In last Friday’s Boston Globe, reporter Jim O’Sullivan wrote an outstanding column on former Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi (“DiMasi’s liberal legacy is now often ignored”). With the Supreme Court upholding the legality of the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage, both born in Massachusetts, O’Sullivan wrote, “Twice in the past decade Massachusetts has established a far-reaching, long-resonating beachhead in the progressive campaign. There was one constant.”
Of course, victories on health care and marriage equality are due to the efforts of a long list of champions. However, no person at that level of elected power was doing more to see these liberal ideals through than Sal DiMasi.
I was a second-term State Representative in 2005 during DiMasi’s first full-term as Speaker of the House. I was not close to DiMasi, but I feel fortunate to have been able to serve with him and observe his style of leadership. I remember the sense of excitement among liberal legislators about the possibility of legislation that could now become law under Speaker DiMasi.
More than any other bill, Speaker DiMasi guided the House to pass the bill to legalize over-the-counter sale of hypodermic needles to curb the spread of HIV, during the 2005-2006 session. When the bill came up for a vote in the House on November 14th, 2005, both privately and publicly conservative Democrats and Republicans were railing against the bill, suggesting that it was encouraging illegal drug use. Despite all of the public health data that not allowing these sales would only continue to contribute to the spread of HIV, this was clearly considered a controversial vote. Check out the Boston Phoenix article “Sticking Point” by Adam Reilly from the Nov. 11-17th, 2005 issue for a great summary of that dynamic.
I remember very clearly when a handful of lawmakers raised their objections in the House Democratic Caucus and were clearly prepared for a long debate. DiMasi listened to their concerns, and then essentially said, “Okay, now we’re going to debate the bill, and put it to a vote.”
Three hours later, in one of the more passionate debates of that session, the House of Representatives passed the measure by a vote of 115-37. After the bill passed the Senate, Governor Romney vetoed the bill (despite the fact that his Department of Public Health Commissioner had testified in support of it), and on July 13, 2006 the House overrode the veto 115 to 42 making it a law.
My biggest take away from that successful effort was that when you are an elected leader in a democracy, you allow for robust discussion and debate and go forward and do what you think is right. In a democracy, moving forward on a “controversial” proposal doesn’t have to mean that it becomes watered down, or you have to reach “consensus,” but rather that you just have to have the votes. I think that’s the way a democracy is supposed to work.
I always respected the fact that Speaker DiMasi had a handful of bold ideas as part of what can clearly be called a progressive vision (gay marriage, near-universal health care, alternative energy and global warming). He guided and in some cases applied pressure to result in liberal policies that put Massachusetts at the forefront of the nation, made a difference in the lives of residents across the state, and represent the main ideas of the national Democratic Party campaign platform.
A third Speaker in a row getting indicted and convicted for a crime certainly undermined voter confidence in the legislature and helps write the script that Republicans consistently use to win the Corner Office. He also named Robert DeLeo, arguably the biggest obstacle to progressive reform in this state, as his lieutenant and enabled his rise to power after his career went up in flames.
Corruption in any form undermines trust in government and undermines the argument liberals must forcibly make, that government is a force for good in the lives of others. Sal DiMasi always believed in that argument and fought for policies to back it up, it is utterly shameful that he wasted this legacy on personal enrichment at the long term expense of progress in our state.
And this is a response to Tom, below as well.
The Cognos affair was bad, and he deserves his jail time. I am certainly not arguing otherwise. Utterly shameful, yes.
But I do think that the creation of the EPA is part of Nixon’s legacy. The creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the Civil Rights laws are part of Johnson’s legacy. PEPFAR is part of George W. Bush’s legacy.
Surely we can have two non-contradictory thoughts at once about someone. “Tolerance”, pish-tush. (That’s not really what I want to say.)
he deserves jail, but not inhumane treatment.
Nobody behind bars should have their medications withheld, be routinely denied visits from love ones, or endure the gross mistreatment that he has experienced. I do question routinely front paging his particular case and completely ignoring folks like Kalief Browder, who unlike DiMasi, was innocent of a serious crime and committed suicide in custody simply because he could not afford bail.
It’s folks like that without connections who are dying within a week of arrival at Rikers who require our greatest attention and advocacy. Not folks who abused their connections to enrich themselves. His mistreatment is real and wrong, but it’s par for the course for hundreds of thousands of poor people and people of color which is where our outrage should be turned.
It isn’t mentioned once anywhere in the original post, where he makes DiMasi sound like a Paul Wellstone or Bernie Sanders, not a hack who was primarily concerned with preserving his power and stuffing his coffers. Really folks, when we insist on this ‘style of leadership’ we shouldn’t be shocked when folks like Brown and Baker get elected. His elevation of a loyal enforcer like DeLeo to leadership as his anointed successor should show us how committed he really was to a truly progressive legacy.
I have tremendous amount of respect for Sen. Eldridge who represents my sister, and I also respect that he and other folks who were on the trenches could say from their experience that only DiMasi could have achieved these reforms. But there also has to be an acknowledgement that in the long run he has set the cause of progressivism in this state backward as much, if not more, than he has set it forward. Those two issues are nationwide now, let’s look forward to the next generation of progressive activism instead of debating the legacy of a convicted criminal.
…as it wasn’t the point of his post. You could, for example, do a whole post on how Nixon opened China, and not HAVE to mention Watergate.
And I would strongly cautioning any of us for saying that in light of the significant evidence he left out to the contrary. Read my post about Blago-he did a lot of progressive stuff too but wrecked all of it by committing a federal crime. We would be laughing any Republican out of the woods who was indicted for something similar, we’ve laughed off some Democrats with personal or financial problems from Sullivan to DiPaolo to Galluccio to Marzilli who didn’t commit the magnitude of crimes Sal was convicted of. I am pretty sure the editors explicitly endorsed opponents or resignations in all four of those cases. They have repeatedly and rightly frowned upon double dippers, who aren’t breaking the law. If we are trying to turn the corner to ethical leaders like Healey for the next cycle, I would be remiss to mention a front page post exonerating DiMasi makes for great Republican copy.
And actively criticized Deval and other pols who stood against her and with the corrupt incumbent. Even though Wilkerson was a committed progressive vote and leader on these issues, and a force in the Senate. She deserved to be primaried and to lose since she accepted bribes. Nobody is writing candy colored retrospectives about her now, are they?
We were given a choice in a primary context and went with somebody without the ethical and legal baggage. I was rooting for Wilkerson to lose too.
I must have missed that part. Can you point to it for me?
I agree with you nothing in the thread-starter “exonerates” Mr. DiMasi. It is, instead, silent about his criminal conviction. So I agree with your criticism of jconway’s characterization.
On the other hand, if I were a Republican strategist (what a nauseating premise!), I would pay close attention to the enormous number of independent voters who view Massachusetts government, and therefore Massachusetts Democrats, as pervasively corrupt.
In that context, I think jconway is also absolutely correct that this front-page post on an influential and widely-cited Democratic political blog (and I think that’s a fair and accurate characterization of BMG) begs for inclusion in a series of hatchet-ads against sitting Democrats.
Those ads simply write themselves … a split-screen of Mr. DiMasi being led to jail, with the glowing words from this thread-starter beside it.
We, at BMG, who criticized this post did not create that GOP opportunity. It was, in fact, Mr. DiMasi who handed the GOP the weapons.
He said what I meant rather than defending what I said 😉
Here’s what the headline of you speculated post would be (in order to be comparable):
“Richard NIxon’s China initiative and its impact on progressive legislation”
I caution you, again, that your misimpression of Richard Nixon is VERY different from the reality. Mr. Nixon himself, the GOP, and the media that they control have each taken extraordinary steps (such as his midnight pardon) to create and perpetuate your misimpression.
Many, if not most progressives, who read your speculated piece (with much laudatory commentary about China and no mention of Watergate) with its headline would have a similar criticism of it to ours here.
Mr. Nixon was NOT a progressive. He was NOT liberal, except in comparison to the nutjobs and fruitcakes who dominate today’s GOP. His China initiative, like virtually everything he did, was surely self-serving. Richard Nixon pursued ONLY policies that advanced his ideas of his self-interest.
We will never know the full story of what was actually happening during the period of that China initiative. We know that Henry Kissinger was a key player. We know that he was also a key player in the Vietnam conflict. We know that China was a key player in the Vietnam conflict. We know that a Presidential election was imminent, and that the Vietnam conflict was an important campaign issue. We know that ALL investigation of possibly improper arrangements was blocked by the midnight pardon of Mr. Nixon.
We will never know what secret promises Mr. Kissinger made to China or vice-versa. We know that Mr. Nixon had other operatives exploring the question of circumstances under which the 1972 election could be “suspended”, and investigations of presidential authority during a “national emergency”. We know that the crimes of Watergate included several very suspicious deaths, including a “coincidental” plane crash that killed a key witness. Richard Nixon was not a man who feared killing his enemies.
Richard Nixon was NOT a closet liberal who “made a mistake” in Watergate.
…and this is the first time I’ve seen reference to a plane crash. To be clear, he deserved to be run out of office for Watergate. BTW, most Presidents and other politicians pursue goals and policies that are to some extent politically self-serving. That motive is practically built into our system.
Google with the following phrase: “watergate plane crash”.
From Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
I note that contemporary accounts (many originating in the Nixon cabal of insiders) described Martha Mitchell as “unbalanced” (and worse) when she described various abuses by her husband, Attorney General John Mitchell. We now know that she was, in fact, telling the truth. She was held against her will, she was drugged, and she was denied much-needed medical attention.
Very little of the true scope of the Nixon-era abuses is widely discussed today. Because of the midnight pardon, we will never have the evidence needed to substantiate many of those claimed abuses. What we do know is that the plots against, for example, Daniel Elsberg were all too real.
There really is no way to turn Richard Nixon into the moderate Republican you seem to be seeking. His behavior was far outside the envelope of “most Presidents and other politicians”.
FAR outside.
…but as your own quote categorizes it – “conspiracy theories”. I don’t suppose you were “on the inside” during that time in a way you haven’t let on? It occurs to me that despite all the reading I’ve done (I even co-wrote a version of Shakespeare’s Richard III to tell the story of Watergate with Nixon in the title role; it’s uncanny and scary how much of the original script didn’t have to be changed.) this is not the first time you have claimed to know what really happened that isn’t widely known. Sorry, the “Deep Throat” moniker has already been claimed:) Also, your hatred of Nixon has at times sounded personal.
Tom is not claiming inside knowledge. He’s pointing out that Nixon Administration insiders have alluded to those things.
Is it fair to point out that this is far from the first time that you have demonstrated ignorance of fairly well-known and easily-discovered events or allegations?
…I would submit it is quite the stretch to claim that something I am not aware of is fairly well-known. Maybe I just block out the from-left-field conspiracies and allegations that have not been very well sourced.
you assume that if you don’t know it, it can’t be well-known. I believe that would be a mistaken assumption.
There are other subjects I certainly would not assume it.
Did I mention “arrogance”?
At 10:52a this morning you wrote “this is the first time I’ve seen reference to a plane crash”. That crash was all over the newspapers, and questions about it permeated the hearings and resulting transcripts. The general topic of the CIA involvement with Watergate includes nearly 57 tightly-packed pages of volume 1 of the Senate Watergate Report. It doesn’t sound as though you are familiar with any of that.
Does “the Mullen company” mean anything to you? “Robert Mullen”, its founder? How about the name “Bob Bennet”? How about “Lee Pennington”? How about a 1973 Harper’s Magazine piece called “The Cold War Comes Home, alleging that then CIA director Richard Helms had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in?
I’m under the impression that a good scholar is more aware of what they don’t know than what they do. Are you truly a scholar of political history?
…but that sounds like less of my area (national security) and we were talking about common knowledge, which I define as the average man on the street might know, most of these details I doubt he would. It occurs to me that maybe it’s generational, that those around then heard these details day after day in the press compared to those of us that read it is history.
Four decades from now, if Americans still enjoy our constitutional freedoms, you will be (as an old-fart like me) in an exchange with someone under 40 (and so born after the events) about the George W. Bush administration, the invasion of Iraq, and the aftermath. I predict the dialog will be something like this:
Ralph: The Bush administration was much better than the liberal media claim. Richard Cheney, in particular, was a very good Vice President who served his country well.
Christopher: Perhaps. Still, there was strong evidence that the Bush administration ordered war crimes.
Ralph: Rubbish, there was no evidence. There were empty lies spread by partisan liberal Democrats, nothing more. If there had been anything real, they would have been prosecuted.
Christopher: We’ll never know, because the incoming Obama administration chose not to pursue investigations.
Ralph: If there was any substance then Obama would have strung them up. He didn’t prosecute because the whole thing was a pack of lies cooked up by conspiracy theorists. You’re not one of those, are you? Are you saying you think Dick Cheney ordered torture?
Christopher: Something happened. The water-boarding took place. There were leaks of documents that indicated the orders came from the Oval Office.
Ralph: WHAT? I never heard of any of that.
Christopher: It was widely known at the time.
Ralph: Listen, I know something about the Bush administration. I’ve got an advanced degree in political history, and I did my thesis on Richard Cheney. I’ve never heard of any of this.
Ralph: You sound like you ARE one of those liberals. Maybe you actually were on the inside, working for some liberal Democrat during those times. Besides, this isn’t the first time you’ve made these wild allegations. I remember when you suggested that the choice of Halliburton might have been improper, just because Richard Cheney happened to have been its CEO before he joined the White House. Frankly, it sounds like you have a personal grudge against the man.
I grew up in Washington DC during the sixties and seventies. I’ve always been a political junkie. An analogy is a baseball fan who grew up in Boston today. Politics was to DC at the time what baseball is to Boston.
Anyone who lived in the DC area during those times and was remotely political knows what I know. Anyone who was actually IN politics during those years knows what I know. For me, that’s enough to assert that the material was “widely known” on a political blog.
I can’t speak to the extent of your knowledge. I can say that I don’t appreciate your posture that because you are unfamiliar with what are, to me, basic facts of era, then I am a conspiracy theorist driven by a personal vendetta against Richard Nixon.
Most of what I know about Richard Nixon and Watergate came from sources that are still widely available. These included:
1. The gavel-to-gavel broadcast coverage of the Senate Watergate Committee hearings. This was before c-span. I assume and hope that these videos are still available.
2. The Senate Watergate Report, 1974: Volume 1 of the final report of the Senate Watergate Committee. Available from Amazon.
3. The daily editions of the Washington Post during the time. I lived in a MD suburb of Washington DC. The paper came every day. Two other local papers competed with the Washington Post, the “Evening Star” (at that time a legitimate newspaper) and “The Montgomery County Sentinal” (a weekly paper). The Washington Post was a morning paper, the Star an evening paper. My family took all three. I’m reasonably certain that each issue is archived and available online at a reasonable cost.
A great deal of what is widely known by those of us who lived through it is apparently not known by you. This is, to some extent, not surprising since I assume it happened before you were born. I spoke earlier about “arrogance”. The phrase “the arrogance of youth” is widely cited and is attributed to William Morris. I suggest that it may be relevant here.
It appears that despite all the reading you have done, you have missed the forest for the trees. You wrote “this is the first time I’ve seen reference to a plane crash”. That is inconsistent with your claim of deep knowledge of the Watergate episode. You are attempting to rewrite the history of arguably our worst President based on either GOP propaganda, your own unawareness of what actually happened, or both.
The above-cited references to the “hush money” carried by Dorothy Hunt (that’s how it was characterized in the questioning of the Watergate Committee) were accompanied by frequent references to the plane crash in the Watergate hearings. It was the topic of much investigation and questioning, aside from any conspiracy theorists. All of those questions, and their answers, are in the above-cited transcripts if you are actually interested. If you choose to read second- or third-hand accounts about Watergate, and (apparently) skip the original source material, that’s your choice — your resulting apparent ignorance of so much of what actually happened does not strengthen your case however.
Richard Nixon was the most utterly despicable President of my lifetime (so far). As I recall, you (or other BMG participants) made the same criticism of my reaction to Ms. Coakley — and I answer the same way: I did not know the man, I never met him. I therefore couldn’t possibly “hate” him.
I hate what he did to my nation. I hate what he did to the presidency. I hate what he did to my friends, family, and colleagues with his illegal conduct of the war. I hate what he did to politics. I hate the way in which he legitimized flagrant corruption (as your comments in this thread reflect).
If you are unhappy when I characterize your commentary as “arrogant”, then I encourage you to rethink contributions like this before you post them.
…but it was starting to sound like you were treading into Vince Foster was murdered by the Clintons territory. If you had referred to it as hush money found on Mrs. Hunt when she died rather than a mysterious plane crash that would have jogged my memory better.
Last year as “American History TV”, CSPAN3 actually did rerun the Watergate hearings on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, some of which I watched.
Your penultimate paragraph does sound like it hit close to home (friends, family, colleagues). I in no way want to suggest his behavior was excusable, just that there are other subjects that can also be discussed. In the case of both Nixon and DiMasi complete biographies would of course include all of this. The current diary about DiMasi makes no pretense of being a complete biography.
Interestingly, it was never actually acknowledged as “hush money”.
The characterization from the participants was, as I recall, that it was payment for “expenses”. The questioners were careful to refer to it as “alleged hush money”. If it had been “hush money” — a cash payment in exchange for silence — that would have been a felony. I don’t believe those charges were ever brought (but I could be mistaken).
Finally, I find The Nixon Adminstration and Watergate: Payoffs and Blackmail to be consistent with my recollection of events of the time.
You may find the paragraphs about the plane crash and it’s aftermath interesting reading (emphasis mine):
Richard Nixon has been falsely credited for the creation of the EPA.
As one historian notes, Nixon
That said, Governor Romney got too much credit for healthcare legislation that he tried to veto. DiMasi and the Democratic Legislature were a steamroller, and Mitt decided to walk ahead them smiling and waving instead of getting flattened. I imagine it was the same with Nixon & environmental laws. My comment here is a bit of quibble, but…
You know what though? I really wonder if our people power is just not strong enough these days. DeLeo has passed a meaningful increase in the minimum wage and meaningful progressive protections for domestic workers. But we are losing ground on transportation and energy. And that will be negative effects for working people. Maybe we should worry less about who is Speaker and more about what the government needs to do… and the leaders will get in front of the parade.
I now have the image in my head of Nixon walking along the beach wearing, of all things, a coat and tie.
Sorry, but having “a record of *nation-leading accomplishment* that is really hard to match” is not a reason to ignore criminal corruption. As jconway notes, the promotion comment trivializes this very serious criminality.
The legislature and state is spinning ever downward in a power dive as our elected leaders are incapable or unwilling (or both) to raise the taxes needed to sustain our state’s progressive vision. Mr. DiMasi’s corruption played a significant role in that fundamental flaw.
Promotion comments like this reflect a tolerance for corruption that that a great many Massachusetts voters find repulsive. The combination of pervasive corruption and continued denial of the impact of that corruption is a toxic stew.
I suggest that the long-term negative impacts of that toxic stew ultimately bring more harm than any of the good that Mr. DiMasi accomplished. It is, indeed, utterly shameful that we have collectively wasted our progressive legacy on corruption.
He was the person who came to talk to you if you were contemplating voting differently than the Speaker wanted. Gave him lots o good ideas on how to manage his own tenure.
I am not certain that is called ‘leadership’. Even if you do pay lip service to progressive values.
I read the Globe article and thought O’Sullivan’s points were worth making, in light of all the Massachussetts patting-itself-on-the-back that was going on after the Supreme Court decisions. Credit to DiMasi where credit is due.
Where DiMasi’s legacy will also be felt, however, is in confirming the perception that the state’s IT infrastructure was just another pie to be divided among the highest bidding lobbyists (this article from WBUR certainly gives the impression that he was only the most brazen in a legislative culture of corruption). I would guess that the DiMasi scandal was a chief factor in stopping all major upgrades to an aging system, leading to the HIX debacle this fall. So if health care reform was one of his accomplishments, the near-failure of health care reform implementation has to be owned by him too.
Even if he does, why did he write/post this?
I could say “Jimmy Carter was a great friend of American capitalism” (I thought of that because I saw him on TV this AM) but that would score me no points with anyone I know.
Yes, I do.
think that you’re wrong.
Richard Nixon did a lot of good stuff too. Doesn’t change his legacy.
…where President Clinton said Nixon “should be judged by nothing less than his entire career”. He deserved to be run out of office for Watergate and there was nothing praiseworthy about his earlier red-baiting. However, he gave us the EPA and OSHA. He opened China. I’ve read indications that if he had served his term we would have gotten closer to universal health care and maybe even universal basic income. It is Nixon, and no Democrat, who could arguably claim to be our most recent liberal President (though he would never use that term himself.
I’m also reminded of a line from Harry Potter where Sirius explains, “the world isn’t divided into good people and death eaters; there’s light and dark in all of us.” As Ecclesiastes might have said there is a time to praise and a time to condemn. Every once in a while we see someone so evil that there is nothing praiseworthy worth mentioning (e. g. Hitler), but mostly it is better to say a, b, and c were good things he did and x, y, and z were bad things and be honest about both. Contrary to what Tom seems to be saying below, acknowledging the good does not excuse the bad.
He is in jail where he belongs, incidentally, where Nixon belonged as well. There is a recent Atlantic piece that shows Nixon was just as manipulative when it came to restoring his legacy and getting in good graces with his successors. Nixon also had to contend with a Democratic majority which was far more liberal on economic issues than the party is today. Humphrey was calling for full employment, McGovern wanted basic income, and Teddy wanted single payer-Nixon’s proposals on all three fronts were substantially to their right, that they are to the left of today’s Democratic Party is an indictment of our times rather than a fair appraisal of his.
would still be an open question on legacy.
He escalated the Vietnam War and further divided the US.
He set the stage for the economic mess that was the 70’s.
As a person who learned German in school from ex-pats who lived in that time, dated girls with German parents from that era, and finally married (first time) somone whose mother was an adult during WW2 in Germany, there are actually people who once said…”well Hilter did some good things. Germany was a real mess in ’32, etc.” I usually kept quiet out of politeness, but did blow once when one said “Hilter was forced into the war by France and England.”
So it appears anyone can made excuses for.
Similar to Italian relatives praising Mussolini since ‘at least the trains ran on time’.
Are we comparing Sal DiMasi to Hitler and Mussolini?
Come on, people. We can do better.
Are you not able to distinguish between comparisons of how people are remembered to actual comparisons of the people themselves?
Who was the first to make the comparison, mainly, as part of a ‘at least Sal and Nixon are not Hitler’ kind of point.
Sal also isn’t Paul Wellstone, which is who Sen. Eldridge was making him out to be up there, without any mention of the scandal or corruption, just a great progressive knight leading a golden age who happened to cease being Speaker for some unmentioned reason. Really, if we want to talk about deviating from being reality based let’s start with the original post.
If anything I was cautioning AGAINST making such a comparison.
“Nixon without Watergate” is Nixon without Nixon.
Watergate was not an “anomaly”. It was not a “simple burglary”.
Richard Nixon, like the classic hero in a Greek tragedy, had a fatal flaw. That same flaw played out in ALL his dealings, including Watergate.
None of our leaders were perfect, I certainly don’t insist on that. LBJ, for example, had many flaws. The same is true for JFK. Richard Nixon is noteworthy because his crimes (and he should have been prosecuted for many) were committed in his conduct of his office. He literally perverted the power of the US government to advance his own self-serving ends.
at least in my view, by skunking peace talks in 1968 to prevent any advantage going to Humphrey if the talks resulted in a peace deal.
There were well over 20,000 US combat deaths in Vietnam AFTER 1968, all of whom arguably died in order to confer a political advantage upon Mr. Nixon.
It must be you who’s arguing that, because I haven’t ever heard anyone making that incredible claim. Please explain how Jimmy Carter was less liberal than Nixon.
DiMasi took forward-thinking stands on hard issues. He did not think small or lead from behind and then cheerlead after.
Recognizing his real accomplishments has nothing to do with tolerating corruption.
N/T
nt
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DiMasi did not tolerate corruption. He was corrupt. He got caught on the Cognos scam but was never prosecuted for his directing a bill against wine importation to protect his wife’s family’s liquor business, a clear violation of the state’s conflict of interest law. He ducked prosecution by not voting on the matter, even though he was in that one up to his eyeballs.
Mr. DiMasi took MONEY in exchange for STATE CONTRACTS.
The only thing forward-thinking about that “hard issue” was the yield he hoped to gain. His “real accomplishment” was to make ANY talk of raising tax revenues toxic, for who knows how long.
These paeans to Mr. DiMasi’s “real accomplishments” remind me of alcoholics about to fall off the wagon who wistfully talk about the “genuine greatness” of a particular Cabernet Savignon — its “body”, and “nose”, and “finish”. What they DON’T talk about is the wreckage their alcohol dependency leaves in the wake of their “enjoyment”.
Massachusetts government has a real, pervasive, and immediate CORRUPTION problem. Because our legislature is overwhelmingly affiliated with the Democratic Party, that means that the Democratic Party has a real, pervasive, and immediate corruption problem.
Just as enablers — spouses who call an employer and make excuses, friends who carefully edit what they say, etc — are a significant contributor to an alcoholic’s disorder, so too are enablers a significant contributor to our party’s corruption disorder.
When we make excuses for the CRIMINAL behavior of our leaders, we become enablers. When we loudly blame criminal convictions on an “out of control” Court, prosecutor, or jury, we become enablers. When we attempt to rationalize a criminal enterprise as “just patronage”, we become enablers.
Mr. DiMasi was NOT an isolated case of a lone politician who “made a mistake”. He was, instead, an integral part of a pervasively corrupt system. He was not the first Speaker to be convicted. He will not be the last. He was not the first, the only, or the last Massachusetts Democrat for whom personal enrichment from the public coffers is a lifestyle rather than an isolated aberration.
People who work with recovering alcoholics will tell you that the overwhelming majority of offenders convicted of DUI are caught because they habitually drive drunk, no matter how much they protest that “it was just that one time”. We have a large and growing pantheon of Democratic Party officials who have been convicted of criminal corruption. Like the convicted DUI offenders, this is strong evidence of a habitual problem.
Too many Democrats in the Massachusetts legislature are corrupt. Not just one or two here and there, but a state government that has become an entire self-sustaining and pervasively corrupt criminal ecosystem.
Attempts to explain away this serious issue are gravely mistaken, because they enable and perpetuate a problem that may already be fatal to our own political future. A modern state cannot operate without tax revenues. The voters of this state will not allow the current crop of Democratic legislators to raise taxes — largely because that cohort so flagrantly is corrupt or supports corruption (both political and venal).
Mr. DiMasi is a former Speaker who was convicted of venal corruption. Attempting to “recognize” his “accomplishments” while minimizing that venal corruption only compounds the tragedy of his and our history.
is that being convicted of a serious crime taints your legacy.
Being convicted of a crime involving abuse of your office really taints your legacy.
I really call into question Sen Eldridge’s judgement in making this post. He’s either delusional or is making some calculated play of some sort.
This entire thread is a sad indictment of the Stockholm Syndrome progressive Democrats have regarding leadership on Beacon Hill. Many of the Progressive Caucus Democrats I emailed regarding the term limit vote feigned being caught off guard or fretted about losing influence and one even praised DeLeo straining credibility and credulity, saying we wouldn’t have gotten a bone without him since there are so many democrats to his right in the State House.
I heard the same arguments from Alice Wolf about Finneran back in the 90s when she voted to overturn his term limits, in exchange for another legislative aide. The spectacle of one of the most lauded civil rights, gay rights and women’s rights activists in my community voting for the most prominent anti-gay, anti-women, and racist redistricting fan in the State. And he didn’t have an R next to his name.
So for anyone used to fighting for crumbs under Finneran and now DeLeo, DiMasi looks like a saint in comparison since he was genuinely progressive in his policy preferences, but the ‘culture of corruption’ cudgel that helped elect Scott Brown and Charlie Baker is a direct product of our turning a blind eye. The ascension of another retrograde Dem like DeLeo is a direct outcome of DiMasi’s corrupt leadership that personal fealty and secrecy over shared progressive values. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where Finneran blocked Romneycare or marshalled the House to kill gay marriage. Nobody is arguing that. But this nostalgia for DiMasi is tragically misplaced. Let’s focus on a corruption free progressive vision for the future instead of celebrating the baggage of the past.
nm
n/t
But, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln surely appreciated the play.
From wiki:
Would anyone here really find this post credible?
Important discussion from my post.
Let me be clear, Speaker DiMasi was corrupt, and deserved to be punished for his crimes.
I was commenting on the positions he took on key progressive issues, and the way he worked to gain the support of a majority of Democrats to support gay marriage, near-universal healthcare, and alternative energy. Fast forward to today, it’s my hope that when progressive legislation has the support of a majority of Democratic lawmakers, thar such legislation is taken up and passed. Thank you for the discussion.
I want to point out that if you have to go back and explain again what meant, maybe you should have thought twice about it. Maybe you should have titled your post:
Speaker DiMasi, though corrupt, had a leadership style, which could have been misinterpreted, that had an impact on progressive legislation.
Note you got a partial pass here because people like you. If I had authored this identical post there would already be 56 comments on what a stupid a-hole I am.
If you were an elected official and authored this identical post, I suspect you would be treated very similarly to Mr. Eldridge.
Also, BTW, I’m pretty sure that you and I are on the same page about Mr. DiMasi.
… You got bit by the pathological aversion to nuance that often sweeps over BMG. Though it be aversion — and thus you’d think it was an absence of a thing — it is really a concrete and present pushing of biases and prejudices: it is, in fact, clear that many would rather exercise high moral dudgeon over DiMasi’s crime than celebrate — or, indeed, give away any ground on — his attempts at liberal achievements. Their anger at the crimes is more precious to the them than their hope for achievements.
Thanks for the effort. Please don’t be discouraged. Sometimes, the angrier they get means the closer to home you’ve struck…
in fact, just plain wrong, and a little presumptuous to claim to speak for the whole site.
Petr bumped his ego on his colon. The resulting subdural hematoma that formed behind his pre-frontal arrogance is now swollen to grandiose proportions and allows him to speak for Blue Mass Group. The rumor mill says Petr’s currently in negotiations to be God’s terrestrial spokesman.
…Maybe you’re more like me than you care to admit.
a lot of ways, and as much as I get annoyed with you, I still like you, which is a little puzzling, at least to me.
What I object to is your fastidious prose covering up for your frequent intellectual sloppiness.
I appreciate the honesty. I like you also, and, despite my sometimes blunt language, (and with the exception of one particular loudmouth whose present absence is not lamented) I really like everybody here. I try to be forthright and up front, but that shades into insult sometimes. It’s not right. It is annoying. I am aware of that.
As for intellectual sloppiness… this is a wholly intellectual endeavor and because of that, I welcome anyone calling me on sloppiness when it happens. Please do. The flip side of that coin is that I’ll call it out also. We can look at that as antagonism or we can think of it as calling each other to be sharper. We might yet disagree about it when we do, and that’s ok, or — fastidious prose notwithstanding — since nuance can sometimes cut even more finely than articulation can express, we might be unwittingly excluding one others perspectives by clinging so fiercely to our own… I know I’ve done that.
substantive points and criticisms on the Olympics into consideration. On TIFs, for example, you taught me something.
I try not to talk beyond what I feel like I know. I’ve watched the discussion of the Olympics here progress from mere suspicion and accusation to something more informed. In my case, I’ve read a book and several articles. My research, based on your “defense” of the Boston 2024 people, had led me to believe that they are probably no different than any other LOC. I don’t agree with them, but I don’t see any evidence of a deep, dark plot.
I made the Barney Frank comparison on the other thread out of frustration and will pull it back a tad. Nobody here is as irrational or ideological as the Tea Party type he was arguing with, but I would say the Olympic debate has firmly entrenched camps that aren’t budging or convincing the other, and that is probably fine, fierce ideological competition is healthy for a question of this importance, it beats taking no stance or opting out of the discussion due to ignorance. There are many, many other areas where I have appreciated and agreed with petr’s conclusions and insights.
Just because you think his name is “Dick” doesn’t make it so. He’s clearly a “Mark”, not a “Dick”. So he isn’t a “Dick”. You, on the other hand, are almost surely a “Peter”.
Case closed.
.. First off, I was replying to “merrimackguy” and not “Mark” but your point is taken. I went too far.
Merrimackguy, I apologize for the words and the insult.
jokes. I get them from high school students all the time.
… My mother, Alice-Mary Molloy married Joseph Swedock and gave their second son, Petr, her maiden name for a middle name and with his surname that makes my initials…
(That sound you just heard was SomervilleTom roaring with laughter… 😉
n.t
I agree we should emulate the floor tactics that got us those victories, and can do so with leadership that is boldly progressive and committed to ethics. You, Stan Rosenberg, and Maura Healey among others are fine examples of that. Surely we can find a way to embrace these accomplishments without shirking our commitment to ending the culture of corruption on Beacon Hill.
The DiMasi crime and conviction was a tragedy in all of the classical senses. He could have been enjoying plaudits and a well-deserved retirement rather than sitting in a prison cell. Jamie is a good guy and I’m sure he wanted to show some measure of compassion towards a man he once admired, as well as towards his family.
I second jconway’s appreciation for all Jamie and others are doing for progressive causes on Beacon Hill, especially as we are reaching the end of a grueling budget process with a new governor.
Maybe this was not quite the best week for us to go at it, but do I feel guilty that Sen. Eldridge got some of the legendary BMG “roughing up”? No, I do not, and for this reason. I’ve never heard anything bad about Jamie Eldridge out here in his district (yes, I am a proud constituent). But I have heard plenty of general complaints about Beacon Hill politicians, patronage, favoritism, wasted tax money, why we need a GOP governor and so forth. It’s not just a bunch of BMG moralists with our knickers in a twist saying this. So it’s not a bad thing to have him listen to some of this sentiment, since he has to represent us and all that . . .
Keep up the good work Jamie!
Not DiMasi’s conviction, but cowardly Demorats in the state legislature (not Senator Eldridge) who would rather runaway from their shadow than take issue with Baker.
I think there is a fear to call a spade a spade in both parties. Fear of falling Baker out for his conservatism and fear for defying an entrenched leadership in the House, that it is a corrupt and powerful leadership is a legacy of failing to stand to Finneran, failing to denounce DiMasi and reform the culture that enabled him, and failure to stand up to DeLeo. The cycle continues as CMD points out leading the unenrolled ranks to swell, the rise of Baker as a valid counterweight, and the rise of UIP and other outside pressure groups. So it’s linked, because the common thread is fear of rocking the boat or taking on the powers that be, no matter their party.
There’s always the argument, whether implicit or explicit, for “balance” that favors electing a GOP Governor with an overwhelmingly Dem legislature, never mind that in MA the Democratic Party is two parties within itself. However, I don’t recall Democratic corruption raised as an issue last year (except ironically by SomervilleTom) as a reason not to vote for Coakley. Nor was there a throw the bums out uprising with regard to the General Court or a whole class of Republicans comparable to the “Watergate Democrats” in 1974.
All my relatives save for my parents voted for Baker and it’s because they thought the Patrick administration mismanaged everything it touched (valid for connector and DCF) and that Coakley never went after anyone in power and had no ideas to bring to the table (also valid). Other people’s recollections from actually canvassing on the campaign trail are probably a lot more vivid than mine in painting the full picture. I know for a fact a lot of Cambridge support for Weld was because he was so liberal for a Republican and the conservative hacks in our party were in charge on Beacon Hill.
Must any reference to DiMasi include “Of-course-Speaker-DiMasi-did-very-very-bad-things-and-is-a-very-very-bad-man-and-deserves-to-be-in-prison-and-we-condone-those-bad-bad-deeds-not-one-whit-and-they-and-they-alone-are-his-legacy-but-we’d-like-to-mention-this-other-stuff-briefly-with-your-kind-indulgence-begging-your-pardon”?
Can people really not separate things at all? Why are 3/4 of the comments here about Senator Eldridge’s (and Charley’s) failure to include a sufficient disclaimer? I don’t see either them condoning anything or suggesting that DiMasi should be remembered only as some sort of progressive lion and not at all for his crimes. I think we’re all in agreement that he committed crimes, he’s in prison for those crimes, and that those crimes will come first in any full discussion of his legacy.
As I see it this post was not meant to be a full discussion of his legacy. It was meant to highlight one aspect of his legacy that happens to be timely. We just had two major Supreme Court decisions that, for once, didn’t go the conservatives’ way. It is worth nothing that both policies got off the ground here and, in Senator Eldridge’s view, received a big boost from DiMasi’s willingness to let his members vote for things they were inclined to vote for. Which stands in some contrast to the current Speaker.
Debate that assertion all you want, but these accusations of whitewashing DiMasi’s crimes because the mandatory flagellation paragraph isn’t included are as tedious as they are unfounded.
At least, with Mr. DiMasi, the record is clear. Many of the exchanges here are in response to a comparison of Mr. DiMasi to Richard Nixon. As one of who posted an early criticism of the thread-starter, I did not offer the comparison to Mr. Nixon. It seems that even Mr. DiMasi’s supporters have difficulty avoiding such ill-founded comparisons. In my view, that buttresses my original criticism.
Since Mr. DiMasi was, in fact, prosecuted and convicted, his criminal record is not disputed (in stark contrast to Mr. Nixon). In my view, that adds support for the argument you make here. I appreciate your perspective, and still disagree with it. Perhaps incorrectly, I read the thread-starter as implying (if not outright stating) that his progressive accomplishments as a legislator outweigh the impact of his criminality.
My perspective remains that the negative consequences of his criminality outweigh those accomplishments. I’ve made my arguments upthread, so I won’t repeat them here.
I think the question of whether ANY legislative accomplishments can outweigh criminal behavior, especially in Massachusetts, is a reasonable topic for discussion. My criticism of this post is not that it lacked a “mandatory flagellation paragraph”, but instead that it presented only one side of that discussion about legacy.
It seems to me that, especially given the current legislative leadership and the abject paralysis the state now faces concerning desperately needed tax increases on the very wealthy, this is a discussion well worth continuing — even if some participants whom I greatly respect (like yourself) find it “tedious”.
I do not agree with your interpretation of the thread-starter. I can see how Charley’s words can be interpreted as flippant, but I read them as an implicit acknowledgement that his criminal conviction will, far and away, be the most prominent and enduring part of Sal DiMasi’s public legacy, and it’s not necessary to revisit it every time his name is mentioned.
I agree with that perspective and I think everyone here does as well. That’s why I find some of the comments, particularly from you and jconway, so odd. Without revisiting the archives, I don’t recall Jamie Eldridge or any of the editors arguing in 2008 or 2009 that DiMasi should remain in office, should walk free, didn’t too anything too bad, or anything else of that ilk. Nor do I see any of that today. I don’t know who the “Mr. DiMasi’s supporters” you refer to in this comment are supposed to be.
What’s tedious to me is the suggestion that mention of any positive accomplishments is tantamount to excusing or minimizing DiMasi’s criminal activities. I reject that false dichotomy. The man committed crimes. He was convicted. He’s in prison. He also happened to let a couple of key House votes take place. These things are not mutually exclusive.
It seems to me that you want more than “both sides” being presented in a “discussion about legacy” (which I don’t think this post was meant to be anyway). And that you want more than mere acknowledgement that any good political deeds don’t, and can’t, “outweigh” his criminal behavior. It seems that you want everyone to agree that, as a result of his criminal behavior, he has forfeited the right to have any positive achievements at all. That’s a bridge too far.
I guess we just have different views of what the thread-starter means.
An example of the “supporters” I referred is this comment and this other comment, both from Christopher, comparing Mr. DiMasi to Richard Nixon.
I don’t have the time to revisit the archives either (I do have a day-job, after all). My recollection is that Mr. DiMasi has been discussed several times in the last year or two, each time making the argument that “he was a good man done wrong”.
Mr. DiMasi was prosecuted and convicted by a federal prosecutor. My recollection is that our Democratic AG and subsequent nominee had little interest investigating his crimes. When I have raised the issue of Democratic complacency, and therefore complicity, with corruption here on BMG, I’m generally met with howls that either (a) it’s just politics (as in the Probation Department scandal) or (b) it doesn’t matter, or (c) I’m disloyal and the other guys are worse.
I therefore agree with you that I’m probably overly sensitive to the question. If I saw more evidence that our party leaders, our editors here, our more of our blue-colored participants here shared my feelings about corruption then it would be easier for me present the balance that you request.
I appreciate your explicitly saying you agree that the negative consequences of Mr. DiMasi’s criminality outweigh his accomplishments. I don’t share your perception that “everyone here does as well”. Based on comments and ratings, it appears that suffolk-democrat, judy-meredith, historian and carl_offner join Christopher disputing that perception.
So I agree with you, more than you might think. It is not that I think Mr. DiMasi has forfeited the right to have any positive achievements at all. It is instead that I think we collectively say too little about our corruption disorder.
That’s from the column that inspired Sen. Eldridge to write this post honoring the leadership style and progressive vision of Sal DiMasi. I am arguing that corruption was at the heart of his leadership style, as was elevating foot soldiers like Bobby DeLeo, the single biggest impediment to progress in this state, who was empowered by DiMasi, who plucked him from obscurity to the Ways and Means Chair and kept him from resigning his seat after being a backbencher for two decades. ‘Speaker John Rogers’ might have been more progressive than either of them. We won’t know now.
I recall many, many other activists and policy makers fighting for both of these issues, I recall canvassing for a candidate who made it a centerpiece of his successful race for Governor. I recall a young gay Tufts grad student beating an entrenched Medford incumbent and DiMasi loyalist on the gay marriage issue. As was Therese Murray and Jarret Barrios in the Senate on the SSM debate. I recall Travaglini playing a key role, along with Sen. Kennedy and yes Gov. Romney in passing the health care bill as well, one many Republicans including Scott Brown voted for.
I think placing him at the center of this history and arguing it wouldn’t have happened without him, is in effect, elevating his good deeds above the corruption which rightly landed him in prison, elevated a conservative Democrat to nearly a decade of unimpeded leadership of the House, and helped elect another Republican to the Corner Office. Especially as RCmauro pointed out, when we realize these friendly contracts helped undermine the connector.
You can disagree about that, but I have no idea with so many current issues going on, including the dismantling of the Pacheco law and the MBTA, that we are going to take precious time trying to argue that DiMasi, was at best, a mixed bag. Let’s focus on the heroes. After all, this isn’t a historical site but a partisan and progressive one.
I have no idea how reappraising the legacy of a flawed policymaker from the last decade helps us win our current debates or make the argument that our party deserves to govern.
And I say supporters because many folks here and the original columnist have devoted a lot of ink to bemoaning his treatment at the hands of the government as a prisoner, while doing and saying comparatively little on behalf of the folks who are there primarily as a result of their race or poverty.
I find that offensive, particularly since I personally know many gay activists growing up in Cambridge who put their life and limb and jobs at risk for that cause. Apparently Sal did more than Barney Frank, Cheryl Jacques, David Scondras, Gerry Studds, Elaine Noble, or Carl Sciortino. It directly reminds me of those old LBJ hands bitching that the Martin Luther King movie didn’t talk about LBJ enough. It’s unseemly to link him to the SCOTUS victory, since he played such a small role in the scheme of things, a role his corruption should far outweigh in our collective conscience. Especially if we want our movement to go forward and embrace future change. His politics is part of the politics of the past.
of crap! You wrote:
who was empowered by DiMasi, who plucked him from obscurity to the Ways and Means Chair and kept him from resigning his seat after being a backbencher for two decades. ‘Speaker John Rogers’ might have been more progressive than either of them.
First, DiMasi did not pick DeLeo from obscurity. DeLeo was the chair of the Committee on Bills in Third Reading, the place where Finneran placed him because he recognized him as a man who would do anything needed even before it was asked of him. He was not obscure to any person who had business in the State House. Your characterization of him as obscure is so wrong that I do not dare use the words I am really thinking.
And to characterize John Rogers as a potentially progressive leader is worse. If you ever spent a minute in the House during the budget debates when he was Finneran’s Ways & Means chair and watched him very politely help Finneran eviscerate social programs you would know better. Ask anyone who watched Finneran weep at the end of every budget debate about Rogers being the son he never had and you would get a better grip on reality. Rogers was a nice guy but he would choke if you called him a progressive.
Your comments linking all gay former elected officials together as equal heroes in the struggle for gay marriage is offensive to the gay former officials who actually worked on the subject. I have been a personal friend of every person you named and to link them as equals is an offensive stereotype. I worked on Elaine Noble’s first campaign for Rep, so I give her mad props, but suggesting that she had a role equal to Sal’s is just stupid. Gay does not equal involved in the struggle for gay marriage.
And to respond your comment about whether Sal did more on gay marriage than all of my other friends in your list, the answer is yes. He was a thug about it and it would scare some of the purists here on BMG, but that is how the battle was won.
And I still hate Sal as a person, more than your understanding of the State House allows. Don’t try to outdo people who actually lived this life.
I see no other way to read the original post. Illinois Democrats are at least smart enough to have completely distanced themselves from Blagojevich, you won’t see any of the morons at the Tribune write a laudatory column praising him for his health care legislation and gay rights record, which is just as substantive as DiMasi’s, and you won’t see a single State Senator write in praise of a similar column. If Illinois Democrats have a greater sense of outrage over corruption and corrupt officials than Massachusetts progressives we are really in for a long tenure of Republican rule in the Corner Office.
I am pretty sure it was a real liberal lion who deserves the lionshare of the credit over this bill, at the state and later the federal level. And I doubt you saw an obit or bio of his that omitted Chapaquiddick either. Supporter of his were upfront with the good and the bad of the legacy, and the good clearly outweighed the bad. Same just can’t be said for dear old Sal.
An obit or a bio indeed would be remiss in omitting a key, defining scandal. Happily, this is neither. It’s a blog post, shorter than some of the comments under it. It focuses on one man’s recollection of how DiMasi approached one particular bill, as an illustration of how liberal things might get done in the House.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen blog posts that mentioned Ted Kennedy but not Chappaquiddick.
so it is understandable that you give credit to Teddy for the Massachusetts health care law, but you are wrong. Ask anybody who worked on it, as I did. I have trashed Sal here on many occasions already and do not feel the need to do it again, but I do acknowledge that his mastery of the details of the bill as it was drafted in the House Health Care Finance Committee was truly impressive.
Rep Pat Walrath assembled an impressive staff, including now Rep Christine Barber and they wrote a great bill in conjunction with DiMasi’s chief health care advisor, Christie Hager. Teddy’s staff helped but no more than did Health Care for All, for example. Together, they wrote a great bill. Sal mastered the details and sold it well to a skeptical House, and ultimately the Senate. Teddy came in at the last minute to help get the feds on board and make nice-nice with Romney but your attempt to minimize DiMasi’s role in this is not based in reality. And I say this as a huge fan of Teddy, but someone who has some grasp of what really happened.
One of the great things about BMG is when people like stomv, who have significant real life knowledge of a subject, weigh in with their experience and expertise. The site fails when people who have no experience but read a few blogs try to trump others who actually live these political battles.
It seems a lot more even handed than the Globe column, and I do believe that is where Jamie was trying to come from. There is a clear difference as well in terms of the folks who recommended and those that criticized, and the recommends come from folks like Judy, Fenway, Christopher, Fred, and others who I know have far more experience than I do with the state party and in passing legislation and advancing important progressive goals inside the Hill. They interacted with Sal and were probably shocked when the allegations came out that someone they respected and trusted could have done something so short sighted and wrong. Perhaps you feel the same way, though I give you credit for your comments on this thread indicating your displeasure with his record and the seriousness of the charges he was faced with.
Perhaps that is part of the disconnect? Many of us are on the outside looking in, some of us are trying to break in, and to those of us totally outside of party politics like centralmassdad or disaffected liberals like Tom and perhaps myself, it just seems like his career was yet another example of business as usual and cronyism that discredits the state government in the eyes of the voters and hurts the party.
In that case, I can appreciate the value of this discussion, we have a lot of work to do to bridge the inside/outside gap, and I think doing so will make the party stronger. I think we can learn from the tactics employed to get these victories, even if the individuals using them are discredited. Maybe that is the middle ground and the key takeaway from this discussion. I am passionate about good government, passionate about state politics, and I want us to do better. And perhaps that comes across as naivete or short sightedness to the veterans here. But corruption like this turns people off from the process, and makes them think the process itself is corrupt. And that is where we lose, and the foes of government win.
For me, and I’m way on the outside, you’re exactly right. I view the whole process as corrupt and whether Republicans or Dems are in charge I never have to wait too many years before one or the other abuses their positions and tries to line their (or their friends) pockets. And these are only the instances where they are caught, I’m sure it’s even worse than is reported.
The ends do not justify the means, if you play sports (like tennis) and win by cheating (calling a shot out when it wasn’t) you can never appreciate a victory.
This is precisely what I referred to in my first comment. I found it quite easy to read the original post as saying this guy (who, we all know, did criminal things and is in prison for them) also did these two things. As I read it, it’s saying it would be nice to have a House Speaker who didn’t regularly bottle up bills that would pass if allowed to come to the floor for a vote.
Reading it as an exoneration or as “tolerance of corruption” only makes sense if you insist no good can ever again be said of the man. Whatever Illinois Democrats do about Blagojevich is their problem. Personally I find distasteful and Stalinesque the complete erasure of a person, even a flawed person, from the history books, particularly when done for reasons of political messaging expediency. Nothing to be proud of there.
I thought that at this site, at least, we had the sophistication to understand that the guy might have done bad things for which he’s being punished AND had a positive accomplishment or two as well. Apparently not.
Primarily trying to elect and support progressive Democrats. I see that goal impeded by posts decrying the mistreatment of Sal at the hand of federal prosecutors, or arguing, as I believe the State Senator did, Charley in his original promotion comments, and certainly the original Globe columnist that progress outweighs or at least balances against a long paper trail of personal corruption. When you ask the average person in Massachusetts about Beacon Hill they will say it is corrupt, and aren’t even shocked about it anymore.
In another thread on Gov. Baker and solar power, Charley promotes Maura Healey as a potential gubernatorial candidate. How do posts like this one help her get elected, when she is explicitly trying to be a different kind of Massachusetts Democrat? One who actually goes after pals of Sal?
The goal should always be to advance the progressive movement, and I do not see how emulating the corrupt legacy of the most recent Speaker to be indicted and convicted of a crime he did commit will lead us there. I do think emulating Healey and going after these folks, especially the many on our own side of the aisle, would serve our movement and its future candidates well. It would also help clean out a lot of the DINO detritus that DiMasi and now DeLeo elevated to power.
Where was the retrospective on Wilkerson even handedly talking about her great achievements as the first female black State Senator, or all her work on behalf of civil rights and LGBT rights? Would anyone take a post I wrote about the progressive legacy and leadership style of Blago seriously? No. We forget about these people not just because they did bad things, but because they are political losers and liabilities. You don’t win over suburban independents and unenrolled voters by aligning yourself with the culture of corruption on Beacon Hill, you run against it.
…to either praise or criticize fellow Democrats out of fear of how Republicans will take it.
To criticize Democrats because of how fellow Democrats will take it.