Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The Empire Strikes Back

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The Globe has now devoted two days of full-force front-page coverage to a legal call by our Governor to help a company with business interests in our state.

First question: why? One possibility is genuine moral outrage. I think we can safely dismiss that. The Globe is a corporation, not a public trust. Their responsibility is to The New York Times company and its shareholders. This story helps them sell newspapers and increase their power. So far, so good.

Second, more interesting, question: how? Patrick made his call two weeks ago. The story broke yesterday. Who dropped the dime to Phillips, and why this week instead of last? The most likely suspect, I think: a disaffected faction in the hackocracy that did not get what it wanted in Patrick’s budget.

Conclusion: this story is partly about a rookie governor making a stupid call, but fundamentally about The Powers That Be in Massachusetts — the Dark Lords of the Legislature (the gang who sneer at our Constitution and the rule of law), and the reporters at the Globe to whom they feed stories that sell — firing a shot across Patrick’s mandate for change.

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  1. it’s pretty scary that this happened over a fortnight ago, yet Phillip’s first article was still that bare in terms of actual facts. I’ve been saying this all along: the Globe’s a mess and these articles, whether they’ve brought up good points or not, are just atrocious. I still can’t believe how aweful that picture was that they posted yesterday with Deval – what Steverino called a “mugshot.” It was worse than the Herald.

    • After a decade and a half of Whitewater, Maureen Dowd’s OCD with Al Gore’s sweaters and Judith Miller’s ad copy for Iraq: The Next Generation, I was beginning to wonder whether liberals were naĂ¯ve or just a little tetched.

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      In the Globe–and on this very board–we’ve seen people parlay all this newly-minted Conventional WisdomTM to prove their loyalty as business’s bitches. (“But the taxes! But the jobs!”) However, none of these bottom boys have been able to answer even the most elementary questions about these supposed gaffes:

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      1. Isn’t it just a little bit suspicious that the entire storyline started with stories complaining that Patrick wasn’t generating any stories?

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      2. Isn’t it odd that the governor’s furniture collapsed at a press event, yet not one reporter except Emily Rooney mentioned that fact in the, um, wall-to-wall redecorating coverage?

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      3. And what are we to make of the Globe’s convoluted explanation of its outrage at Patrick’s breach of ethics, a “my dog ate it” post facto excuse if there ever was one?

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      I don’t claim to know how nefarious or widespread this conspiracy really is. Maybe it’s organized by business interests with their buddies on the Hill, or the increasingly mendacious New York Times.

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      Or maybe it’s just a bunch of jilted and jealous old insiders, cackling as they pick at the kuchen with their dead claws and imagining it to be the entrails of their enemies.

      • What’s a “bottom boy”?

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        Time for an apology and to go into rehab for steverino.

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        I want to see some outrage here from those that chastised Ann Coulter, Snickers, the NFL, etc.

        • That sounds like a homophobic slur.

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          …not necessarily.  “Bottom boy” could very well be a reference to bottom feeders, as in bottom-feeding fish like catfish.  If you were from the South, you’d know that catfish were and are considered trash fish.  Kind of like bottom-feeding shellfish–like lobster–used to be.

            • …which was the intent (the pouncing part) of the post to which I responded.

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              Unless, of course, I’m doing the pouncing.

                • …in line, but Anne Coulter is a nationally recongized pundit who was addressing a room full of political big wigs and snickers is a brand of a very large corporation that was advertising during the biggest tv advtertising event of the year.  Standards are different.  You, for instance can call me a faggot if you like.  I won’t like it and I’ll tell you so, but I won’t take out any full page ads in the NY Times about it because you have no influence.  You are clearly intelligent enough to understand the difference.  How ironic that you are playing “gotcha” in a thread about how annoying it is when teh MSM plays “gotcha”.

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                • but that does not erase the hypocrisy of people in this blog who jump over Ann Coulter, Snickers, Rex Grossman, et al but refuse to even acknowledge the homophobic remark made by a fellow liberal.

                • You’re distracting from the distraction.

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                  Now, everybody look away from the trail again. No, over there.

                • Snickers did largely by pulling their ad (they made some other noises, too). 

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                  Ann Coultergeist explained by saying it was intended as a joke.  Did I believe her?  Absolutely not.  She has said the same thing whenever she has been previously attacked, and, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, her hairshirt has worn thin.

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                  BTW, for my main comment, see below.

                • I asked if “you” gave them time to defend their remarks.  Not if they defended their remarks.

                • …given that I didn’t read of either incident until a day or two after they occurred.

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                  You might believe that I would have watched Snickers Stupor Bowl commercial during the Stupor Bowl, but not all of us watch the Stupor Bowl.

          • You are defending the remark instead of criticizing it.  Why could this be?  Because steverino is a like minded liberal perhaps?

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            Something tells me if I did a google search for bottom boy I would get a single reference to bottom feeders but would likely see a lot of personal ads from people who claim to be a “power top”.

          • Steverino said:

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            “…to prove their loyalty as business’s bitches…However, none of these bottom boys have been able to answer even the…”

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            I’m not a southerner or fisherman. I know what the phrase “bottom feeder” means, for sure. But this doesn’t seem to be about fish anymore than Coulter’s “faggot” comment about Edwards was about a bundle of sticks.

            • As far as I’m concerned, the imagery that can be conveyed in the English language is an important part of the language.  When Steverino wrote

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              In the Globe–and on this very board–we’ve seen people parlay all this newly-minted Conventional WisdomTM to prove their loyalty as business’s bitches. (“But the taxes! But the jobs!”) However, none of these bottom boys have been able to answer even the most elementary questions about these supposed gaffes

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              What you are doing, by objecting to Steverino’s use of terms such as “business’s bitches” and “bottom boys” and assuming that it is an anti-gay slur, is maintaining the same stereotype that I saw a decade ago on FreeRepublic.com: assuming that the only homosexuals are the bottoms.  I suppose that the tops were presumed to be–straight.  There are a number of reasons for that–the primary one being the fact that anti-homosexual fervor is basically misogyny.  And the FreieRepublikaner were a bit dumb-struck when I asked them who we bottom boys got to top us.

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              But it is obvious that what Steverino was trying to convey is that the people he was referring to were subservient to other interests.  Colorful way of putting it, to be sure.  Anti-homosexual?  Not really.  And it isn’t in league with Ann Coultergeist’s comment, which was obviously intended to denigrate John Edwards’s masculinity*.  Quite frankly, Steverino’s comment might have been intended to demean somebody’s masculinity, but it isn’t clear that the people he was referring to were even male.  Maureen Dowd certainly isn’t, and, as far as I can tell, Judith “Bush administration stenographer” Miller isn’t, either.  Context is important.

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              *I am reminded that that other son of the South, Ashley Wilkes, wasn’t exactly the most masculine-acting of men, although Scarlett O’Hara spent much of at least the first half of Gone With The Wind running after him.

                • I mean, that is what you’re inferring the phrase means, right?  Oh that’s right, I forget that anal sodomy is a major heterosexual passtime.  But for some reason heterosexuals, especially those against LBGT equality, like to pretend it’s only something “those people” would engage in.  Why is that do you suppose?  Is it because they’re raised to be ashemed of sex, and so project their own self-loathing onto a vulnerable minority?  I guess you know what I think.

                • you attack PP for quoting Truman Capote yet have no reaction to the “bottom boy” comment by Steverino.  Why is that?

                • i’ve mixed pixels with stererino before about his terminology.  there is no need to it again now just for your sake.

                • …defenders of a party that is notoriously anti-gay–the Republican party–get up in arms about what they consider to be an anti-gay slur that actually isn’t one.

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                  Let’s cut to the quick, Ms. Porcupine.  “Faggot” is a slur and for a long time has been.  “Bottom boy” is not.  It is descriptive of a sexual position–supposedly subservient, but not really–and was probably intended to be used as such.

        • to your doubtless huge entourage of gay friends, and see what they think?

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          Oh, and screaming peals of laughter are a sign of agreement. No, really.

    • The Globe is not the problem. The Governor has made some mistakes. Some of them he should’ve been smart enough to avoid, some they should’ve done a better job of spinning.

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      But to use a sports anaolgy, you guys are blaming the refs at this point.

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      I’ve been disappointed to see Deval on the defensive so much. But I’ve been more disappointed by the postings here. Reads like a bunch of defense lawyers.

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      If it were Weld, Cellucci, Swift or Romney, there would be much different arguments being made here about the issues of the day and the aggressiveness (or lack thereof) being demonstrated by the local scribes.

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      This site is becoming an old school partisan political board that justifies the increasingly derisive references by media folks as a moonbat, cheerleading squad.

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      Where’s the concern that Deval is wasting political capital instead of working on and pushing discussions about progressive initiatives?

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      This site should be demanding better from the Governor, not the Globe.

        • “Lay off the ‘shrooms and join the conversation that’s actually occurring here.”

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          Way to raise the level of discourse. Really. Good example to set; calling posters zoned out druggies.

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          The post you link had a 99 comment discussion. As much of it as not was vigorously defending action the Governor apologiezed for as “stupid.”

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          Other posts and comments here have shown a tendency to defend Deval and attack reporters, in my mind because Deval’s supposed to be “our guy.”

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          But thanks for your polite and considered response.

  2. You can rail all you want about the Powers That Be in Massachusetts — including the media and the legislature — but the fact remains that if any “mandate for change” is to actually happen, both need to cultivated.

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    If the Governor keeps stumbling, then any change will be DOA. As asomeone who wants to see a successful Governor, I don’t want that to happen — which is why his closest supporters need to be the ones most loudly urging the Administration to get their political house in order.

    • But I think there are always gotchas out there for every politician. As I wrote in some of my comments yesterday, I think we need to be careful to identify any actual harm here. (PS: there isn’t any, it was a legal call to help a company that can help Massachusetts). That is what The Outraged Ones are failing to do, in MHO.

      • I think the idea of “actual harm” is why we may disagree on this. In my view, the “actual harm” being displayed here is that the Administration is not as politically savvy as many hoped it would be after a masterful campaign.

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        While you very well may be correct that the “actual harm” of this call is minimal or non-existant, it is the political harm that is the most critical in the long run.

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        Actually, I think Bailey’s column brought up a great comparison between Gov. Patrick and Gov. Spitzer. Both ran tremendous campaigns, but thus far in office, Spitzer is scaring people (in a good way) by being aggressive, while Patrick is beginning to look weak. If that continues, it will become very clear which of the two will become the more successful Gov.

    • blogs show that we are being critical?

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      I just don’t see how a complete Bash-Deval Contest is going to help ANYONE in any way. Making this state’s Governor unable to do anything this early in his administration isn’t exactly going to be helpful. So, yes, I’m going to be critical, but I’m going to do so in a way that a) isn’t following the media/bs “conventional wisdom” that’s “developing” … becuase there are always more sides to a story and b)I’m going to be constructively critical, discussing how these things have happened and what needs to be done to really stop them.

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      So, just because I’m not here saying “Deval is ebil” and “he’s destroying our state” and other such nonsense, don’t take it as his supporters drinking the kool aid. Yea, we support the guy, but with our support comes serious expectations and when he doesn’t meet them, we’re going to let him know.

  4. If Deval used his cell phone, who overheard him?  If he used a State House phone, who leaked it from the log?

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    My money is on Rubin making an untoward remark, not realizing the implications – or even Ameriquest, saying at Locke Ober – Whew!  Deval’s gonna vouch for us, take off some of that heat.

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    But somebody in the inner circle tipped off Frank Phillips.  Because who in the Hackocracy would even have known?

  5. We were just talking about the effect of apologies a couple of weeks ago.  I’m starting to realize that if you admit that you’ve screwed up too many times in a month, people are going to start seeing you as, well, a screw-up.  A good way to keep that from happening is to stop screwing up.

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    No excuses.

        • Are you a lawyer? You just love to say that line over and over again, but the only lawyers I know routinely mention stuff like “we don’t know all the aspects of the law” and other nice things like that. In fact, a lawyer already took aim at that inane argument of yours previous to this posting. Far be it from me to say what lawyers remember and don’t remember in terms of all areas of law, because I’m not a lawyer.

  6. Their responsibility is to The New York Times company and its shareholders. This story helps them sell newspapers and increase their power. So far, so good.

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    Bob, do you really think this story helps the Globe sell newspapers at newsstands?  I’d bet their Tue-Wed sales are no different from normal. 

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    If you wanted to juice newsstand sales a bit, wouldn’t you push the Patrick story to Metro and push Sudbury Crazed Teen Killer story from below the fold to above the fold?

  7. Neither the Globe’s motive nor the that of whoever “dropped the dime to Phillips” is the central issue. For one thing, I don’t see why moral outrage and the profit motive need to be incongruous – the two might go hand in hand, even if only by coincidence. For example, if the Globe thinks it can earn more by cultivating moral outrage in its readers, and if the stories themselves come across as sharing that outrage, then so much the better for profit.

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    My proximate concern with daily reportage is with veracity. In the grander scheme of things, I would love for all media to operate as public trusts rather than for-profit corporations, but the fact that they don’t does not ipso facto render totally false all that they report. And if the Globe knows full well that what the stories are actually doing is “firing a shot across Patrick’s mandate for change” while only appearing to foment moral outrage, the reporting itself might still be spot-on accurate. Since no one has questioned the veracity of the story – and since Patrick himself has confirmed it – Frank Phillips would seem to have met this meager standard. (On a related note, do you believe every word the MSM turns out to be a lie simply because of capitalist power inequities?)

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    And as imperfect as I find for-profit journalism, I don’t think I’d prefer a world where reporters are in a constant whirl of moral outrage. I want them simply to find out what’s going on.  If self-interest or spite or whatever moves someone to tell the reporter what’s going on, then it’s the reporter’s responsibility to separate the motive for the tip from the veracity of the tip. Again, Frank Phillips seems to have done his job in this instance.

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    Then there’s your mealymouthed use of the word “legal” in describing what Patrick has done. Much has been said so far about the ethical questions, and the appearance of a conflict of interest, that his actions stir up. If they were illegal, then the big argument would be a constitutional one about whether or not the law itself should be changed. But it’s precisely because of the constitutional gray area between legal and ethical that we have to hash this out. Simply pointing out that it’s legal cannot be enough, and moreover it undercuts the sense of disappointment that comes across in your reference to the moral dimension of the story.

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    Jeremy

    • Simply pointing out that it’s legal cannot be enough

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      Massachusetts actually has a code of ethics. Point out the rule you think was violated. Please try to do better than the Globe (see above).

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      My proximate concern with daily reportage is with veracity.

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      The crawl on Fox News reported the Libby verdict as “Libby Found Innocent.” He was–on one charge. This meets your standard for spot-on veracity, so defend it.

      • Point out the rule you think was violated.

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        II. “APPEARANCES” OF CONFLICTS (G.L. c. 268A, § 23(b)(3))

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        A reasonable impression of favoritism or bias may arise when a public employee, knowingly or with reason to know, acts on matters affecting the interest, whether financial or non-financial, of a friend, a business associate or a relative other than an immediate family member or a non-financial interest of an immediate family member…

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        …When public employees do act on matters affecting individuals with whom they have a private relationship, they must act objectively and be careful not to use their official position to secure any unwarranted privilege or benefit for that person.

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        The full text of this section can be found here.

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        Since this is just a guideline – albeit one that, when crossed, can in fact result in a fine – and because I’m not a lawyer, I’ll emphasize that I’m answering your question about the rule I think was violated. But that’s the thing about a “reasonable person” standard. It’s allowed to exist even with Steverino’s boot on its windpipe.

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        The crawl on Fox News reported the Libby verdict as “Libby Found Innocent.” He was–on one charge. This meets your standard for spot-on veracity, so defend it.

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        I should have been more clear. By “veracity,” I mean the truth and the whole truth, not a weasely half-truth of the Fox News kind.

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        By analogy, then, the Globe article would have to be leaving out a whopping portion (about 80 percent) of the truth. What is this missing piece, then? Whatever it is, Patrick himself hasn’t yet told us. So can you?

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        Jeremy

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        PS: You still owe us several inches about the state’s relationship with the Fancy Fingers nail salon.

        • that you skipped the first sentence:

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          Public employees must avoid conduct that creates a reasonable impression that any person may improperly influence them or unduly enjoy their official favor, or that they are likely to act (or fail to act) because of kinship, rank, position or undue influence of any party or person.

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          The entire section focuses on official acts performed in the exercise of public office, which, if it weren’t clear enough, is made obvious by this example:

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          Example: An elected planning board member participates in the planning board’s consideration of a subdivision plan submitted by a contractor who previously built the planning board member’s house.

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          Shockingly, the passage says nothing about board members writing favorable reviews on Angie’s List.

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          So, does leaving out 80% of the ethics rule meet your statistical standard?

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          You still owe us several inches

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          No comment.

          • Most of us didn’t need this spoon feed but here is a hypothetical I posted on a different thread dealing with this same topic.

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            “Hey, Deval this is so-and-so at Citigroup.  Remember back in February when I did you that favor and helped out your buddy at Ameriquest?  Well I need a favor now.  Can you get me the inside tract on the bonding of such-and-such?”

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            Not “every person, place and thing in Massachusetts” can make that call because only one person (that we know of at this time) got the call from Deval.

          • that if Citigroup says no, Patrick, as the executive of the commonwealth, could make their business dealings in MA more difficult. Conversely, if Citigroup says yes, then Patrick could make their business dealings in MA more comfortable.

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            This is what makes his phone call “conduct that creates a reasonable impression that any person [Citigroup, that is, by acceding to the deal with Ameriquest] may improperly influence them or unduly enjoy their official favor.”

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            Exercising one’s influence with the largest financial services firm in the world is different from plugging your mechanic. Somehow I think you already know this.

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            And I didn’t “leave out” any part of the ethics rule. This being a web site, I thought it better netiquette to include the link rather than the lengthy complete text.

            • that you, like JK, are totally making up the content and circumstances of the call to suit your argument–and that your version explicitly contradicts the only account we have.

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              In any case, you seem to be reading the rule backwards.

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              On its plain face, the rule says: You can’t use your official position to affect the interests of people with whom you have a private relationship without recusal or disclosures.

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              You want it to say: You can’t have a private relationship with anybody who has interests your position might someday affect.

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              It doesn’t say that. It would be absurd if it did. A governor would have to kill his whole family.

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              To make that kind of argument sensibly, you’d need a far more explicit quid pro quo than, say, one you simply made up.

              • I’m done arguing with you. At some point I have to accept that my own words are also subject to a reasonableness standard, and that some people just aren’t going to find what I’m saying reasonable.

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                Now, there remain only the matters of:

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                1. The nefarious ties between Fancy Fingers and Beacon Hill. Which you told us you could write about. “Or is “no comment” all you could muster?

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                2. Telling us who you are.

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                Jeremy

                • when people actually hold you accountable for backing up your own words.  Funny, didn’t I read a post somewhere in this thread about you calling someone to task for unsubstantiated opinions?

                • accountable to you, in any way, shape, or form. You may need to take a break.

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                  On the other hand, arguments and opinions posted here are accountable for logical cohesion and factual accuracy. You, too, are welcome to meet those standards.

                • So you admit that you can not backup you previous statement?

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                  That’s for acknowledging that.

                • from the board and return when you have something of value to add to the discussion.

                • I’ll drop my demand for a report on Fancy Fingers.

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                  I’ll also open up my request for an end to anonymous posting to all BMG posters. I know this has come up before, but it’s not as if it has suddenly ceased to be an issue. Besides, I’d just feel better knowing I had aired my feelings on the matter.

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                  So let’s all be adults here. Names and profiles, okay?

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                  Jeremy

                • Jeremy, I appreciate your openness here.  However, not all people can be open safely.  This is no joke.  I am willing for the editors to know my real identity (at least one does), but the blogosphere in general?  No way.  I am not going to open the door to potential violence against myself. 

                • “Buffy Orpington” sometime for a mild, yet still terrifying case in point.

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                  And there, the poster had commented anonymously. Her veil was pierced by overzealous detective work.

              • It’s not just “affect the interests of people with whom you have a private relationship.”  As you pointed out it’s “conduct that creates a reasonable impression.” 

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                You are seriously arguing that calling the head of a company that you could effect either positively or negatively based on the political office you hold and asking them for a favor is creating a “reasonable impression”?

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                Even Patrick has backed down from that.  His only defense now is that he no longer has a financial interest in AmeriQuest.

                • I’m reading it: A reasonable impression of what?

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                  A reasonable impression that someone is using public decisionmaking power to favor a personal or business associate.

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                  No one is arguing that Patrick pulled strings at the banking commission for Ameritrade.

                • A reasonable impression that someone is using public decisionmaking power to favor a personal or business associate.

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                  That is exactly what we (Jeremy and myself) are arguing. Deval gave the impression (a notion, remembrance, belief, etc., often of a vague or indistinct nature) that Deval “pulled strings” by using his position of power over Citigroup as the governor (by possible favorable or unfavorable treatment in future dealings with the Commonwealth) to course Citigroup into assisting AmeriQuest. 

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                  Deval first tried to avoid this by saying he was calling as Deval the private citizen.  But later admitted that it was wrong to make the call because he is no longer Deval the private citizen, he is Deval the Governor.  24/7 365.  You don’t get time off in that position; you’re always on the clock. 

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                  So the phone call to Citigroup, regardless of the actual words was “Hey, this is Deval, you know the governor of the state you deal with.  My friends over at AmeriQuest are in some trouble.  They are good guys.  You should help them out.”

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                  This leaves Citigroup, AmeriQuest, the citizens of the Commonwealth with the impression that Deval used his position of power to influence the business deals and that Citigroup may except some quip pro quo in the future.

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                  Certainly this is not as egregious as what the former governor of CT did.  But it is in the same ballpark.

                • Deval “pulled strings” by using his position of power over Citigroup

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                  He’s not the chairman of Citigroup. He’s the governor of Massachusetts.

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                  You simply make up parts of the rule, whenever it doesn’t say what you want it to say.

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                  First of all, forget your “impression” argument. You don’t even understand it. The rule does not prohibit a governor from doing anything that makes a bad impression on JK. It prohibits an official from creating the impression that a very particular thing has occured.

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                  And that thing is an official exercise of state power swayed by an official’s outside relationship with one of the parties involved.

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                  The rule cannot be violated until there is some exercise of state power. If Patrick later improperly intervened on behalf of Citigroup in a state action, you would have an argument. But he didn’t. And you don’t.

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                  I’ve explained it a hundred times, and I’m getting very bored. Go hire a lawyer.

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                • This is what I am saying.  I do not wish to put words into Jeremy’s mouth.  He can tell you what he is saying.

                • A true bipartisan alliance. But thanks all the same for not putting words in my mouth.

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                  If people want to default to the most innocent explanation of Patrick’s actions, they can do so, Occam’s razor be damned. Myself, I think it stinks.

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                  Anyway, I’ve said enough on this. It’s for the ethics committee to worry about now.

                • those pesky words.  they can get a good repub down, too.

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                  This leaves…the impression that Deval used his position of power to influence the business deals and that Citigroup may except some quip pro quo in the future.

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                  maybe you meant to say accept?  or maybe you are really a closet DP apologist, trying to drop subtle, subliminal drops of pro-DP love into what one might otherwise mistake as a criticism?

        • ,,,The crawl on Fox News reported the Libby verdict as “Libby Found Innocent.”

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          they were lying.  He wasn’t found innocent of anything.  The jury found him not guilty on one charge.  There’s a big difference between being found “not guilty” and being determined to be “innocent.”

          • that might be my bad. It may have been “Not Guilty”–can’t finger the screen cap this second.

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            But it sure wasn’t “Guilty.”

                • …a jury verdict of “not guilty” is in no way similar to a jury verdict of “innocent.”

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                  A jury verdict of “not guilty” on a count merely means that the jury determined that the prosecution had not proven that the defendant had committed the acts that were alleged in the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.  A jury verdict of “innocent” implies that the the jury determined that the defendant didn’t commit the facts in that were alleged in the charge. 

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                  There is a huge difference.  As should be obvious merely by reference to the OJSimpson cases.  The jury in the criminal case determined that the prosecution in that case had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt–the standard in a criminal case.  (NB: I’m not going to re-hash issues regarding the prosecution in the criminal case here.)  On the other hand, in the civil case against OJ, the jury determined that he was liable for wrongful death.  Two different standards of culpability, on the same set of facts.  Neither of which are really related to the “he didn’t do it” issue of innocence.

  8. Is this the same Boston Globe that’s functioned as the Democratic party equivilent of Pravdafor generations.  I boldly predict in the next election they endorse Patrick over the person with an (R) after their name.  I read something interesting related to this in the Herald online: “Facing another withering controversy, Gov. Deval Patrick apologized yesterday for intervening in a financial deal involving an embattled mortgage lender – a mea culpa that came as the Herald learned that the Ameriquest official who requested his help was also a campaign donor.” Funny that wasn’t mentioned by the Globe or Blue Mass.  Obviously an oversight.

  9. Deval Patrick is no rookie to insider dealing. He has made his life and money on the inside.  He got caught and in fact a lot of people are asking how and by wht means he used to get elected.  It looks a lot liie he used the republican voting machines to count his votes.

  10. I was a very, very early supporter of Gov. Patrick and put a lot of hours in campaigning for him.  I was very happy he won.  But please do not start making excuses for him or blaming the messenger when he makes a mistake.  This was a big mistake and showed a real lack of judgement.  I am glad it got reported. 

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    Maybe he just did not think or maybe he got bad advise from a staff person.  Whatever the reason, it was his mistake and it was not about nothing.  When you run on a platform of intergrity, you should govern on that platform too or expect people to call you on it.  His supporters should not be making excuses for him; we should be calling on him to stick with what he promised.  If he or we start making excuses for mistakes like this one, instead of acknowledging them, then his and our credibility suffer. To the average voter out there it will look even more like politics as usual in Massachusetts. 

      • these rambling, ungrammatical strings of unsupported opinions are of interest to anyone?

        • Your postings are very angry, and as JK points out above, have now crossed the line into homophobia. “Bottom boy”? You owe us an apology.

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          I for one have never liked the anonymity of the blogosphere, and I sometimes wonder if the tendency to flamethrow is largely a function of the fact that people can hide behind false personae.

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          I’ll open the bidding. My name is Jeremy Thompson – which you can tell from my username, Mr. Rino. I currently live in Chicago, where I am a economic development policy analyst for Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, but I am getting laid off next month and intend to move back to the Boston area in July. I grew up in Lowell, and spent most of my twenties living in Brookline, Jamaica Plain and Somerville. I don’t know what I’m going to do for work yet in MA, but I expect it will be something having to do with economic development policy. I hope that nothing I’ve written here or anywhere is held against me, but if it ever is, well, so be it.

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          Jeremy

          • I agree with you that the anonymity of the internet is bad for discourse. Maybe in the future we’ll have an ID verify system and a way to distinguish posters with verified IDs from those who hide. In the meantime, that’s the way it is.

            • In one of your previous posts about the profiles.  Some of us have taken the time to fill them in and are not afraid of comments we make and do not try to hide behind the anonymity of the internet.  Others don’t.

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              Another options is what Jeremy has done in his post above.

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              As Banky Edwards put it “That’s what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously.”

              • The profile! Thanks for pointing that out. I just completed mine.

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                Steve Rino has not.

              • …the Internet isn’t anonymous.

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                If someone believes that he had been slandered, it would be a relatively simple matter for him to obtain access to the IP address of the computer that posted the allegedly slanderous remark.  Trace it back, and sue everyone who might have had access to the computer.  (For the geeks here, I recognize that Net Address Translation adds another level of complexity, but, a wilely trial attorney would just file suit against all of those behind the NAT device, and let them sort it out.  That isn’t unusual)

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                Aside from the NYTimes vs. Sullivan issue regarding public figures, one probable reason that it isn’t done more often is that the money damages would probably not be worth the effort.  Most blogs have relatively small readership, and the money damages from the alleged slander would be related to the extent to which the slander propagated to the readership.  Another reason is that merely bringing a lawsuit for libel or slander would only serve to propagate the slander.

          • Just to point out the obvious in the way of political discourse: you are known by the comments you make.

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            Many, many people on this blog post either overtly or covetly for the republican party.

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            I think you should be aware that the republicans are way ahead of the democrats is using sponsoring so called democrat or liberal blogs as an outlet for their propaganda and to dominate any converstion that is started by true democrats advocating democratic principles.

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            So to counter the use of these repulbican sponsored “democratic or liberal” blogs, the research is evaluating the comments on them.  In fact the researcher does not have to even log into the blog to do the research.

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