ethics and perhaps justice department stuff.

Basically Scott was just a regular JAG officer in the reserve. Nothing wrong with that but certainly nothing special. When the Guard realized one their own was in the Senate and on the Armed Services Committee they immediately started the foreplay.

Scott then gets a questionable promotion and a probably undeserved medal for giving a speech along with all sorts of goodies.

In the past two years, the senator has also won a much-coveted promotion to colonel, one notch below general.

He secured it after a surprising transfer to the Maryland National Guard. Veteran ­observers of the Maryland Guard say it is the first time the state’s main judge advocate general corps, the military’s equivalent of a law firm, has had four colonels attached to it. Military manning documents authorize it for one.

Brow began working out of the ­Pentagon, as assistant to the chief legal counsel for the ­National Guard Bureau, serving in the same office complex as the top general overseeing the Guard. These are the same people and the same agency Brown helps oversee as the ranking member, or top Republican, on the Senate Armed Services subcommittee with jurisdiction over the National Guard.

See what I mean? Can a state legislator do this? I don’t think so. Doesn’t this violate Senate Ethics? How about military ethics? How about criminal laws? Compare this to the allegations made in the Probation scandal. How does it compare to Tim Cahill running lottery ads? Don’t theft of honest service laws come into play here.

Everything in Scott’s military record is dubious since his election the the Senate.

Can we trust that Scott is committed to the people of Massachusetts first?

Just so everyone’s sure of the conflict please read this:

For ease of communication, a spokeswoman said, the Pentagon office in which he works is near that of General Frank Grass, who oversees the National Guard and serves on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On July 19, Grass was called to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee ­because he needed to be promoted from lieutenant general to four-star general, the rank assigned to the head of the ­National Guard Bureau.

During that hearing, Brown, as senator, lobbied against possible cuts in pay that he, as a Guardsman, receives.

“I would just ask you to look long and hard at that because … I think [it] will be a deterrent for our Guard and Reserve to serve,” Brown told Grass and two other generals also awaiting promotion. “So, I just want you to be aware of that. It is something I am aware of, and I would ask you to take a look at it.”

The senator concluded his statement by saying, “I look forward to being honored to vote for all of you.”

A week later, Grass moved up in rank as the Senate gave unanimous consent to a bevy of promotions. Among the more than 800 other officers also getting promoted in the same vote was Brown himself.

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Hey John Tierney, can you show us where in the court transcript the federal judge said you had “nothing to do with it”,

Frankly I have never heard os such a thing; a judge pointing to a non-party and saying they were not involved. Preposterous! Perhaps the judge did say it. Maybe I’m wrong. but I doubt it. If anything Tierney is taking a quote from the judge and twisting it.

As an attorney Tierney may be in violation a few ethic rules by purposely lying about a judges statements in a courtroom. Especially in the manner Tierney has chosen. A BBO complaint perhaps?

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I wish I had time to tell you about the tiff going on between little boy light weight district attorney “Search and Avoid” Dan Conley and Boston Municipal Court Justice Charles Johnson.

Conley went all third grade on Johnson in the newspapers because he was unhappy with the logistics of getting the Anne Dookhan cases to court in a timely manner.

Well, after reading Conley’s personal attacks against him Judge Johnson penned a kick-ass, well written, respectful letter to Conley which was sort of like but not exactly like the letter that stats out with…

“Dear Joe,

as a good friend I though I should let you know that a crazy person has gotten a hold of your stationary. My goodness, this person could be a reputation ruiner if it continues. The letter I received today would be quite embarrassing for you had I not known this garbage could not have been penned by a gentleman with the fine intellect you possess. blah blah.”

More later.