Two-four Tuesday

Two silly little things in Tuesday’s Boston Globe made me smile:

A Wolf in Donkey’s Clothing
Via Reuters, Tuesday’s Globe carries this tempest in a teapot concerning Bush’s State of the Union address:

Bush declared that “I congratulate the Democrat majority.” Some Democrats were incensed he did not say “Democratic.” The party's proper name is the Democratic Party. Republicans for years have dropped the last two letters of the name as a slight to the party.

The incensed Members of Congress have misoverestimated Bush’s ability to deliver a verbal insult. But in a story in the same day’s Boston Globe, reporter Rick Klein delivers the same slight to the Democratic Party 9 times while writing about the Massachusetts congressional delegation. You gotta believe Reuters, but who would have guessed that Rick Klein is actually a Republican?

Ingratitude for Small Favors
Probably conservatives should just be thankful that the Globe’s ultra-liberal editorial cloister has endorsed a Republican-sponsored bill that would limit top-end state pensions, such as the recently fattened pension of former Senate President William Bulger (Democratic - South Boston). But when endorsing a Republican bill, must the Globe editorialists write something as foolish as this?

Government employees get generous pensions because their salaries are relatively meager.

If the Globe editorial writers get out once in a while, they might discover plenty of people now working in the private sector for meager salaries who have very lousy pensions, or even no pension at all.

Perhaps – just perhaps – the reason our state legislators (and in turn state employees) get generous pensions is because they write their own plan and then pass it into law.

Maintaining Racial Purity

Jacoby has a fine column today about the form of apartheid practiced by a certain congressional caucus. Moneygraph:

A disheartening constant in American life is the politician who sees people first and foremost as members of racial groups, and who insists on racial separateness in the institutions he values most. But some things do change: Such politicians used to be called reactionary. Today they're known as progressive.

Not Deep Enough To Wet Your Shoes

Peter Canellos writes typical analysis piece in today’s Boston Globe concerning the impact of the occupational background of US presidents on their personalities. His column is standard Globe analytical fare – an analysis that isn’t deep enough to wet the tops of your shoes. However the column is headlined “Romney's business skills face a political test” and focuses on Mitt Romney’s career as a venture capitalist (without reporting the name of Romney’s firm, Bain Capital, or the fact that Romney also turned this firm around as its first successful leader). Canellos also mentions Romney’s work as head of the Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee.

Then Canellos reaches his “but paragraph”. I call it the “but paragraph” because this is the paragraph in a Globe story where conservative points of view (which have been stated in the interest of fairness) are dismissed, and the modulated voice of liberal reason ends the conversation. Canellos ends his column this way, and I find his “but paragraph” to be weak and inaccurate. Here it is:

But Romney, in preparing for his presidential campaign, made moves as governor that often appeared bloodless and cynical -- vetoing spending programs while knowing his successor will restore them; ordering police to round up illegal immigrants at just the moment that immigration becomes a big national issue; denying protection to a visiting Iranian politician to demonstrate toughness on Iran.

These moves may get him closer to the Republican nomination, but whether they reflect deep principles or merely a venture capitalist's professional sense of what's required to achieve his goal is already the defining question of the Romney campaign.

First, “vetoing spending programs while knowing his successor will restore them”.

What Romney did was not a veto. Rather, Romney exercised a Massachusetts law giving the Governor the right to impound spending during a fiscal crisis. The effect was to cut state spending in the current fiscal year by a whopping 1.7%. Romney no doubt expected his successor to restore many of these cuts, but Deval Patrick could also have chosen to use them as a bargaining chip on Beacon Hill. Instead, Patrick simply restored all the spending while asking for and receiving nothing from Beacon Hill. Simultaneously Patrick, making Romney’s own point, said that a state fiscal crisis was impending.

Romney hit the ball into Patrick’s court and very clearly differentiated himself, with help from Patrick. I would call that a fine political ploy. The precedent of using emergency powers is not a good one, but otherwise, this move effectively illustrated a difference between the major political parties. That’s how a skilled politician communicates.

Second, “ordering police to round up illegal immigrants at just the moment that immigration becomes a big national issue”. Again, Canellos’ claim is inaccurate. The program in question was an agreement between the Commonwealth and the Federal INS which would allow a very small number of Massachusetts state troopers (6, I believe) to receive special training so that they could initiate for the INS the bureaucratic process of deportation against illegal immigrants who were already under arrest or incarcerated on other charges. Again, even this small measure proved intolerable to Deval Patrick, and he ended the agreement, further differentiating Romney from the Massachusetts Democrats. A fine political ploy, far more subtle than simply “ordering police to round up illegal immigrants”. Canellos is also incorrect to imply that immigration has become a national issue only at this moment. The issue has been simmering for decades, and has just boiled over once again.

Third, denying protection to a visiting Iranian politician to demonstrate toughness on Iran. This refers to the recent visit of former Iranian president Khatami to Harvard’s Kennedy School. In this case Romney deliberately snubbed an Islamist theocrat by refusing to provide the customary state police escort. Again it was an effective symbolic gesture. Khatami was duly fawned over in Cambridge, receiving only a single hardball question which prompted him to defend the Iranian law banning homosexual behavior and to excuse the occasional Iranian practice of punishing homosexuals by hanging. The Harvard audience received this point in polite silence. With astounding hypocrisy the Boston Globe did not mention these remarks its their coverage of Khatami’s visit. Who was acting more in harmony with their professed principles here; Romney, or Khatami’s audience?

These three moves were certainly political ploys, but they were pointed and well executed ploys. Far more pointed and well executed than the shabby analysis of them that Canellos scribbles in today’s Globe.

An Eviction Becomes a "Closing"

Monday’s Boston Globe front page carries this picture of the last service of an Episcopal congregation in their Attleboro church. The photo’s label “Schism brings a church closing” as well as the story’s headline “Worshipers vacate Episcopal church” are both inaccurate half-truths. This congregation is being evicted on 2 weeks notice by the US Episcopal church hierarchy.

The evicted congregants will hold services elsewhere next week while the hierarchy will appoint a new priest who will then pastor the remaining congregants in the existing church building. Nothing “closed”, and the “vacation” is actually a forced march to other quarters. Some headlines!

The Globe article by Charles Radin (sort of) explains:

…differences between traditionalists and liberalizers in Episcopal Church of the USA have deepened and hardened, underscored by their disagreement on homosexuality and gay marriage, according to adherents of both trends…Congregations that do not accept the national church's theology regarding homosexuality, the literal truth of the Bible, and the role of Christ in personal salvation are rejecting Episcopal leadership in favor of affiliation with other branches of the worldwide Anglican Communion -- most of them in Africa. In response, Episcopal officials are declaring those congregations have abandoned the church and demanding they turn over their buildings and other assets.

What the article considers unmentionable is that this schism was inflamed by the US branch of the Anglican Communion which has ordained a homosexual bishop who lives with a long-term partner. This has done to the practices of the worldwide Anglican Communion what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has done to the laws of our Commonwealth: normalized homosexuality and declared by fiat that centuries of law and practice concerning marriage are suddenly not just out of fashion but intolerable.

Do the congregants who (according to Radin above) support the “literal truth of the Bible” say that the world was created in 7 days only 6000 years ago? Or are they saying that biblical teaching concerning marriage is very clear and that marriage needs to be between a man and a woman? Sadly, the Globe article simply doesn’t tell us. The story about the church closing in the local Attleboro Sun Chronicle quotes the priest’s dilemma more poignantly:

"I didn't change. ... I preached the same thing for 30 years. I didn't move. I just stood."

Indeed.

Reading from End to Beginning

The lead story in Sunday’s Boston Globe concerns Governor Deval Patrick and his quest to secure far broader powers for the Governor's office than have been available to his predecessors. No worries, citizens! Mr. Patrick is a good person with an inspiring life story.

The Globe article by Frank Phillips focuses early and often on the most unsavory aspect of an alleged deal between Patrick and Beacon Hill leaders: Patrick will allow them to allocate more and bigger financial perks to their sycophant-supporters in the House and Senate provided the leaders support Patrick’s effort to “reform” independent state agencies.

But as is often the case with Boston Globe articles, you learn faster by reading the article in reverse from the end to the beginning. Below are a few key points from the article in reverse order. Notice how this brings the most important considerations to the head.

Bondholders, along with many companies that deal with the agencies, may raise concerns over the upheaval that would ensue.

One area where I suspect our new Governor has not yet a clue concerns the immense power of financial markets over the state and the inability of any state officeholders to change that.

The ability of state agencies to raise money at low interest rates is dramatically enhanced by their independent sources of revenue (increasing tolls, for example), by their distance from the annual Massachusetts budget process, and by the deliberately created difficulty of the sitting Governor gaining control over them. If Wall Street gets worried about Deval’s “reforms” all these agencies are going to pay higher interest on their debt, reducing the value of any “streamlining and reforming” that Patrick does.

Patrick's attempts to gain control of the authorities would run counter to the long standing legislative rationale for creating the independent authorities: that it insulates them from the state budget process and the volatility of state politics.

A very good point. Independence insulates them to some degree not just from the “volatility” but also from the patronage, the corruption, the expedience, and the cravenness for which our elected representatives are so well known. This is not merely a legislative rationale. Capital markets also prefer this structure.

Like past governors, Patrick would have to wait until the end of his term before his appointees capture a majority on the boards that control the agencies, which operate some of the most important projects and operations in Massachusetts. The agencies are now controlled by Romney appointees. In his first full day in office this month, Patrick told reporters that control of the state's independent agencies would be key to creating an effective and streamlined administration. He said he needed the control in order to be able drive his agenda.

Funny that Mr. Patrick never mentioned this need during his campaign. His backers are learning that “Together We Can” really means “Given More Power I Can”.

On the target list are such high-profile agencies as the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, the MBTA's governing board of directors, the various boards that oversee the state's education policies, and the authorities that control and finance economic development projects for the state. Patrick is not expected to include the Massachusetts Port Authority on his initial list.

Why not Massport? See the first item above, I suspect. Massport has a lot of debt and will need more. Wall Street might shiver without this explicit exclusion.

Much is at stake for Patrick, who needs the cooperation of the Legislature to approve plans to streamline some of the quasi-public authorities and independent boards that control -- and often conflict -- with the policies that governors want to put in place. Patrick is said to be focused on education, transportation, and economic development. He has not released the details of his proposal.

Disclosing details and substance concerning his policies is not a strong suit for Mr. Patrick. But note how much this manner of working is reminiscent of what the Globe would call “back room dealing” if the same was done by others. Now on to the silliness of the deals…

The deal under negotiation would allow [House Speaker] DiMasi and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini to beef up the stipends and give them to more lawmakers, according to sources. In so doing, they can expand their influence, creating a stronger band of loyalists.

That’s our big need? We need less independence on Beacon Hill and (even) stronger leaders in the House and Senate who rule large numbers of loyal supporters tied to their leaders by patronage and perks? Isn’t that the culture of Beacon Hill as it has been for decades?

Lawmakers who lead committees or serve as top deputies to the House speaker and Senate president are paid $7,500 to $15,000 on top of their annual salaries of $55,569. The leaders of the two Ways and Means committees receive an additional $25,000…"They need to work it out," said one source, who asked to remain anonymous because negotiations are ongoing. "The governor is not going to roll. He feels he is going to take the heat for it, so he wants something for it." The source noted that Patrick took a political risk when he restored $383 million in emergency budget cuts that Romney made in his final days in office.

Some risk. He gave all that money back in order to keep everybody on Beacon Hill happy with him.

Governor Deval Patrick, in a significant departure from former governor Mitt Romney, is contemplating a deal with Democratic legislative leaders that would grant significant pay raises to their top lieutenants in return for their support in implementing his plans for sweeping government changes, according to sources involved in the discussions.

“Together We Can”

Bank Error in Your Favor: Collect $200 (thousand)

Deval Patrick’s campaign organization repaid a loan to their candidate the maximum amount allowed by law while some campaign invoices still remain unpaid and there is no longer sufficient cash on hand to pay off the remaining debts.

Last November 16, the Patrick gubernatorial campaign organization repaid $200,000 to Deval Patrick. This was partial payment of a loan of almost $350,000 from the candidate to his own campaign. The $200,000 amount is the maximum repayment allowed by Massachusetts law. This repayment was made before the campaign paid off all its other creditors. The campaign also returned $22,640 of public funds to the state. But at the end of December the campaign had only $13,000 cash on hand to cover over $58,000 in bills, including amounts owed to the Quincy police and the Lowell Public Schools.

On January 22 the Boston Globe asked the campaign about the late payments. The very next day the campaign paid an additional $12,000 in bills, including the amounts owed to Lowell and Quincy. Other creditors will apparently have to wait for their money until the campaign raises some more cash.

Past Globe articles have pointed out that mortgage obligations cost the Patrick family about $325,000 per year. The family also had 2 children, one of whom is in a boarding school out of state and the other is (I presume) in college. Those school expenses would run about $75-100,000 per year. So the Patrick family needs roughly $33,000 per month just to cover their mortgage and tuition bills (That is one fact you won’t often find printed in the Boston Globe).

But Diane Patrick (Deval’s wife) is a partner at Ropes & Gray, so her income, while undisclosed, is probably in the high six figure range. If so the Patrick family can afford to pay all these bills on her salary alone. So why did their campaign stiff others?

Campaign manager John Walsh falls on his sword to protect Patrick and says that the committee overestimated their financial position and that he personally decided to repay Patrick’s loan.

Walsh will have to wait to fall on that sword, because Globe reporter Frank Phillips is ahead of him in line. Phillips covers this story in an ‘aw shucks fashion that plays down to the minimum the fact that Patrick was made whole while some campaign creditors were given the shaft. He begins the article this way:

In November, two weeks after Deval Patrick swept to a resounding victory in the governor's race, his political advisers believed that his campaign was so flush with cash that they reimbursed the candidate $200,000.

So the story goes on. Phillips worked from the same set of facts, but note the far more sympathetic spin on his story from the report above. To give further support, the Globe buried the story deep in its local news section.

I’m sure this isn’t a case of favoritism resulting from liberal media bias. No doubt the Globe would have afforded equally polite coverage to Mitt Romney if his campaign was deadbeating the struggling Lowell school system.

This is more than a miscalculation. It is an error of judgment. A former boss of mine served in the US Marines and the US Marine reserves for many years. He would always take the rear at every company buffet line. He explained that it was a Marine tradition for units to form a chow line with the officers at the rear. That way if there is not enough food, the officers are the ones who go hungry. After all, their duty includes assuring that their unit has provisions.

Deval Patrick and his campaign should have behaved with the same courtesy as a Marine chow line, and repaid the candidate only after all their other debts were paid in full. They should have waited to repay themselves. Waiting to be last would have shown a behavior the Marines call 'leadership'.

Editorial Disinformation

John Kerry’s decision not to run again for president causes the Boston Globe to editorialize about Kerry’s 2004 campaign:

Kerry had a deeper problem than fuzziness in the last election. Although he garnered more than 59 million votes, most ever for a Democrat, the persona of an anti war hero that propelled him to the Senate from Massachusetts did not serve him well nationally. Vocal Vietnam veterans opposed him because he had spoken against their war.

Because he had spoken against their war? Not at all! To write this horse manure one more time in an editorial is disinformation.

Vietnam veterans opposed John Kerry because he had spoken against their honor!

Kerry has never directly apologized for or retracted these words, which were given during the most highly publicized congressional testimony of the entire war. Why should these vets let a man off the hook who launched his own political career by questioning their honor?

Apparently the concept of a soldier’s honor is a complete mystery to the Boston Globe editorial cloister.

"…many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country… The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped."

Globe Bureaus Missing

I rarely post about the Boston Globe business section and so I missed this report of more Seinfeldian shrinkage at the Globe, which is closing its 3 remaining foreign bureaus in Jerusalem, South America, and Berlin. These are sought-after assignments for reporters, of course, and the displaced Globe reporters will be offered work in the Globe newsroom...if they don’t first land foreign postings with a different paper.

No more “Thousands Killed in Japan Quakes: Hub Man Missing”.

"Some Considered It Anti-Semitic"

The Boston Globe reports that city councilor John Tobin wants the city designate a poet laureate. Since Boston government has been led for so many years by the astounding elocution of Mayor Menino, to create a poet laureate post represents only minimal reparation.

The Globe story stumbles with a bit of revisionist reporting. Speaking of a 2002 controversy concerning former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka (ne Leroi Jones):

A New Jersey poet laureate, Amiri Baraka, was asked to resign after he wrote a work titled "Somebody Blew Up America" that some considered anti-Semitic. When he refused to resign, the Legislature eliminated the position.

The objection of critics was not to a racist and anti-Semitic rant but that the taxpayers of New Jersey were subsidizing the rant through financial support of Baraka as poet laureate.

The Globe story’s claim that it was a work that “some considered anti-Semitic” is such an understatement that it counts as revisionist history. “Some” indeed. Excerpts from the work:

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?...

Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon's mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro

If you have the stomach, you can read the entire work here.

Davos Redux
Also in the news via the BBC today (though not yet published in the Boston Globe) is the annual migration to the world’s finest ego spa – that being the World Economic Forum in Davos. Perhaps you will recall it was only 2 years ago at the WEF that CNN’s Eason Jordan, speaking on a panel with David Gergen and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, accused US troops in Iraq of deliberately killing members of the news media. Jordan soon resigned (and has since attempted rehabilitation), but the text of his Davos remarks has never been released.

Jordan’s outrageous charge as an example of media arrogance, and the warm reception in allegedly received in Davos prompted this blogger to pen some verse echoing a Robert Frost poem that pokes gentle fun at those who confidently count themselves as better informed concerning global matters. I reproduce the poem below in honor of this year’s Davos Forum. If Mr. Tobin wishes to contact me, sorry but I’m too busy to accept the Boston poet laureate role.

An Imposter
(Re: Easongate – with apologies to Robert Frost)

Mr. Jordan’s been to Davos.
What he saw there just might salve us.
Clinton, Jolie, Blair, and Bono,
Diversity of sapiens homo,
Rooms packed full of Euro-lovers,
Progressive rigmaroles to mutter,
Hundreds of humanity’s betters,
Plans to break the masses’ fetters,
Arguments too stale to mention
‘Gainst American intervention –
Most of all corporate production
Destined to prove news destruction.
What are credentials, talk show japers,
Media galas, Sunday papers,
But marks of journalist distinction
Now risking corporate extinction?
But his finest bit of blarney
Came on stage with Dave and Barney.
Said US troops were terminators
Of many hostile Fourth Estate-ers.
Then as fast as late night comedy
Retreated from his claim – or did he?
The tape and transcript will stay buried
In version Swiss of Woods Rosemary.
Teach mainstream media self-destruction?
Teach your grandmother egg suction.

– Harry Forbes

Does Common Sense Stand A Chance?

Boston Globe columnist Scott Leigh suggests some ways to fund Deval Patrick’s big plans:

…there are ways for an enterprising state CEO to save tens of millions of dollars and to help localities realize significant savings as well -- even as he boosts the business climate. But there's one catch: A Democrat would have to display real fortitude to pursue them.

Lehigh then suggests:

• Allow competitive bidding for some government services
• Replace police traffic details at construction sites with flag persons, as is common practice in 49 other states (which are, of course, all less progressive than Massachusetts).
• Release more public sector construction projects (especially school construction) from Project Labor Agreements, which restrict them to higher-priced union construction workers

Lehigh concludes:

…who better than a new Democratic governor, one who often cites his private-sector savvy, to take up the cudgel on behalf of more efficient government -- particularly since the money saved could go to expand other services?

Nobody. Except for tactical skirmishes, certainly no Republican governor could propose such changes without being crucified by special interests (those militant 'advocates') whose voices are amplified by the press. Lehigh is 100% correct that all of these are most sensible ideas, but does common sense stand much chance in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?

Given Patrick’s early indications, it would be most pleasantly surprising if he chooses even one of these options. Most pleasant, but very surprising.

Cathy Young Purged from Globe Op Ed Page

It appears that libertarian and “dissident feminist” Cathy Young has become a casualty of the Boston Globe’s most recent downsizing. According to the most recent layoff announcement, the Globe Op Ed cloister would lose 2 people, and Young writes a farewell column in today’s Globe. Young’s column does not mention the reason for her departure or the Globe’s reduction in force.

So much for the value of diversity! No conservatives need apply.

The Globe now has only Jeff Jacoby as a (truly) token conservative columnist, with all the remaining columnists being liberals ranging from James Carroll and Derrick Jackson on the loony left to Joan Vennochi in the “middle” (the middle of the Massachusetts Democratic party, that is.).

That’s like making a rainbow using just shades of pink and lavender.

He Knows Exit Strategies

In yesterday’s Best of the Web column James Taranto noted Jeff Jacoby’s comments in Wednesday's Boston Globe concerning Ted Kennedy’s decades of service to the nation as a weathervane. James writes:

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby makes an excellent point about his senior senator:

Edward Kennedy likes to label Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam," as he did last week when he introduced legislation to give Congress the final say on troop levels in Iraq.

Bush played no role in the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia to the Communists in 1975, of course. But Kennedy did. He helped lead the congressional drive to cut off financial aid to the pro-American governments in Saigon and Phnom Penh, brushing aside President Gerald Ford's warning that "the horror and the tragedy that we see on television" would only grow worse if America deserted its allies.

But Kennedy and the Democrats spurned Ford, and the result was unspeakable agony--Cambodia's killing fields, Vietnam's re-education camps, waves of "boat people" hurling themselves into the sea. Having seen the results of US abandonment in Indochina, how can Kennedy advocate the same policy in Iraq?

"If we cease to help our friends in Indochina," Ford said, "we will . . . have been false to ourselves, to our word, and to our friends. No one should think for a moment that we can walk away from that without a deep sense of shame." Ford, a decent man, couldn't imagine deliberately abandoning a friend in dire straits. Kennedy, it seems, isn't so inhibited.

As much as he likes to preen about his humanitarianism, when the going gets tough, Kennedy's message to those in need is "sink or swim."

Off Topic -- The Hate Boat

At First Things, Joseph Bottum writes of Duke University and its non-rape non-trials:

Duke is also a cruise ship staffed by angry anarchist professors and captained by an administration that will throw its student-passengers overboard at the least hint of a storm. For $46,050 a year (according to the university’s website), Duke will apparently grant you hot-and-cold-running strippers, teachers who hate you, and an administration that trembles every time the wind blows.

That also describes perfectly the situation faced by Larry Summers in Cambridge just 2 years ago, but at least Larry was getting paid rather than paying for the privilege of being lynched.

Hat tip: Professor Bainbridge

Let's Reach for That (Slot Machine)!

Today Deval Patrick has been Governor of the Commonwealth for exactly 2 weeks. An honest newspaper would ask concerning the new administration:

Has Deval Patrick ever met a tax he didn’t like?

Examples from recent Boston Globe news stories:

• December 21: Opposing the Turnpike Authority, Patrick advocates maintaining tolls on the western Mass Turnpike
• January 13: Patrick proposes allowing local restaurant meal taxes of 1-3%
• January 13: Reversing a campaign stance, Patrick says he will consider casino gambling as a possible source of additional state revenue.
• January 13: Patrick proposes rolling back property tax exemptions for the telecommunications industry, one of the state’s largest employers
• January 14: Patrick proposes financing part of his plan for additional police with a pathetic proposal for a new series of “safety fees” accessed against lawbreakers.
• January 17: The Patrick administration will freeze the state income tax exemption rather than index it, netting an additional $60M per year
• January 18: Patrick proposes charging power plants for emissions of greenhouse gases. The net is $50-130M in state revenue, but the result is higher electricity prices; in effect a completely hidden and very regressive tax.

On the spending side:

• December 29: Patrick will restore the entire 1.7% state spending cut ($425M) imposed by outgoing Governor Mitt Romney, including $100,000 for Braintree’s new gazebo, despite forecasts of a budget squeeze and smaller state revenue growth.

Where has the Globe’s journalistic skepticism gone? On the spin side here is the delicious way the Globe reported Patrick’s edging toward reneging on his campaign stance against casino gambling:

…Patrick said he was opposed to expanded gambling but has since said he's willing to listen to supporters

He’s willing to listen. Isn’t that just so big of him? And given this track record of decisions after only 2 weeks, who should doubt that before long Patrick will be willing to do more than just listen? After all, the state lottery handle is only $4.3 BILLION per year. The state has not yet maximized the gambling gaming revenue potential of the citizens!

When he said “let’s reach for that”, was he referring to the arm of a slot machine?

A Challenge for Executives at the TSA

Today’s Boston Globe carries a story of 6 suspects on trial in London for allegedly trying to bomb the London Underground in 2005, only 2 weeks after Islamist terrorists militants murdered killed 52 London commuters with explosives. Their attorney does not deny that they were carrying home-made bombs, but says their action was “a deliberate hoax in order to make a political point” and that their bombs were not intended to kill.

As a public service to the top executives at the US Transportation Security Administration, Squaring the Globe today reprints the photographs of these 6 suspects, but in a deliberate hoax in order to make a political point we have replaced one suspect’s photograph with an ordinary air traveler.

As an exercise, Squaring the Globe asks these administrators to determine which person in the lineup above is NOT charged with train-bombing in the UK. This is a difficult test, but perhaps a few of those people rating 6-figure salaries for setting policy at the TSA can figure this one out. Once you think you know the answer, TSA execs, you can see the original photograph in the Globe article here.

Free Speech Even for Men in Dockers

Superb MLK-Day hyperbole from James Carroll on today's Boston Globe Op Ed page:

If the 20th century seemed a time of capitalism's ascendancy, the new century seems an era of its certain self-destruction. Expect the mantra of "Socialism!" chanted last week in Venezuela to grow louder. And socialism, compared with the possible anarchy, is benign.

Thank you for advancing global dialectic leading to the certain triumph of the Sole Progressive World View, Comrade Carroll!

Indeed, poverty has become the ground of global violence, and terrorism is its poison flower.

Among many other things, James Carroll is oblivious to the demographics of Islamic terrorists.

Another Bronx cheer to the Globe Op Ed page for its blundering the title of Robert Mann’s book.

Robert Mann is author of "A Grand Delusion: America's Dissent[sic] Into Vietnam."

Globe Op Editors seem to have dissent on the brain!

One of the finest columnists in the world lives right in New Hampshire, and of course does not write for the Globe. Don’t miss Mark Steyn’s hysterical needling of the press for its recent PelosiPallozza:

You have to pity those losers in Hollywood: Instead of wasting their time with that lousy Geena Davis ''Commander in Chief'' strong-career-woman thing, why didn't they do ''The Pelosi Bunch''?

'Here's the story of a lovely lady
Who was raising 30 grandkids on her own
All of them had hair of black like their gran'ma
And swaddling cloths hand-sewn.''

''Here's the story of a man named Hastert
Who was never photographed with any kids
'Cept in stories on Mark Foley's pages
And so he hit the skids . . . ''

Read the whole thing.

Coincidentally, today I received email from a friend who maintains a home right in Nancy Pelosi’s district. He notes the very lax investigation of a group assault on the Yale a capella singing group ‘the Baker’s Dozen’ right in San Francisco. Imagine it! A hate-crime is ignored in the City by the Bay!

H,

In SF, free speech is not allowed for those who want to sing the Star Spangled Banner while wearing Dockers. One must first acquire traditional victim status and then you can voice your views, assuming they support the usual sanctioned positions against what is seen as the traditional American power structure.

R

PS I have a friend here who was forced out of his job as a health care professional for the city basically because he is not gay. Due to his heterosexual status, he is not part of the same powerful political clan as his bosses. He came to this conclusion rather unwillingly since it ran head on into his standard assumptions regarding the moral superiority of victim groups. Lest you think I exaggerate, this guy would be described as a political liberal who almost excessively romanticizes ethnic cultures. His civil-rights-violation lawsuit will not change his world view but certainly throws the notion of the hypocrisy of traditional "victim" groups into a new light. Guess no one has a monopoly on hypocrisy.

What a Difference an Election Makes

Boston Globe Editorial (Patrick meets the mayors, 1/12/2007):

Patrick's campaign promise to lower property taxes was naive.

Boston Globe Editorial (Patrick for Governor, 10/29/2006):

Patrick and Murray have offered a solid and achievable plan for continued improvements in education; investments in new technologies, especially in energy and biotechnology; expanded housing development to lower prices; and tax relief where it counts: the regressive and spiraling property tax.

More Managed Attrition at the Globe

Yet another round of layoffs was announced yesterday at the Boston Globe. The parent New York Times Corporation will eliminate 125 positions at its New England Media Group, which includes the Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram & Gazette. The toll:

Boston Globe Newsroom 17
Boston Globe Opinion page 2
Non-editorial (both papers) 51
Support Outsourced (both) 55

The International Herald Tribune (a NY Times organ) has the details including the note that “also, some currently open positions will be left vacant”. One of these is likely to be the paper’s Ombudsman, a seat that has been vacant since Richard Chacon left it in early 2006 to join Deval Patrick’s organization. See Yahoo and Forbes for outsider takes on the layoffs.

Oddly, today's Globe carries no story about this news. CORRECTION It's here.

Gazebos, Tobacco, and Hard Drugs

A potpourri in today’s Boston Globe.

First the Globe editorial page equates the state-funded downtown Gazebo with the currency of politics:

In an ideal world, [Governor Deval] Patrick would have restored the cuts made by Romney in human service and education programs, but let stand those that trimmed local largesse.

By “ideal” the Globe perhaps means a world in which the Governor makes actual spending policy decisions instead of just being photogenic and articulating his vision.

The new governor has to deal with Travaglini and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and the rest of the Legislature to get almost anything done, and a boat ramp or two is a small price as long as long it does not become a down payment on greater extravagance.

Greater extravagance than a state-funded gazebo in the face of an impending budget crisis?

Also writing today on the subjects of state spending the new Governor is columnist Joan Vennochi. Today, a week into the new administration, she sounds much like a Republican:

Patrick declined to take a no-tax pledge. But new taxes are not what most voters want, even if they are willing to reach for the lofty goals Patrick cited in his inaugural address.

Patrick has yet to talk frankly and directly to the voters who elected him about how he plans to deliver on his campaign promises.

True indeed.

It’s unfortunate that there weren’t any responsible newspapers in Boston to consistently press the candidate on that point and report about it during the last 6 months of campaigning. Somehow these unbiased and dogged reporters were distracted into writing about Patrick’s “inspiring story” and “vision” rather than questioning his accounting.

Joan, you may have a bright future in the Globe newsroom!

On a lighter note from Washington, a punny AP story reports further withdrawl of privileges from Capitol Hill smokers:

Smokers may be one minority in Congress with even fewer rights than newly demoted Republicans. Now they're losing one of their last, cherished prerogatives -- a smoke break in the ornate Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, announced a ban yesterday, effective immediately. "The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over," Pelosi said…

Lawmakers will still be able to smoke in their offices…

The news had not filtered to everyone yesterday...

Cigarettes can be purchased in a House store, and are sold by the carton at a sundry shop underneath the Hart and Dirksen Senate office buildings where the phone is answered "Hart Tobacco shop." There's no smoking in public areas near the Senate floor, and Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, is trying to get rid of cigarette sales at the tobacco shop.

How typical of Federal regulation! Readers, please note the Senator's party affiliation.

Last but not least the Globe echoes a scary AP headline:

Newly released inmates face high risk of death, study finds

And the causes?

Drug overdoses were the top killer…followed by heart disease, homicide, and suicide,

Expect tomorrow’s Globe editorial to advocate state-funded drug conditioning programs for convicts about to be paroled.

I hope the new Governor doesn’t read the Globe editorial page.

Taps for the Ritz

The Ritz Carlton Boston is your grandmother incarnated as a hotel. It is from a different era. It insists on slightly higher standards of decorum. It takes very good care of you. And it is where you go for something very special.

My personal Ritz memories are of drinking Scotch with my college roommate’s unforgettable grandfather, meeting there for martinis on a cold winter day, and one dinner in the old dining room after which I walked my young girlfriend out to the Public Garden and popped the question.

Today the Ritz is deceased. Tomorrow it will officially become the ‘Taj Boston’ – a renaming almost as futile as renaming Fenway Park. This death was some time in coming, of course. The dining room was closed for ‘remodeling’ a few years ago. The Globe notes the end of its era in a story today.

Kenny Young, a former doorman, stood outside the hotel, weeping as he recalled the beauty of the snow falling on the Public Garden as guests returned from the theater. He now runs a car service that picks up guests from the hotel. "It means the passing of an era," said Young, 50. "It was very special."

Norman Pashoian, 78, who started working at the Ritz in 1947 and greeted Churchill in 1949, said he is ready for his new uniform. But not the new name. "It's the Ritz here and it always will be the Ritz here, as far as I'm concerned," he said.

Grandmother is gone, but we can’t forget her.

In another display of innumeracy, the Globe also features a timeline of historic events in the Ritz’s 80-year history headlined “Eighty Ritzy Decades”. Who knew the Ritz spent 4 centuries serving only Native Americans?

Note: The Globe has corrected this headline on their website, but I grabbed the original for posterity.

No Gazebo Left Behind

A letter writer from a town near gazebo-challenged Braintree suggests that Braintree businesses should pony up so as to spare Deval Patrick the embarrassment of funding Braintree’s mission-critical new gazebo with state tax revenue:

January 9, 2007

NEARLY ALL of the Deval Patrick-restored cuts listed by Matt Carroll ("Patrick's reversal of cuts brings joy," Jan. 7, Globe South, Page 1) give me cause to celebrate -- as a citizen who will probably receive no direct benefit beyond being a member of a civilized society that cares for all of its members.

The one exception is the $100,000 gazebo for Braintree. Surely the same business leaders who decry government spending could pony up the money to fund a gazebo whose ambient presence is intended to attract business? I would expect Patrick et al to see this opportunity to engage local businesses, long before Mitt Romney starts running Braintree gazebo ads in his 2008 presidential run.

YANA LAMBERT
Marshfield

The lady suggests Patrick "engage" businesses in the Don Vito Corleone sense of the word, unless she really believes Braintree businesses would view a gazebo as a prime way to grow their revenue.

Restoring all the funding cut by Romney (including the gazebo) did prevent Patrick from taking any substantive decisions about Romney’s draconian 1.7% state spending cut. Patrick won’t have that luxury in 2007, as today's Boston Globe lead front page story reports:

Governor Deval Patrick, faced with a surprisingly tight budget situation, is tempering some of his campaign promises, saying yesterday that he may have to stretch his much touted plan for 1,000 new police officers over several years and stabilize, rather than cut, property taxes.

A “a surprisingly tight budget situation”? We’re shocked, shocked.

If the Massachusetts economy was in recession at the end of the Romney administration, the Globe would have taken pains to inform its readers.

Let’s see…so we have a healthy economy, growing state tax revenue, high taxes, but still a state budget deficit. Whatever could be the cause?

I can’t figure this out myself but perhaps TOGETHER WE CAN!

UPDATE: I see that Greg Mankiw already had thought up the title "No Gazebo Left Behind". If my mind is only 2 days behind Greg's...I can live with that.

Punny Letter

A delightfully punny letter in today’s Boston Globe:

Call him Starbuck
January 8, 2007

REGARDING “AHAB'S apostles” (City & Region, Jan. 5): In a feature purporting to celebrate the preservation of great literature, your reporter, in unconscious irony, names Ahab's first mate Starbucks. Whoever allowed this gaffe to go to print should be harpooned.

LEEORE SCHNAIRSOHN
Jamaica Plain

Sadly there are other boo-boos in the story. Ahab “goes down with his ship” only in a broad sense. Literally he goes down with his prey. Also the reporter misses the point that the climactic chapter of the novel is not its last one, but is this chapter of a meeting between Ahab and the first mate (pdf here, click on chapter 132).

I will not knock further the reporter’s effort or with the Globe’s decision to send a reporter to cover this annual event. In full disclosure, I too have taken part in the marathon reading of Moby Dick for the past 5 years, but missed this year’s event because I was unable to register for it. The event is a delight, though not a pure one. It is a perfect annual publicity stunt, which is what pleases the museum staff. The Moby Dick Marathon readers, though, are indeed mainly those who have been changed for life by this text and this tale, and I am one of these.

Liberal Spin Reported as Fact

Just 10 days ago the Boston Globe’s front page lead story about the December 27 Supreme Judicial Court ruling opened this way (emphasis mine):

The Supreme Judicial Court said yesterday that while state lawmakers have a constitutional duty to vote on a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage, the justices could not order the Legislature to vote. The high court, which legalized same-sex marriage in a landmark 2003 ruling, issued the unanimous decision in response to a lawsuit spearheaded by Governor Mitt Romney, who is trumpeting his opposition to such marriages as part of his expected run for the Republican presidential nomination. 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.

At the time this blog said in disbelief “Some victory!”, and only 10 days later the ruling has indeed proven to be the exact opposite of what the Globe reported.

But reading the Globe story again, their claim that the ruling was any sort of victory for proponents of same-sex marriage was unsupported by any evidence, except that the court did not directly order the legislature to vote, a rash step that would have produced a more severe constitutional crisis.

This story epitomizes the way liberal bias or spin is injected into leading Globe news stories and reported as fact.

At the same time the Boston Globe editorial board was forced to maintain complete silence on the initiative petition. This was at the behest of same-sex marriage supporters in the gay lobby and in the legislature. As the Globe later reported, up to the day of the vote on January 2:

“The House leaders, working with same-sex marriage advocates and supporters in the Legislature, were considering strategies that could block a vote on the proposal.”

Their work until the last minute to devise some strategy to prevent a vote on the amendment meant that the Globe’s editorial page had to keep quiet because opponents had no strategy to advocate. But though the Globe editorial page was stymied by the indecision of same-sex marriage supporters, the Globe newsroom contributed at least something by spinning the SJC decision as a victory for same sex marriage when in fact it was exactly the opposite.

Just 10 days later, the quote in the same story by Governor Mitt Romney concerning this "symbolic victory" stands up far better than the Globe’s newsroom’s pathetic spin:

“I applaud the court's unanimous decision that the Legislature has a constitutional duty to vote on the merits of the marriage amendment. As the court has made very clear, a procedural maneuver to avoid this responsibility would violate a legislator's oath of office. The issue is now whether the Legislature will follow the law.”

Who's Zoomin' Who?

Boston Globe editorial ‘Hope on the Hill’ January 6, 2007:

THE FIRST actions by the new Congress have been encouraging substantively and politically, raising hope that the session will prove less bitterly partisan than the bully-boy tactics of recent times, and perhaps more effective.

Boston Globe new story 'GOP girds for battle over Pelosi's agenda', January 4, 2007:

In each case, Democratic leaders are bringing bills directly to the House floor, short-circuiting the time-consuming committee process that allows members of both parties to offer alternative proposals at multiple stages. While in control of Congress, Republicans regularly used procedural mechanisms to prevent Democrats from offering amendments or getting votes on their bills. Democrats blasted such practices and promised to lead in a more open manner that would ensure minority input. Democrats said they are taking such extraordinary steps only while they seek to deliver on their "Six for '06" broad campaign promises during the first 100 hours of the new legislative session.

"Time consuming"? Indeed!

Washington Post ‘Democrats To Start Without GOP Input’, January 2, 2007:

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

No doubt Newt Gingrich and the Republicans did the same thing to the Democrats after the 1994 election, but what planet are the Globe editorial writers from? Do they read newspapers?

Fried Steamed by Patrick's Contempt for the Law

Harvard Law professor Charles Fried writes in the Boston Globe today on the marriage amendment and on the very poor legal reasoning shown in Deval Patrick’s last-minute push against it. The professor speaks wisely and eloquently. Read the whole thing.

Deval Patrick is off to a bad start…Patrick…has resorted to ambiguous but lawless sloganeering, urging the legislators to defeat the petition by all "appropriate" means. And if you thought that meant voting against it, Patrick goes on to say that a civil right should not be subject to a referendum, and more amazing that the question of civil rights outweighs the provisions of the Constitution providing for citizens' petitions to amend the Constitution.

And on the merits of the amendment:

If all material aspects of the union are the same as the state accords to marriage and all that is withheld is the name of marriage, then it is a kind of civil blessing that is withheld. I would not withhold it, but this last honorific and ceremonial step is exactly one that should only be taken by the people, by the community that bestows it.

To have the people's congratulation enacted and enforced by a 4-3 vote of unelected judges is an offense to democracy, to the very notion of the community in whose name the SJC decided. It as if we were all forced to go to a party some do not want to attend.

The professor has forgotten more about the law (and about writing) than I know, and has too much a legal mind to say what I did: Patrick advised the Legislature to lynch the Constitution of the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately Deval has company in his preference for results to the rule of law. His attitude was near normal among political appointees in the Clinton Justice Department, (can we forget Webster Hubbell and Vince Foster, to name only 2?) and also parts of the Bush administration DOJ, as their results-oriented attitude toward laws regarding detention and interrogation sadly illustrate.

Revival Sweeping Globe Newsroom, Some Say

Startled media observers believe that a sudden and intense religious revival may be sweeping through the Boston Globe newsroom. Evidence shows a complete turn-about in the Globe’s reporting of meetings between clergymen and high state officials.

In a startling reversal, the Boston Globe yesterday published an account (ominously entitled 'Answered Prayer') of a church meeting between the Massachusetts Governor-elect and a large number of Christian activists and clergymen, some of whom even reportedly oppose same-sex marriage.

Yet in a major departure from their past reporting on the religious inclinations of Massachusetts governors, the Globe’s account is as full of praise as the choir loft. The Globe article also whitewashed over a lack of diversity among those at the meeting. Without skepticism or any note of an impending threat to separation of church and state, Globe reporter Michael Paulsen detailed events that in the recent past would have provoked the Globe newsroom to cynicism or multi-part special reports. But today these behaviors are reported by the newsroom as a blessing. Examples:

They sang. They prayed. They danced at their seats, and they shouted to heaven…"We are here to celebrate the election of one of our own," [said] Bishop Gilbert Thompson…the ministers gathered around the governor-elect, and, eyes closed and heads bowed, placed their hands on his shoulders, a symbolic laying on of hands with which the clergy called on God to bless and strengthen him..."Divine providence has brought you to this point and to this time." [said one Baptist pastor]

The Globe also reports that Governor elect replied in kind:

Patrick explained his faith in explicitly religious language…"I'm going to make mistakes, because even after all the nice things said, I'm still a broken and frail human being," he said. "There is only one perfect example, and that's the one in whose sanctuary we stand right now."

Some media observers, taken aback by the Globe’s stunning change of tone, suspected that prayer meetings may have become the new strategy sessions on Morrissey Boulevard. “There’s just no other explanation”, said one who spoke anonymously, “these are objective professional journalists, who suddenly sound like the Amen Corner”.

So sudden was the change in tone, observers noted that it was only last October that the Globe reported with alarm when the Massachusetts Governor met with a number of his co-religionists and they organized to support his political career. Also last October the Globe featured a 4-part series reporting (again with alarm) on a rise of faith-based organizations within the nation’s foreign aid apparatus. Yet concerns of clerical influence had disappeared from yesterday’s Globe report, which even carried a large color picture of the Massachusetts chief executive in prayer while the Christian clergymen performed a ritual of “laying on of hands” (above).

Only time will tell if the Globe’s abrupt conversion will hold, but already Bible salesmen and Christian media consulltants were seen outside the Globe offices, hoping to reap incremental reward from the Globe’s new-found respect for gubernatorial piety.

Too Late, Globe Editors Whine

Despite a last-minute episode of demagoguery by Governor-elect Patrick, the proposed marriage amendment advanced in Massachusetts yesterday after the Senate President, Robert Travaglini, firmly drove the question to a vote, as the Supreme Judicial Court had said was required. The Boston Globe news story has a bit of news here:

Travaglini, who has said the issue of same-sex marriage should be decided by voters, ran the convention with a strong gavel.

Both times the petition came up for a vote yesterday, he moved to a roll call with virtually no debate, angering [House Speaker ]DiMasi and his leadership team who were trying to stretch out the debate. The House leaders, working with same-sex marriage advocates and supporters in the Legislature, were considering strategies that could block a vote on the proposal, but Travaglini's decision to call the vote quickly foiled their efforts.

After keeping silent for weeks during the legislative skullduggery (silence that broke only yesterday), today’s Globe editorial page squeals like a stuck pig. It whines about conditions that have come about because of the gay lobby’s desperate efforts to prevent the legislature from voting, to which the Globe editorial page acquiesced by remaining silent on this question since July. Here are the whines:

One of the key arguments raised by opponents of gay marriage is also one of the most spurious: that, having filed more than 123,000 certified signatures for the amendment, they have a right to see it go on the 2008 ballot. There is no such right. The Constitution provides that it can only be changed by public instigation through an initiative amendment that must first be approved by one-quarter of two successive Legislatures. If the collection of signatures were reason enough to put a proposed amendment on the ballot, there would be no need for the one-quarter votes from the legislators. This means that each senator and representative is duty-bound not simply to pass the issue on to the electorate, but to vote it up or down on the merits.

This is 100% correct, but the Globe editorial page has NEVER BEFORE used the word ‘duty’ or said that the legislators were “duty-bound to vote on the merits”. Never. Not once. Why not?

The SJC ruled so on December 27 but the Globe editorials were silent on this duty before it came due. In July the Globe ran 2 editorials favoring an actual vote to relieve “the tension that now exists”, but not calling a vote a duty. Since then they have maintained a complete and improbable silence, including after the December SJC ruling. I suspect the Globe's silence was dictated by the rapidly changing strategies of the gay lobby and its friends on Beacon Hill. As today's Globe news story notes, these folks right until the session began "were considering strategies that could block a vote on the proposal". Another whine:

One anomaly of this process is that the second Legislature that would vote on this amendment has already been elected and takes office today. Clearly, the drafters of this constitutional provision required a vote from two separate Legislatures, imagining that the voters would have an intervening election to change the makeup of the second Legislature. That will not be the case this time.

Again, quite correct, but of course the editorial does not mention that this situation came about through the legislators cowardly and desperate attempts to avoid any vote before the election, which the Globe editorial page staunchly supported at the time. A final whine:

And to what end? We are still waiting to hear of the first heterosexual couple whose marriage has been damaged by the more than 8,500 same-sex marriages performed here since 2004.

If the Globe was actually serious about finding some, they could begin by asking the would-be clients of Catholic Charities, which in 2006 was forced by the state of Massachusetts to stop performing adoption (which requires a state license) because of its policy not to place children with homosexual couples. See this excellent report on that situation and its implications in the Weekly Standard.

Had it been a statue of Chomsky instead...

Universal Hub notes a "Monumental Mistake at the Globe".

Heh. One of many.

Deval Patrick Advises Lynching the Massachusetts Constitution

What a Boston Globe editorial did not dare to say this morning, Governor-elect Deval Patrick has now said. In a statement issued today Patrick urged legislators to reject the proposed marriage amendment, even if they had to defy the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to do so. Said Patrick “it’s time to move on” (a phrase he likely heard often while working in the Clinton Justice Department). Last week the Commonwealth’s highest court ruled that:

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.

In his statement today, Patrick urged lawmakers to defy the court’s ruling if necessary to defeat the amendment, saying:

I favor ending this petition initiative promptly. If adjournment can accomplish that, so be it.

Patrick’s statement also said:

Whatever one's views of marriage equality, all can agree that we have far more pressing issues before the Legislature and the Commonwealth.

Apparently the 170,000 registered Massachusetts voters who signed the marriage petition are not visible to Mr. Patrick.

Not even 3/5^ths visible.

Mr. Patrick’s full statement follows (emphasis mine): (Via Bay Windows)

I believe that adults should be free to choose whom they wish to love and to marry. The SJC's decision in Goodridge affirms that basic human right, and I support it.

Above all, this is a question of conscience. Using the initiative process to give a minority fewer freedoms than the majority, and to inject the state into fundamentally private affairs, is a dangerous precedent, and an unworthy one for this Commonwealth. Never in the long history of our model Constitution have we used the initiative petition to restrict freedom. We ought not start now.

For practical reasons as well, it's time to move on. Whatever one's views of marriage equality, all can agree that we have far more pressing issues before the Legislature and the Commonwealth. It serves no public interest to focus more time and attention on this issue when there are under-served and under-performing schools, an infrastructure showing signs of sustained neglect, gun and gang violence on the rise, jobs and people leaving the state, a growing homeless population, soaring health care costs, a looming deficit and a score of other serious challenges crying out for the attention and the creativity of the government and the people. We cannot in good conscience ask these unmet needs to wait while a few individuals try to insert discrimination into our Constitution.

I favor ending this petition initiative promptly. If adjournment can accomplish that, so be it. If the Constitutional Convention chooses to vote on the merits, I want to be utterly clear that I believe a vote to advance this question to the 2008 ballot is irresponsible and wrong. Given the significant challenges we face on so many other fronts, I would be deeply disappointed in such a vote. It would do nothing more than condemn us all to more years of debate and expense on a matter that is legally and practically settled.