I've long said that there's no way in this world that the Republican Party will nominate Rudy Giuliani -- one by one, every Republican will have that moment of epiphany when they stop associating Giuliani with "9-11 New York," which they love, and start associating him with "Moral Sewer New York," which they loathe.

According to the Post's Page 6 gossip column, we can get ready for a few more of those epiphanies. It reports that Vanity Fair's September issue profiles potential First Lady Judith, casting her as "an opportunistic, puppy-killing homewrecker who has a full-time hairstylist and needs an extra seat on planes for 'Baby Louis,' her Louis Vuitton handbag."

VF also gets behind Rudy's discreet failure to recall, in campaign interviews, where and when he first met wife #3, says Page 6. Not surprisingly, the answer is: at a bar while he was married to wife #2.

7/30/2007 4:52:23 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

Our fearless former leader, Mitt Romney, tells the great John DiStaso that he might skip the GOP's CNN/YouTube debate in September, because he's "no fan of the format."

Why would Romney duck a nationally televised debate, in which his staff can review all the potential questions beforehand? Any guesses? 

7/27/2007 3:58:57 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [3] |  

That's pretty much what the four wrongfully convicted "gangland murder" men and their families got in Judge Nancy Gertner's award against the federal government for, to put it as politely as I can, dicking them over. According to the Globe, which broke the story online this morning, Gertner told the government to pay $101.4 million to compensate for the combined 108 years or so the four sent in jail. (It would have been have been more like 120 years, but two of them died in prison before the exonerations.)

A million a year is roughly the high-end benchmark for wrongful conviction judgments won at jury trial, so this was not a total stunner, but it's still a hell of a kick in the Justice Department's teeth.

That Department has thoroughly shamed itself by continuing to insist that it had no obligation to tell state prosecutors, before during or after the trial, that it was sitting on knowledge and evidence that these guys were innocent.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Boston, Shawn Drumgold's attorney is looking at today's judgment and smiling; his civil suit is moving closer to trial.

7/26/2007 11:36:02 AM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

Mitt Romney fought hard to introduce rate competition to Massachusetts's auto insurance industry, and failed. So when Deval Patrick's insurance commissioner decided to implement auto-insurance reform, it caught a lot of liberals by surprise. Some are turning sour on Patrick, painting him as a pro-business shill. Is it true -- or are they just shilling for the status quo? I look at the politics behind the policy in this week's Phoenix, out tomorrow but online now.

Fender bender: Last year, opponents thought they had killed auto-insurance reform for good. Its resurrection could be a headache for Deval Patrick.

Also, I have the tale of a young man who claims he was roughed up and arrested by Boston police for no good reason -- in the 12th inning of Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS. BPD Stands Accused -- As Sox-Haters?

7/25/2007 7:18:47 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

CNN "vetted" the 3000 submitted questions for last night's CNN/YouTube debate, meaning that it chose which ones (and how many) to air, meaning that it pretty much created a TV show out of the free raw video materials, not entirely unlike an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos. Then the network's analysts fell over themselves praising the show, and the great questions.

The self-congratulations -- in the guise of praise for the YouTubers -- continued on CNN.com, where the news story about the debate raved "it was the personal, heartfelt and, at times, comical nature of the user questions that stole the spotlight." According to CNN, reaction to the YouTube experiment ranged from Loved It! to Loved It Except For The Candidates!:

Some said that the questions from YouTubers were as good or better than those of the media and phrased that the candidates had a tough time ducking them.

Others, though, said that the candidates dodged questions from YouTubers like they did those of the media.

As for me, I tend to think that personal questions work best in a single-candidate forum, not a crowded debate. But I give CNN, the party, and the candidates credit for trying something new, and at least trying to bring people into the process.

And I have to admit I'm looking forward to the GOP version in September. 

7/24/2007 7:19:24 AM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [3] |  

I've got what we call an "items" column in this week's Phoenix, out tomorrow.

The first story is about the campaign for Congress in the Massachusetts 5th District, where all the Democratic Party insider elites have thrown their weight behind Niki Tsongas, but failed to knock her opponents out. Is this another Tom Reilly (and Deb Goldberg) story?

The second item is about last week's report on climate change from the Union of Concerned Scientists, and what Massachusetts pols are -- or aren't -- doing about it.

It's online now:

The Million-Dollar Widow
Why is the Niki Tsongas juggernaut heading backward? Plus, ignoring global warming close to home.

7/18/2007 5:44:42 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

According to both The Hill and Marc Ambinder, Fred Thompson will hold a fundraiser in North Chatham this Saturday. All Romney-loathing Republicans in the state are presumably invited. At $1000 a head, of course.

7/18/2007 3:32:14 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

This is exactly the sort of thing that drives me crazy about the Boston Police Department -- not the part about arresting the wrong guy, which is going to happen sometimes, but claiming to have done a great job, rather than admitting when they didn't. And they wonder why the credibility of the force is so low?

To recap: in the rare (less than one in ten) instance that they made an arrest in a shooting, they nabbed an innocent guy whose alibi could have been checked with a simple phone call within the department. Instead, the guy was booked, held overnight, and arraigned before the prosecutor checked and discovered that the guy was telling the truth when he said he was in the B3 police station when the shooting occurred.

It's not a huge disgrace or anything, but it's nothing to be proud of, either. Mistakes were made, you might say.

But instead of admitting that, or at least keeping an embarrassed silence, the commissioner (or his spokesperson, depending on which daily you read) came out boasting that this was an example of "good police work," in which "our internal systems worked very well," and "Most importantly, the officers disclosed exculpatory evidence immediately to stop the prosecution."

Those laudatory quotes apparently refer to the fact that, when the prosecutor asked whether the suspect had been at the station Saturday night, the cops didn't lie.

Is this really how low we're setting the bar these days? Gold stars any time the force doesn't actively obstruct justice?

7/18/2007 9:11:40 AM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [3] |  

When I learned that Commissioner Ed Davis had removed Dan Coleman as the head of the BPD homicide unit, I knew that some folks at the District Attorney's office would be miffed. It's no secret that Coleman is a big favorite of Dave Meier, who heads the DA's homicide group, and that the office had lobbied hard to get Katherine O'Toole to put Coleman in charge.

But I wouldn't have guessed that Dan Conley would go running to the Globe to denounce Davis for the move, implying that the commissioner A) wants to raise arrest rates at the cost of thorough investigation, and B) has no spine to stand up to political pressure.

Nor would I have guessed that Davis would respond, on the record, by calling Conley "ridiculous."

And for Conley to suggest that he might remove the BPD from all homicide investigations, which Globe writer Matt Viser seems to indicate, is almost a little unhinged -- unless Conley knows something awfully dire about Coleman's replacement, Thomas Lee, that I'm not aware of.

Meanwhile, the real story of the shakeup is the end of the Dunford/Joyce fault line in the department, at long last, which should go a long way toward turning the department into something resembling a functioning agency. I don't dislike Paul Joyce, and think he has done a lot of good in the department over the years, but his leadership of the investigative services over the past six years or so has been an unmitigated disaster; Exhibit 1 being the Unsolved Shootings Project established in 2002.

As for Coleman, I have to admit that I may be biased about him: he was the lead detective on a case that I spent three years reporting on, writing in 2005 that the bungled investigation put a likely innocent man in prison for life. So it's been a hard sell to convince me that he has really dramatically improved the quality of the homicide investigations since he became the unit's chief. In any event, the abymal homicide clearance rate has gone on far too long for nobody to have lost their job over it, a point that I made a year and a half ago in a ranting end-of-year essay that I think still bears reading.

7/15/2007 1:53:21 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [5] |  

Here's a surprise: politicians who set up Friendster pages during their campaigns ignore them once the election's over.

No Massachusetts pol, to my knowledge, has a pop tune in their honor to equal North Carolina Labor Commissioner Cherie K. Berry.

Boston's dailies are bitching about the public fountains, but it's better than lining the streets with concrete penises.

Dear John: You don't want the top headline on your campaign home page to read "McCain On Wasteful Spending" right now.

Resolved: That this Duncan Hunter '08 video should constitute grounds for the state to remove a child from her father.

Get a free brown piece of plastic from Senator Sam Brownback!

7/12/2007 4:26:49 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

Rajan Zed gave the daily opening prayer in the US Senate today, becoming the first Hindu to do so. That didn't sit well with a segment of the monotheistic citizenry. The American Family Association urged protest, and the President of Faith2Action was quoted in the Christian press saying that "U.S. Government-sanctioned Hindu prayers are an abomination." Three self-described "Christians and Patriots" disrupted the prayer, "shouting 'this is an abomination' and other complaints from the gallery," according to the Associated Press.

I wonder if these folks know that Hindu temples get the same tax exemption as Christian churches, which means that the US Government not only sanctions but financially supports Hindu prayers on a daily basis. And imagine if they found out all the breaks we give those crazy Native Americans with their wacky beliefs!

7/12/2007 2:19:02 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

Deval Patrick has just announced his budget line-item vetoes and guess what? He whacked a whole bunch of travel and tourism earmarks, for projects that "are not sufficiently related" to travel and tourism. Didn't I just write that?

He took an even heavier hammer to the workforce-training earmarks, a pork-laden area which I was planning to mention but cut from the article for space.

The Gov also vetoed much of the increase the legislature had given to the trial courts -- a double-sweet stroke of vengence if one wants to see it that way. It's a way of complaining about the legislature's refusal to let him increase court efficiency by consolidating their budgets -- hey, you wouldn't need extra money if you let me do things my way. It also can be seen as retaliation for the slashing of his new-cops proposal -- why spend $10 million on trial courts when you'll only spend $4 million on cops to arrest people in the first place?

Those, plus a veto of an abstinence-only grant program, add up to about $24 million of cuts. But those are just the ones he wants to highlight in the press release. He claims to have cut $41.4 million in total. We'll get a look at the specifics later today.

As my article this week suggested, Patrick's got conflicting impulses: to stand up against the legislature's desire to micromanage the government on the one hand; and to maintain the collaborative spirit with that legislature on the other. In that light, here's a fascinating section of the Governor's press release today:

“The vetoes also address earmarks that are inconsistent with the mission of the program under which they are funded, limiting the ability of government to exercise effective oversight and guarantee the efficient delivery of services. I remain committed to reducing the use of earmarks, as I believe public funds are put to their best use when distributed through a competitive and transparent grant process or as part of a comprehensive strategy to achieve an agency’s policy mission,” Governor Patrick said. “I look forward to working with the Legislature to find the right balance between providing appropriate flexibility to state agencies and respecting the Legislature’s important role in helping establish our priorities.”

At first glance it sounds tactful enough: making his point about earmark reduction and agency flexibility, while recognizing the Legislature's important role in the process; "looking forward to working with..." blah blah blah.

But look closer: does that verbiage about "effective oversight," "efficient delivery of services," and "a competitive and transparent grant process," etc., not look like a direct shot at senate president Therese Murray, who is currently under investigation by the Inspector General for allegations (made by me) that she used earmarks to bypass an open competitive grant process, leading to the waste of millions of unaccounted-for taxpayer dollars?

It almost sounds like he's saying: a vote to override my earmark vetoes is a vote to condone Terry's alleged abuses -- and if the IG confirms those charges, you're all guilty by implication.

7/12/2007 1:09:37 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

DA Dan Conley takes issue with my recent article about him, voicing his complaints in a letter to the editor in this week's Phoenix -- you can read it online here, along with another critical letter, followed by my response to Conley.

7/11/2007 6:07:18 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

The mutual admiration society that Deval Patrick, Sal DiMasi, and Therese Murray have engaged in since the gay-marriage fight can't last forever. It might not last until the end of this week -- depending on how Patrick wields his veto pen on the state budget. I write about it in this week's Phoenix, out tomorrow but online now:

Menage-a-Trashed?
Deval Patrick has been lounging in bed cozily with Therese Murray and Sal DiMasi but with budget questions looming, the party’s probably over

7/11/2007 4:54:24 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [0] |  

Last week in this space, I ridiculed the suggestion that one of the nine at-large city council candidates should remove himself from the race, to save the city from a preliminary election required to trim the field to eight. Thankfully, the city council has come up with a more egalitarian solution. A home-rule petition being introduced by at-large councilor Steve Murphy, along with council president Maureen Feeney and outgoing district councilor Jerry McDermott, would allow the city to skip the prelim altogether this year, and place all nine candidates on the final November ballot.

Quite reasonable, and would save the city an estimated half-million bucks to boot if the council passes it and the state legislature OKs it.

But there is a slightly seamy side to this. Murph, after all, is directly affected by the change. It will mean that he does not have to spend campaign money on the preliminary election. It also theoretically deprives the most formidable challenger, John Connolly, from an opportunity to use a strong prelim showing to boost his campaign. (Not that it worked that way for him last time out.) I guess I would prefer to see the petition pass on the votes of the nine district councilors, and have the four at-large incumbents abstain.

That's a minor qualm, I'll confess. On the other hand, the change would also deny political journalists like myself the usual round of jawboning over the preliminary results, which come conveniently at a time when we usually have very little to talk about. Does nobody stop to consider the effect on us?

7/10/2007 1:41:11 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [6] |  

I think Donovan Slack has it right in her article today about Boston's mayoral hopefuls: Menino intends to run again, under the self-justification that nobody in the field can do the job the way it needs doing; and several in that field feel they have to run anyway, because they can't wait around forever for the opportunity.

No surprise that Michael Flaherty and Ralph Martin are all-but-declared for '09. I'm a little surprised that Maureen Feeney -- who is universally assumed to be waiting for the city clerk's office to open up -- would publicly speak of her mayoral ambitions.

Menino's not getting a free pass in '09. That doesn't mean he can be beaten, but it should affect the level of public criticism of his performance. Expect a much more contentious public debate than in recent memory.

7/9/2007 9:43:19 AM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |  

Boston's at-large city council race frequently gets more than eight candidates for the four seats. To narrow the field to a manageable number, the city holds a preliminary election, in which the top eight get on the final ballot. Almost always, the full field includes candidates with no decent shot at winning a seat, so the prelim is really just a costly process for throwing a few of these hopeless folks off the ballot.

But, it's gotta be done, to make sure that November voters don't face an incomprehensible list of a dozen or more names. So it's hard to understand why anyone's worked up about doing it this year, just because the nine candidates are the minimum that triggers the prelim.

But it's particularly hard to justify asking any of the long-shot candidates to gracefully step aside for the sake of saving the commonwealth a half-million dollars. First of all, I'm pretty sure we should be in favor of participating in local democracy -- and getting the required signatures to qualify for the ballot is some serious participation.

But also consider that one of the four long-shots could quite easily become a city councillor. It's not hard to imagine. All it would take is two of the top five (the four incumbents and second-time candidate John Connolly) to find other interests in the next 29 months.

That's not at all unlikely. Steve Murphy could still land a job in the Patrick administration -- possibly even before the November election. Felix Arroyo could easily get a tempting offer to run some non-profit. Michael Flaherty could decide to resign to concentrate on running for Mayor. Who knows what Connolly will be doing (or running for) two years from now.

Let's say next year one of the incumbents leaves, and Connolly is no longer interested. The seat then goes to the sixth-place finisher -- ie, the top vote-getter among the long-shots.

So don't tell any of those long-shots to step aside -- someday you might be calling him Councilor Long-Shot.

7/3/2007 3:59:05 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [3] |  

Congratulations to Charlotte Golar-Richie for being named a senior advisor to Deval Patrick -- or more aptly, congratulations to Deval Patrick for landing Charlotte Golar Richie. Well, no matter, most of us had figured that Golar-Richie would be working for Patrick eventually, and sooner rather than later.

And poor Tom Menino, who has relied heavily on Golar Richie in recent years, now has yet another big job to fill.

7/2/2007 7:25:41 PM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [3] |