An Unfounded Accusation

A front page Boston Globe story on Mitt Romney’s courtship of conservative bloggers has this cute little howler:

Romney, echoing an oft-heard Republican sentiment, is highly critical of the mainstream press, particularly the Massachusetts media, which he accuses of having a liberal bias.

What kind of unbalanced paranoid could seriously believe that a highly professional news organization like the Globe would permit liberal bias to seep into its news coverage?

If he’s that paranoid, I bet Mitt may also believe the Globe has staked out his home for months at a time, and traveled to Guatemala to interview one of his former groundskeepers! Clearly he is part of the lunatic fringe with this charge!

I Bet He Takes Door #3

While the town fathers of Braintree today breathe sighs of relief that Deval Patrick has decided to restore state funding for their gazebo, today’s Boston Globe reports in a front page story about next year's state budget:

Aides to Governor-elect Deval Patrick said yesterday that the state is facing a deficit that could reach $1 billion next year, a looming budget gap that observers say could force Patrick to…

Guess?

scale back his ambitious [spending -ed] agenda,
slash spending, or
raise taxes.

Somehow I suspect he’ll pick what’s behind Door #3, and that it’s a choice that will not cause Deval to lose much sleep.

Another interesting tidbit of Globe reportage is this:

Patrick, who will be inaugurated Thursday, pledged during the campaign to increase aid to local governments so they can cut property taxes, saying that was more fiscally responsible than rolling back the state income tax as voters approved in a 2000 referendum.

So where now are the deeply skeptical Globe reporters who used to harass Mitt Romney? Isn’t there an obvious follow-up question here? Won’t a property tax cut be “a tax cut for the rich” in comparison to an income tax cut? How many poor and low income families pay local property taxes? Curious Globe readers might want to know. I wouldn't worry about any tax cuts from the Patrick administration, though.

Nothing says "Together we can" like a state funded gazebo!

Sudden Stop comments humorously on Deval Patrick’s first executive decision -- to restore ALL of the massive 1.7% state spending cut recently made by the outgoing Governor:

Mr. Patrick succeeds in showcasing the first decision with some real political polish--not a talent I admire, but praiseworthy nonetheless. Overturn those mean ol' Romney vetoes (It was a campaign stunt; we didn't like him anyway). If the revenues hit the skids, borrow from the Stabilization Fund (like the Legislature wanted to do from the beginning), and allow every Legislator his Pork (make no enemies over this early and insignificant matter).

Together we can.

Braintree gets its $100,000 Gazebo because nothing says "we can" like a state funded gazebo!

It sure is a good thing Massachusetts has a stabilization fund to cover vital spending in tough times like these!

(See the link above for background from the Boston Globe on Braintree's desperately needed gazebo, which was so thoughtlessly axed by a heartless Republican seeking higher office!)

Herald Editors Speak, but Boston Globe Stands Mute

While the Boston Globe editorial page remains mute, Boston’s other newspaper, the Herald, (whose target market is more blue-collar than that of the ultra-liberal Globe) penned an editorial yesterday on the legislature’s suppression of the marriage petition and concluded it with an excellent question (poorly phrased):

Those who defend the defiant lawmakers argue, unconvincingly, that the refusal to vote is some noble act of civil disobedience. They’re the same people who vest their authority in this same court’s decision to allow gay marriage. So which opinion is OK to ignore?

Permitting and excusing such inconsistent behavior is a hallmark of states that are subject to the rule of men rather than the rule of law. We are reaping what we have sown.

Qui tacet consentire?

While Beacon Hill’s treatment of the pending marriage amendment has provoked 2 recent editorials in the Wall Street Journal (1,2), Boston’s own leading newspaper still maintains an eerie editorial silence on a question that the Legislature must decide within a week. It’s not that they haven’t been asked to opine:

December 28, 2006

To the Editors:

Yesterday the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court wrote:

The members of the joint session have a constitutional duty to vote, by the yeas and nays, on the merits of all pending initiative amendments before recessing on January 2, 2007.

Past editorials of the Boston Globe have agreed that such a vote is a constitutional duty (‘Delayed, not denied’, July 13 2006 and ‘Vote the ban down’, July 8, 2006). Now that the SJC has made this point unambiguous, your editorials can either urge lawmakers to fulfill their oath of office and perform their constitutional duty, or urge them to discard their duty to the constitution because of their personal distaste for the likely outcome. The SJC ruling has removed any excuse for fence-sitting. Do you continue to support the rule of law through our Constitution, or do you advocate that our legislature ignore it?

Now is the time to speak on this question.

Harry

Contempt in Boston

Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page discusses the sad state of constitutional government in Massachusetts. In a piece entitled ‘Contempt in Boston’ (subscription required) the editors lay the root causes of this disaster where it belongs – judicial usurpation of legislative power and legislative cowardice. The WSJ notes:

In its ruling this week, [the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court] agreed that the legislature's duty to vote on the measure was "unambiguous." But it claimed to be powerless to compel a vote. So the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, whose own arrogation of power created this mess, has suddenly discovered the limits of its power to clean it up.

All in all, this is quite the political spectacle. First judges usurp the power of the legislature to dictate their own social policy. Then the legislature uses a procedural ruse to deny voters a say on the gay-marriage issue. And these are some of the same people who say Iraqis aren't ready for democracy.

It is fitting to compare the current state of democracy in Massachusetts with Iraq. We in the Bay State have an infinitely richer democratic tradition, but their recent trend is more favorable than ours.

What Became of These Liberal Ideas?

From a Boston Globe Editorial entitled ‘Gays and Marriage’ published on July 27, 1996:

Legislation could address more issues; the end result should approximate the benefits and obligations that go with marriage. [Author E.J. ]Graff denounces talk of this partial arrangement -- benefits without the legal nomenclature of marriage -- as a "back-of-the-bus version" of the real thing.

One can carry the civil rights metaphor only so far. Redefining marriage is a far more sweeping legal campaign than the repeal of the Jim Crow laws, which applied only to a minority of the states.

"Marriage brings one into fatal connection with custom and tradition," wrote the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, "and traditions and customs are like the wind and the weather, totally incalculable." Legal improvements in the status of gay people can be made without redefining this bedrock institution of society.

There is little that I disagree with here. Though one wonders what has happened in the last 10 years to make the ideas that liberals of 1996 proposed so unfashionable among them today?

Kerry Dines Alone -- A Story You Won't Find in the Boston Globe

UPDATE: According to Powerline, this story has proven to be bogus. Look here.

Still another IOU is due from John Kerry to the Boston Globe. The Globe ignored the unhappy story of Kerry’s visit to Baghdad, where he was dramatically shunned by US troops, to the point that he ate in an Army mess hall with empty chairs all around, as this picture shows. Ben of Mesopotamia has the full story and writes:

Schaudenfraude is the German word for taking pleasure in somebody else's suffering. I don't know whether I should feel this or rather pity for Senator Kerry, who looked like a kid on his first day at a new school. I'm not sure what kind of a reception he expected to receive here given his "botched joke" before the election, but I'm debating whether to give him points for having the chutzpah to come to Iraq.

I give Kerry credit for showing up, but shame to the Globe for somehow deciding that this story is not newsworthy. You don’t suppose the Globe might have found room for the story if it was Mitt Romney who was shunned by US troops?

Update: There were questions from the left half of the blogosphere concerning the date of tis photo and the accuracy of the story. The source I referenced, Ben of Mesopotamia, answers these questions here.

An Obligation "Beyond Serious Debate"

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously yesterday that the legislature is obliged by article 48 of the Constitution to vote on initiative petitions. The court ruling declared the obligation to bring the measure to a vote is "beyond serious debate". Yet today’s Boston Globe story highlight’s the Court’s refusal to force the Legislature to perform its sworn duty:

The ruling is a legal victory for advocates of same-sex marriage, who are seeking to keep the question off the 2008 ballot, but a symbolic triumph for Romney and opponents of the marriages, who have pressured the Legislature to vote.

Some ‘victory’!

What you will NOT read in today’s biased Boston Globe story is any part of the ruling that underlies how clearly the Legislature is obliged to bring this measure to a vote rather than suppress it by the procedural dodge of adjournment, as they have done thus far. Here are some excerpts from the Court’s ruling that were not printed in the Boston Globe (perhaps they would have taken up too much space?).

The members of the joint session have a constitutional duty to vote, by the yeas and nays, on the merits of all pending initiative amendments before recessing on January 2, 2007. With respect to legislative action on proposals for constitutional amendments introduced to the General Court by initiative petition, the language of art. 48 is not ambiguous.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the records of the drafters' debates indicate that they did not intend a simple majority of the joint session to have the power effectively to block progress of an initiative. See 2 Debates in the Constitutional Convention 1917-1918, supra at 629 (expressly rejecting such a proposal).

Enough has now been said about the requirement to vote on the merits to place the proposition beyond serious debate.

We conclude with these observations. Some members of the General Court may have reasoned, in good faith, that a vote on the merits of the initiative amendment in accordance with the directives of the pertinent provisions of art. 48 was not required by the constitutional text and that their duty could be met by procedural (or other) votes short of a vote by the yeas and nays on the merits. [FN7] Today's discussion and holding on the meaning of the duty lays any doubt to rest. The members of the General Court are the people's elected representatives, and each one of them has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the Commonwealth. Those members who now seek to avoid their lawful obligations, by a vote to recess without a roll call vote by yeas and nays on the merits of the initiative amendment (or by other procedural vote of similar consequence), ultimately will have to answer to the people who elected them.

The Court has made the point as clearly as possible that the Legislators have a duty to vote.

There are no “process liberals” here. There are only those who will observe the rule of law, or those who will place their own opinion above the law and their own oath.

No Hustlers Need Apply

A would-be professor of disco music writes to the Globe:

December 24, 2006
I WOULD like to applaud Harvard's foresight in seeking to add a hip-hop scholar for a tenured position ("Harvard tries to woo old friend," City & Region, Dec. 17). Is it any wonder Larry Summers lost his job as university president after failing to take this step two years ago? Free from the restraints placed on Harvard by Summers, I would like to encourage the pedagogues in Cambridge to consider expanding their moves in this direction. As a preeminent disco scholar, I would like to offer my services as a tenured professor. This genre should be studied by future generations of our best and brightest, for what could be more critical than learning the importance of "Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive."
ROBERT COYNE
Lexington

Poor Mr. Coyne forgets his place. He also forgets the primacy of race in the modern academic world. The hip-hop chair is sponsored by Harvard's department of African and African-American Studies. Mr. Coyne suggested field of study pertains to an art form favored by a privileged race, and so no such program would be created by a modern university. Whether the aesthetic contribution of disco exceeds that of hip-hop is a difficult, though uninteresting question. But among disco’s many faults was the fact that it appealed across the impenetrable line of race. No academic judgment in today’s world can be deemed valid across racial lines (except if rendered by members of an unprivileged race).

All really important symptoms of decay…ultimately go back to racial causes. No matter whether questions of general law or excrescences or economic life, whether cultural symptoms of decline or political processes of degeneration, whether questions of faculty education at school or evil influence on the grown-ups by the press, etc., are involved, always and everywhere it is fundamentally the non-recognition of racial considerations of one’s own people or the non-recognition of a foreign, a racial, danger.

– Adolf Hitler
Nation and Race
Mein Kampf
p. 452 Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939

Give Me Five

The Massachusetts General Court proclaimed this during the era of Cotton Mather, and thus demonstrated that its utter mistakenness did not begin with its disposal of the voter initiative petitions of our day:

“For preventing disorders arising in several places within the jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivities as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense to others; therefore that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting or any other way upon any such account aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every offense five shillings as a fine to the county.”

Yes, Virginia, There is No Liberal Bias

The Boston Globe expends its front page lead story on Christmas Eve to give another non-substantial attack to the outgoing Governor. Using meticulous statistics, the Globe notes that Mitt Romney has been out of state all or part of 212 of the 355 days this year. That is 58% of the days with at least some part of the day spent outside the state. Romney is running for president, just as another Massachusetts statewide officeholder, John Kerry, was recently.

So how does the Globe’s claim of non-partisan news coverage hold up? Kerry missed 64% of the US Senate floor votes in 2003 and missed 87% during the first half of 2004. Did the Globe report this? Yes, but only when the Bush campaign raised it as an issue, and only as a Republican campaign ploy. Here is the beginning of that Globe story:

ROMNEY ECHOES CALL FOR KERRY TO STEP DOWN -
SAYS MISSED VOTES COST STATE MILLIONS
Boston Globe, The (MA)
June 19, 2004
The Republican criticism of Kerry's voting record surfaced publicly on Tuesday, when Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, President Bush's campaign cochairwoman in Massachusetts, accused Kerry of shirking his legislative responsibilities by missing 87 percent of the roll calls this year and 64 percent last year.

While maintaining that their liberal politics don’t cross into their news coverage, rather than attacking the last Massachusetts candidate, the Globe’s political reporters wrote his semi-official campaign biography.

RESTLESS INTELLECT DRIVES KERRY'S POSITIONS
Boston Globe, The (MA)
April 25, 2004
As detailed in a forthcoming Globe biography, "John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography," Kerry is a man with a strong but restless intellect, a political figure who is at his best when probing rather than presenting. Just as North Carolina Senator John Edwards was the consummate trial attorney on the campaign trail, charming voters as he once charmed juries, Kerry remains the prosecutor he once was, with a keen eye for the vulnerabilities of his opponents but a lawyerly ability to argue more than one side of an issue.

So while the Globe news reporters were writing a biography concerning Kerry’s strong and restless intellect and his lawyerly ability, the same staff bashes Mitt Romney’s campaign travels on Christmas Eve. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and there’s also no double standard or partisan bias in the Boston Globe’s news coverage.

The Last Red God? How We Wish!

Today the Boston Globe editorial page notes the death of Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan. But what possibly could have been going through their minds to entitle the editorial ‘Last of the Red Gods’?

Last?

The hundreds of thousands starving and freezing at this moment in North Korea’s Gulag would not agree. Did the Globe just completely forget about North Korea? Not to mention our nearby ailing Red God of almost 50 years absolute rule in Havana. Whatever was the Globe thinking?

SOMETHING about the absolutism of communist regimes disposed them toward idolatry of an infallible, patriarchal ruler. Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong outdid the old Roman emperors in the field of iconic self-deification.

Yes. Murdering and imprisoning millions for the slightest and even imagined transgressions just might have something to do with it.

But what explains the decades-long enthusiasm exhibited (at a safe distance) by the American academic and political Left for the regimes of these 2 bloody tyrants? That’s a more pertinent question.

Merry Christmas

Thanks for reading, and please come back in January.

Aren't We All "Process" People?

Here is a month-old Boston Globe column by Sam Allis in which he accepts a description of himself as a “process liberal”:

This is the dismissive term used by Arline Isaacson, the fiery co chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus, to describe those whose support of a lefty cause is tempered by their commitment to play by the rules.

By “commitment to play by the rules”, Sam is referring to a commitment to abide by constitutional law. Then what then does one call the liberals who shun this adjective?

Illiberal, I’d say.

Former President Flambé

Alan Dershowitz gives a flambé to former President Jimmy Carter in a Globe Op Ed column today.

…he's a hypocrite to boot: when he says he wrote a book in order to stimulate a debate, and then he refuses to participate in any such debate…Authors should be accountable for their ideas and their facts. Books shouldn't be like chapel, delivered from on high and believed on faith.

Yes indeed, and the same goes for newspapers and for wire services.

Words of One Whose Name Can No Longer Be Mentioned

From a New York Times story yesterday about a meeting for professional women in science:

…they obsess about what they call “the two body problem,” the extreme difficulty of reconciling a demanding career in science with marriage and a family — especially, as is more often the case for women than men in science, when the spouse also has scientific ambitions.

From a speech by a former Harvard University President; this speech resulted in his excommunication by the Harvard faculty and made him into a perpetual straw man for thoughtless feminists everywhere:

Another way to put the point is to say, what fraction of young women in their mid-twenties make a decision that they don't want to have a job that they think about eighty hours a week. What fraction of young men make a decision that they're unwilling to have a job that they think about eighty hours a week, and to observe what the difference is. And that has got to be a large part of [the female under-representation in science that is] observed…But it seems to me that it is impossible to look at this pattern and look at its pervasiveness and not conclude that something of the sort that I am describing has to be of significant importance.

Who's Cutting Romney's Lawn?

As long as this blog is on the subject of minor issues like immigration law and major issues like who is cutting the Governor’s lawn, I might as well publish today in the blog a recent letter to the editor of the Boston Globe that through some oversight was not published:

December 7, 2006

To the Editor:

You stated that “Public agencies cannot be complicit in violation of immigration law”, in your December 6 editorial (“Who’s cutting Romney’s lawn?”). I heartily agree, and suggest you expand on that by discussing these related topics in your future editorials.

If the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles were to issue drivers licenses to people who were in Massachusetts illegally, would that make them complicit in violation of immigration law, or not? If the University of Massachusetts extended in-state tuition rates to students who are in Massachusetts illegally would that make them complicit in violation of immigration law, or not?

If, as you say, public agencies should do business only with companies that are in compliance with immigration law, shouldn’t private sector companies behave the same way? And how well does the Boston Globe’s own distribution process measure up against that standard?

I look forward to reading your opinion on these topics.

Harry

Selective Obfuscation

Today’s Boston Globe has a story about the exploitation of immigrant workers, but the entire story obscures the question of whether the workers being exploited are legal or illegal immigrants. Given the practices described, I’d bet my first-born that all are illegals.

Note how the Globe story utterly obscures the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants except for the inclusion of a statement by Romney spokesman Eric Fernstrom. But in other immigration stories earlier this month the Globe has been very zealous about drawing the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. In this story the very same distinction is kept quite blurry.

Just PERHAPS that is because none of the immigrant workers in today’s story were cutting Mitt Romney’s lawn!

Hat tip: Wizbang

Here's Mitt! But where is the Boston Globe?

There is an unwritten story in today’s Boston Globe. Last week the Globe ran a story complaining that Mitt Romney was giving local reporters the slip and had not been available to them for weeks. Today the Globe carries a story about an extensive interview with Romney by local reporters, but the story isn’t written by a Globe reporter! Instead, the story is from the State House News Agency, a bizarre Massachusetts institution that is a 100-year old privately owned wire service operating out of office space in the State House. The Globe normally runs only 2-3 minor stories a week by this agency.

Why? Did the Globe decide to snub Romney and not to write a story themselves? Or did the Globe leave Romney temporarily without any coverage (they are probably short of reporters now because it’s the Holiday season, after all) and the Governor, noticing their absence, seized that opportunity to be interviewed by the local press at some length?

I suspect the latter, but I doubt the Globe will explain the contradiction between their complaint of last week and their lack of coverage today. A newspaper that spends 4 months performing surveillance of the groundskeepers at the Governor’s home and then flies a reporter to Guatemala for an interview with one of them is showing evidence of Romney Derangement Syndrome.

But it looks like Mitt has given them the slip once again.

More Hand Wringing

An Arlington blogger named TJIC has a good comment on today’s installment of ridiculous editorial hand wringing in the Boston Globe ('What price parking?'): the frightening possibility that a system to provide real-time information about vacant parking spaces would somehow cause injustice. The editorial reports that “The Boston Transportation Department is understandably wary…”. Yes, and this is the same city where people often have to shovel snow themselves out of nearby parking places, mark them 'reserved' using cones or lawn chairs, and then vandalize cars that park in ‘reserved’ places. Sure sounds like the city Transportation Department has it’s priorities right worrying about injustice from new information systems. They must prefer vigilante justice. TJIC writes:

Let me get this straight.

There is parking for X people in a neighborhood.

If 2X people think they can park there, X of them are right, and will park and shop, and the other X will clog up traffic, circling the block.

…but with better information technology, perhaps just 1.1X people will head to the neighborhood, X of them will park and shop, and 0.1 X will clog up traffic, circling the block.

…and the former situation is preferable.

Riiiiight.

Idiots.

Also, if you noted Jacoby’s excellent Sunday column (‘The Constitution's guardrails’) on the Legislature’s abdication of its constitutional duty to vote on initiative petitions, you can find a number of Jacoby’s unacknowledged sources here. Bloggers generally provide the courtesy of a hat-tip to their fellows, but the MSM does not observe the same courtesy (at least to bloggers).

More Help From NewsBusters

Mark Finkelstein of NewBusters notes Ellen Goodman’s citation of highly questionable statistics concerning the war in Iraq:

So, yes, 650,000 people Iraqis have died "by one estimate." But does Goodman believe it's the most accurate estimate? If not, why does she cite it, and what does it tell us about her good faith and credibility? For that matter, what does it tell us about her credibility if she does believe it?

Noonan Hits Nothing But Net

Peggy Noonan has a spot-on column in OpinionJournal today (‘The Man FromNowhere’) questioning the Barack Obama hysteria. She writes:

Our political and media establishments, on the rebound from bad history, are sounding like Marlene Dietrich in her little top hat. Falling in luff again, vot am I to do, vot am I to do, kont hellllllp eet.

Indeed. As I noted in the post below, reporter Susan Milligan wrote of Obama in this week’s Boston Globe in terms that sounded like a teenage girl describing the Beatles in 1964.

Regarding the unanimity of the Cold War Era Noonan wrote concerning a passage from Obama’s book:

The world is difficult now, unlike those days when America enjoyed "the near unanimity forged by the Cold War, and the Soviet threat." Near unanimity? This is rewriting the past in a way that suggests a deep innocence of history, or a slippery approach to the facts.

It’s the latter, I suspect. Readers of the Boston Globe have been treated to exactly this bogus analysis before by the Globe’s Washington Bureau chief who wrote shortly after Reagan’s death that:

It's not clear whether a president can achieve that stature again, given the lack of clarity of the struggles of the post-Cold War world. After Reagan, fewer Americans viewed the president as the protector of their freedom, and many more took the liberty of questioning the rightness of his stands

Sure. Nobody seriously questioned or opposed Reagan. Not even anybody in the Globe newsroom.

Liberal Media Misses Mitt

Today’s Boston Globe has a front page pointer (at left) to a navel-gazing media story by Scott Helman. The story ('Romney masters the slip') is little except a whine about lack of press access to Mitt Romney. The root cause for the whininess (IMHO) is that Romney gave this exclusive interview to Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review and then sent the story to the Liberal Media by email. Check out this snarkiness:

He granted an exclusive interview this week with the conservative magazine National Review, but has carefully choreographed the waning days of his Beacon Hill tenure to spend very little time there and even less time fielding questions from the news media.

By “the news media”, Scott means the Liberal news media. Just maybe Romney senses that they can’t stomach him!

Then the article relives the Globe’s recent moment of pseudo-glory when they confronted Romney with the shocking news that his groundkeeper had hired illegals at the Republican Governor’s Conference.

At another point that day, Romney dismissed a Globe reporter's question about how he squared his tough talk on illegal immigration with the fact that the company that landscaped his Belmont home had employed undocumented workers.

"Aw, geez," he said and walked off brusquely.

That was reported in a front page story in the Globe over 2 weeks ago, but the Globe just couldn’t resist reprinting it. They revel in this tiny piece of expensively researched journalistic trivia like a dog rolling in poop. Then:

The National Review interview, published yesterday, may help. Conducted by Kathryn Lopez, an editor at the magazine who admits a fondness for Romney…

Lopez has a fondness for Romney! Actually, the introduction to the NRO interview notes on Lopez "(who — full disclosure — has some pro-Romney tendencies)". What hypocrisy for the Globe to attack the objectivity of another news organ and reporter with such innuendo, when in Monday’s Globe a story on Barack Obama showed (but did not acknowledge) not just fondness but this level of infatuation:

“Barack Obama , a national political newcomer with an uncomplicated message of hope and promise… has quickly developed a star following… Crowds clamor to get close to him, reaching to touch him. People often compare him to Robert F. Kennedy, saying the charismatic Illinois lawmaker inspires hope in a party”

That's way beyond "fondness", in my book. Finally the Globe reports one of the little snippets from Romney’s interview:

“No longer can just a few newspapers or television stations control what information we have access to," he says in the article. "The monopoly on news has been broken wide open.”

Good thing.

What Made Dems Stand?

Susan Milligan’s breathless story about Senator Barrack Obama’s recent appearance in New Hampshire (‘Obama's star power shows on N.H. visit’ in Monday's Boston Globe ) begins this way:

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Barack Obama , a national political newcomer with an uncomplicated message of hope and promise, won standing ovations from enthusiastic crowds yesterday as he tested the New Hampshire landscape for support for a 2008 Democratic presidential run.

The reference to standing ovations is accurate only in a Clintonian sense. New Hampshire Democratic blogger Hannah reports on the same event and notes:

The Boston Globe reports numerous "standing ovations" but fails to mention that the audience had no choice, since the only people provided with chairs were the dignitaries on the stage.

A Greybeard Who Doesn't Wobble

Don’t miss the superb Op Ed column today in the Boston Globe from Charles Fried of Harvard Law School. He discusses the equivalent of a Woodstock Festival for Holocaust Deniers that is now taking place in Tehran:

What Ahmadinejad's conference proclaims is that truth has no place in the world of politics; that if your ends are just, you can say anything, no matter how far-fetched...Why would a rational person put faith in any assurance from a man so contemptuous of truth or even think there is any point in negotiating with him?

Many US politicians would agree that truth is irrelevant, or at least far less relevant than polls. I agree with Mr. Fried about the futility of negotiating with such, but a majority of our next Congress does not agree, at least until their solicitude of Iran starts to hurt them in the polls.

Regarding laws restricting speech of unpopular or even ludicrous ideas:

States that forbid such palpable lies degrade the currency of truth as much as those who proclaim a lie as their national policy…For in the end, the only way to bite the nickel to make sure it's genuine is in discussion, debate, assertion, and counter-assertion.

As for states, so even more for universities, which are severely disabled in their traditional mission by the current fashion to outlaw ‘hurtful’ speech on campus.

Respecting Family Privacy -- Boston Globe Style

Today’s Boston Globe lead editorial is about the world crisis resulting from Mary Cheney’s pregnancy and the horror of it being out-of-wedlock due to the medieval laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s actually an OK piece that is sandwiched between 2 complete absurdities. Let’s start with the absurdity at the end of the editorial:

The best baby shower gift for them may be privacy and time -- because time will encourage the good common sense of young people to dawn on the rest of the nation.

Thanks goes to the Boston Globe editorial board for recognizing this couple’s need for privacy and then utterly ignoring it by using them as poster children in a lead editorial in order to advance the paper’s own political agenda.

Now back to the beginning:

Like any couple choosing to become parents, they must have concluded that the joy of raising a child outweighs the uncertainties of introducing it to a planet threatened by global warming, nuclear proliferation, and other terrors of the modern world.

This poorly written drivel makes parenthood sound like an act of pure self-gratification. Uncertainties compared to what? With NOT having and raising the child? These folks sound just like Kate Schori!

Finally, an opinion that obscures the most important issue:

Massachusetts is likely to continue to be a pioneer -- and an alternative for couples like Cheney and Poe if they lose patience with the restrictive laws of their own states.

I have no problem if Massachusetts wishes to be a ‘pioneer’ in this area provided it does so through process of law, which thus far it has not. This is a matter for legislation, not a question of civil rights. Yet to avoid legislating on this matter our cowardly representatives are willing to ignore the provisions of the very constitution they have sworn to uphold.

Always ignored in these discussions by proponents of same-sex marriage as a civil right is the reasoning whereby the law of marriage must ignore the gender of practitioners so as to protect minority rights, yet must also impose the practice of monogamy on the entire population.

UPDATE: Newsbusters went into hysterics over the same Globe editorial and makes similar points in a later post here.

Exiting the Oldsmobile Once Again

Today’s Boston Globe carries a front page story that Massachusetts’ senior US Senator is withdrawing his unconditional guarantee of support for John Kerry’s 2008 presidential bid.

Dean Barnett comments succinctly and accurately:

I have a different interpretation for Kennedy's move, "the first public fissure between the two Massachusetts Democrats on the issue of Kerry's presidential aspirations," as the Globe puts it. Let's face it - Kennedy knows a sinking Oldsmobile when he sees one.

Whooda Thunkit?

The Boston Globe’s Washington Bureau Chief, (“Don’t call me Chief!”) Peter Canellos today sees Mitt Romney’s star rising as a Republican presidential prospect:

“Romney's own actions have played a role in his rise. Moves that were dismissed as craven in Massachusetts -- denying protection to former president Mohammad Khatami of Iran or having State Police round up illegal immigrants -- have played big in Washington.”

Imagine that! Way down there in Washington, Canellos must not be reading his Boston Globe, because the Globe has been busy lately throwing every piece of rubbish it can find into Mitt’s path.

It’s apparent, then, the vast influence the Globe exerts on Republican presidential politics. That might be because the Globe lacks diversity. There are at most 2 people in the Globe newsroom who have even once voted for a Republican.

A Red Letter Day for Foolishness

Today must be a banner day for Boston Globe Op Ed foolishness. Miss Kelly has already skewered yet another of today's Globe Op Ed columns, which I was still holding in reserve.

Blue Mass Group is Right

Over at Blue Mass Group, a poster named TheOpenSociety has been pretty open and honest about the unsavoriness of Deval Patrick organizing a $1.5M, 5-day inaugural celebration. He points to a couple of great letters in today’s Boston Globe from other steamed idealistic liberals:

Anyone donating part of that $1 million for a self-congratulatory party ought to be ashamed. Here's a tip: Donate to your local PTA, conservation trust, or library instead. Patrick was right about local aid being slashed, and these services need the help a lot more than lobbyists need a returned favor.

Conservatives believe that liberals are often rather naive concerning human nature. Did they really expect the lobbying business to shrivel up and die once Deval Patrick took office? But in this case, they are right to be disappointed by an event that looks pretty much like business as usual.

I’d say it’s just on the job training, folks. What did you expect from a corporate attorney turned political neophyte? Maybe we should start calling the Mass Dems the “Together we can PARTY” party!

Goal + timetable + teeth ≠ quota

Yet another Boston Globe editorial revelation today:

Strict racial quotas are unwise. Yet mere outreach efforts often lack teeth. A plan with goals and timetables, however, could still emerge from the committees.

Thus in Globe editorial logic, 1 “goal” + 1 “timetable” does not equal 1 “quota” (even if it has “teeth”).

Color me stupid, but this distinction eludes me.

The Heartbreak of Massachusetts

Reading the Boston Globe editorial can be amusing during this post-election, pre-governing period of liberal ecstasy:

“If you're poor or middle class you're probably not getting the training you need to be a professional musician.”

The same is true for professional golfers, but our economy don’t seem to have a problem producing golfers or musicians in sufficient quantities to more than satisfy the market demand. This editorial is a lesson in why a liberal education should include both art and economics.

What All the Fuss Is About

Cathy Young has a fine and timely column in today’s Boston Globe about the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which had remarkable success at the ballot box last November despite the fact that no elected officials from either party would endorse it. Cathy takes the bold step of quoting the initiative. It says:

“The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”

It is telling that this initiative language is ‘too controversial’ to be supported by Republicans, yet was supported by almost 60% of the electorate in a Blue State on the same day when Republican candidates were taking a shellacking from the same voters. Cathy notes its striking similarity to the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s.

Republican candidates should contemplate this, if they ever engage in contemplation. After November, there are many former Republican office holders who have more time for contemplation.

Another Day Off Thanks to NewsBusters

Mark Finkelstein's blog at NewsBusters is astounded at the illogic of today’s Boston Globe editorial.

Message to the Globe editorial board: please go back and read what you just wrote: "The Iraq Study Group may not have come up with all the right answers; in their pursuit of unanimity, they may have settled for split-the-difference compromises where only one straight path makes sense. But in their bipartisan spirit of cooperation, they gave Americans a much-needed reminder of how statecraft once was conducted." "

Surely you can't mean that. With so much at stake, you can't believe that it is more important for "statecraft" to achieve consensus than to find "the right answers," can you?

Mark is quite right to be astounded, but daily Globe readers are hardly surprised.

If consistency is the hob-goblin of small minds, the minds of the Globe’s editorial writers have been expanded to the size of a 1960s acid-head. An acid trip is probably where their writers learned logic.

It's Not That Easy to Be Visionary

Boston Globe editorials are often astounding because they spout platitudes as justification without thinking the concept through even a little. Today, in an editorial entitled 'It's not easy being diverse', which tries to bully Deval Patrick into appointing a suitable fraction of minorities to office, the lobotomized Globe editorial team writes:

During a week in which the US Supreme Court heard arguments that public school systems should be colorblind in their student assignment policies, the new report from UMass-Boston is another piece of evidence that society is far from fully integrated.

Society “fully integrated”? What could that term possibly mean, even to the non-specific minds of the Globe Editorial cloister? It sounds so much like a 1960s college bull session! Perhaps it’s something you can envision after singing too much Kumbayah or too much fogging the mind with an illegal substance, but it sounds far more like a theological concept than a guide for prescribing policy.

What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

Ever have a business trip this bad?

A passenger jet was forced to make an emergency landing after a woman lit matches to hide her flatulence...

No kidding. Look here, and notice the URL name. Gotta love the Brits.

Morrissey Boulevard Menu

Limited personal bandwidth is available for blogging today, but I could find 3 howlers in just a brief scan of today’s Boston Globe. No doubt there are more. But here’s today’s menu:

Howler #1 – Appetizer
Deval Patrick’s inauguration ceremonies will cost more than $1M.

The 1^st howler in today’s Globe is the claim that the financing for Patrick’s party will be different from Romney’s. As the Globe describes them they are nearly identical, but somehow the Globe fails to note the astounding similarity:

Patrick, who campaigned against the "Beacon Hill culture," has promised that his inauguration will reflect a more inclusive administration. Concerned that accepting corporate donations might taint his outsider's image, Patrick aides said there will be fewer corporate donors than helped sponsor Governor Mitt Romney's inauguration in 2003. They said Patrick will rely in part on his vast network of individual campaign donors.

Later the same article describes Romney’s 2002 inaugural:

When Romney took office, he paid with private donations for the inaugural gala, his swearing-in, and a private breakfast and luncheon. At $750,000, they were the most expensive inaugural festivities in Massachusetts history. To pay for three days of activities, Romney formed a nonprofit corporation, which raised $1.3 million. Romney pledged to donate unspent funds to charity. Romney disclosed the donors, who included several $25,000 contributors, among them Ann and William W. Bain, concessionaire Joseph O'Donnell, Reebok International Ltd., Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. , and the law firm of Ropes & Gray…He placed a cap on donations of $25,000 and banned contributions from tobacco companies and gaming interests..

So how exactly will Deval’s party be so different from Romney’s ceremony? He's taking fewer donations from corporations and more donations from wealthy individuals (most of whom run corporations)? That's different and better? It sounds like just an accounting change to me.

[Digression:If you can think back to January 1993, didn’t Deval’s former employer, mentor and booster, Bill Clinton, also start his disastrous first 2 years in office with an over-the-top opulent inaugural ceremony? Who can forget Hillary’s outfit that day? Deval is following his mentor, I guess.]

Howler #2 – The Main Course
The first sentence of the Globe’s lead front page story is an astounding mistake. It shows either utter ignorance or incredibly poor writing and editing. Here it is (emphasis mine):

Massachusetts health officials have decided to publicize the patient death rates for individual heart surgeons, the first time the state will release information on the quality of care provided by individual doctors --not just by hospitals and physicians' groups.

The patient death rate for an individual surgeon is not a measure of the quality of care provided by individual doctors. It is only one measure of the outcome of such care. If you want to know about the quality of care, then you have to compare the outcomes of one surgeon with the outcomes of other surgeons. And to make the comparison valid, you also must also statistically correct for a host of other factors, some of which are very important in determining the probable outcome (the age of the patient, the gender of the patient, overall patient health, the hospital where the surgery was done, emergency vs. scheduled surgeries, etc, etc, etc).

The implication above that death rate is a measure of the quality of care seems like an innocent mistake, but it is exactly the kind of innocent mistake that when made by government leads to the proverbial “unintended consequences” of law that is adopted with “good intentions”. The road to hell is paved with such. As the article notes:

…surgeons in Massachusetts are worried that public reporting could hurt care by discouraging doctors from taking high-risk patients who are more likely to die.

Exactly. People care about how their work is measured. They respond to performance metrics by trying to improve. But if the metric that is applied does not measure quality of care, then any response to the metric will not necessarily improve quality of care.

That a lead article on health care quality can article can start with a sentence that completely confuses care outcomes with care quality is not encouraging. Maybe the Globe needs some better quality metrics for editing (or fewer people working there who are innumerate).

Howler #3 – Dessert
Perhaps feeling a need to justify their having spent 4 months of surveillance and done international travel in order to find out that the governor’s groundskeeper had hired 4 illegal immigrants, the Globe today opines:

Community Lawn Service with a Heart, the company that does Romney's lawn, also works for the Massachusetts Port Authority and the City of Chelsea. Public agencies cannot be complicit in violation of immigration law, and the company should be denied this business unless it can prove its compliance.

You heard them right! Public agencies cannot be complicit in violation of immigration law. I heartily agree.

So, dear Editorial Oracles, if the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles were to issue drivers licenses to people who were in Massachusetts illegally, would that make them complicit in violation of immigration law, or not? If the University of Massachusetts extended in-state tuition rates to students who are in Massachusetts illegally would that make them complicit in violation of immigration law, or not?

Just wondering.

Also, Wise Oracles, if as you say public entities should do business only with companies that are in compliance with immigration law, shouldn’t private sector companies behave the same way? And how does the Globe’s own distributor, Publishers Circulation Fulfillment, measure up in this regard?

Again, just wondering.

They’re Not Called Editors for Nothing

Yesterday a brief letter to the editor of mine was published in the Boston Globe. This gives me (and you, reader) a rare opportunity to see a behind-the-scenes Boston Globe process in action – the editing of letters. The Globe explains that “letters should be 200 words or less and are subject to condensation.” My letter as submitted was 132 words long. Here is how it was “condensed”:

[Speaking Thursday] Yesterday speaking to the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, Governor-elect Deval Patrick criticized press coverage of his campaign saying:

“Put your cynicism down. Don't trivialize optimism and hope. It built this country. It built my life. Don't glorify the naysayers when the yeasayers have been at the center of progress since the beginning of recorded time”.

Your front page story on Mitt Romney’s groundskeepers proves the point of Deval’s criticism.

No doubt a fair and balanced journal like the Globe has also spent 4 months and made an international effort to research the immigration status of the folks who cut Deval Patrick’s grass. I’ll expect that story in tomorrow’s paper.

The hypocrisy, the pettiness, and the vendetta-driven nature of this story are simply beyond belief. The story disgusts me. You should be ashamed.

Condensed indeed! A more accurate term for this treatment is what we today call “spin”.

Have Illegal Immigrants Toiled for Deval Patrick?

Deval Patrick emerged here to pick up his Boston Globe newspaper,
delivered to his door by a firm that uses suspected illegal immigrants

Squaring the Boston Globe has learned that Massachusetts Governor-elect Deval Patrick has taken delivery of his morning newspaper from suspected illegal immigrants. Patrick, an early riser and Boston Globe subscriber, has possibly also waved and said “Gracias” to his Boston Globe carrier when picking up his paper at 5:30AM in the driveway of his Milton home. Patrick may also have tipped his carrier directly with cash or through a tipping program for newspaper carriers administered by the Boston Globe.

Deval Patrick’s Boston Globe newspaper is delivered to his million dollar home by Publishers Circulation Fulfillment (PCF). PCF has provided distribution services for the Boston Globe since 2001, and provides similar services for the New York Times. Hundreds of Boston area immigrant laborers work with PCF. They obtain batches of Boston Globe newspapers at several distribution centers every day around 3:30AM and deliver them via prescribed routes to Boston Globe subscribers in the greater Boston area, including Deval Patrick. The vast majority of PCF's Boston Globe carriers are immigrants. Their legal status is unknown.

PCF officially maintains that these carriers are not actually employees, but instead serve as independent contractors. If so, PCF would not be required by law to verify legal immigration status of the Boston Globe carriers. A recent want ad published by PCF seeking such “independent contractors” does not state any requirement for immigration status. According to a phone message at PCF offices (1-800-537-5354) all that is required is that contractors:

“must be at least 18 years of age with a valid drivers license and a dependable vehicle”

Squaring the Boston Globe called the PCF job line only to hear a recording ask:

“If your prefer English press 1,
if you prefer Spanish, press 2,
if you prefer Portuguese press 3”

Neither PCF nor the Boston Globe could be reached for comment, but in Friday’s Boston Globe another supplier of illegal immigrant labor is quoted as saying that a customer “doesn't have to ask” whether his contractors are legal immigrants because “I'm a company”. Jerry Giordana, the president of PCF has assured the Boston Globe that “It’s your paper. Your subscribers. And our promise to deliver.”

The story of Deval Patrick’s possible encounter with illegal immigrants is part of a recent newspaper reporting trend. The issue of illegal immigrant laborers has been tricky and sometimes damaging to political figures. Last Friday, the Boston Globe disclosed that a firm named Community Lawn Service with a Heart had used at least 4 illegal immigrants to provide grounds keeping services at the Belmont home of outgoing Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Sadly, today nobody knows the legal status of the hundreds of immigrants who deliver the Boston Globe. However Squaring the Boston Globe is certain that the dedicated professionals in the Boston Globe newsroom, who are now alerted to this situation, will investigate the legal status of these newspaper carriers with the same zeal and determination that they showed in the case of Romney’s “contracted” illegal immigrants. When they have completed their usual thorough job of investigative journalism, the public will know for certain whether Deval Patrick has taken his copy of the Boston Globe from the hand of an illegal immigrant.

Full Disclosure: PCF has also delivered newspapers to Squaring the Boston Globe. All the Globe carriers who have served Squaring the Boston Globe have been immigrants. Squaring the Boston Globe does not know the legal status of the Globe carriers who have served us. Our carrier left recently to return to his home in Latin America. Unlike the Boston Globe, Squaring the Boston Globe does not have the lavish resources to fly ourselves to Latin America for a single interview to determine if our Globe carrier was in this country legally or not.

Trying to Mow Down Mitt

Yesterday speaking to the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, Governor-elect Deval Patrick criticized newspaper coverage of his campaign saying:

“Put your cynicism down. Don't trivialize optimism and hope. It built this country. It built my life. Don't glorify the naysayers when the yeasayers have been at the center of progress since the beginning of recorded time”.

The Boston Globe reports that:

The remarks were greeted by silence

A story that makes the front page in today’s Globe proves the point of Deval’s criticism.

Sit down before you read this!

Believe it or not, today’s Globe reports in a 1600-word front page story that the firm hired to maintain the grounds at Governor Mitt Romney’s home has employed some (shudder) illegal immigrants. Catch that. A Globe headline for once does not call them ‘undocumented’. We learn that the Governor even waved at them once or twice and said “Buenos dias!”. I am truly scandalized.

The story appears with all the trappings of a major exposé. It comes complete with an italicized explanation of all the reporters who worked on the story and an undercover style photo (above, note the lens shading on the bottom of the photo). It wasn’t easy to get this story. It took 4 months of work and an international journalistic effort:

The Globe received a tip in July alleging that Romney was using illegal immigrants to landscape his property. Reporters then observed the lawn service workers outside Romney's house more than a dozen times, sometimes as frequently as twice a week.

Reporters tracked down four current and former employees of the company at their homes in Chelsea and in Guatemala. All had landscaped Romney's property while working for Community Lawn Service with a Heart, and their tenure ranged from one worker who had joined the company just a month ago to another who had worked there 10 years.

To justify the absurdity of putting this story on the front page, the story notes near its end:

The issue of illegal immigrant laborers has been tricky and sometimes damaging to political figures. President Clinton's first two nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, saw their chances dim after it was reported that they had employed illegal immigrants as nannies.

This is obfuscation. The issue was that these nominees to head the Justice Department had failed to pay social security taxes on the wages they paid their own employees, as required by law.

No doubt a fair and balanced journal like the Globe has also spent months researching the immigration status of the folks who cut Deval Patrick’s grass. I’ll expect that story in tomorrow’s paper.

The hypocrisy, the pettiness, and the vendetta-driven nature of this story are simply beyond belief. I am thoroughly disgusted. The Globe has no shame.