Geno's hypocrisy

Published Sep 22 2006, 05:38 PM by Adam Reilly

As we all know by now, Democratic state rep Gene O'Flaherty--who claims to be a supporter of Deval Patrick, his party's newly minted nominee for governor--is loudly fretting that Patrick may be too liberal to beat Republican Kerry Healey.

Here's a nice ironic twist: a few years back, Geno sponsored House Bill 2292, which would allow illegal immigrants to obtain Massachusetts drivers' licenses.

Now, in fairness to Geno, he didn't specifically mention Patrick's support of such licenses as proof of his raving liberal lunacy. (That was Senator Steve Baddour, another Democrat and disappointed supporter of Tom Reilly, who lost to Patrick in Tuesday's primary.) Still, you can bet that Patrick's stand on licenses will be a favorite topic for Healey et al. this fall.

In case you missed it the first time, here's the warning Flaherty delivered yesterday:

"I support the Democratic nominee but I would also want to make it clear that I think in order for the Democratic nominee to become electable, what has to happen is he has to get rid of the notion that has been percolating around out there that he is a liberal left-leaning individual that will bring Massachusetts back to what some have referred to as the ‘Mike Dukakis era."

Thanks for the advice, Geno. I'm sure the Patrick camp will be calling any minute.