All Done is probably the right answer. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has as much chance of being reelected mayor as Crazy Red the erstwhile star-crossed coach of the Savin Hill semi-pro football team. The way it looks now he will be lucky if he ends his term in City Hall rather than the hall of the Moakley Courthouse. No one in the media will tell it the way it is and rise to his defense.
What is amazing about this is that Walsh has done a good job as major running an open and honest administration. He will not be destroyed because of some wrongdoing although reading the media you would believe that is the case; it will be because he is out of favor with the media which has prompted the Boston U.S. Attorney Ortiz to bring a frivolous indictment against Kenneth Brissette, the head of one of the mayor’s sub-agencies. Ortiz’s close relationship with the media is well-known and is shown day after day by the leaks from her office to select local reporters and the using of her prosecutorial function to aid the local media.
The indictment is referred to as a “he said/she said” type. There is one witness who represents a show called the Boston Calling who says he was extorted into hiring members of a local union by Brissette. Brissette will say he only suggested that it might be in Boston Calling’s best interest to do so. He will say and the union will agree that he did nothing to force that group to hire the people and that the people hired did the job they were hired to do.
I suppose the question will come down to a couple of things: first, is it permissible for a member of the mayor’s staff to try to urge others to give union people a job. I suggest that is a proper function. Next, will Brissette be facing such a high recommendation of prison time that to hit the street he will have to agree with the prosecutors’ suggestions that he was extorting Boston Calling but was doing it at the behest of the mayor.
Ortiz’s office believes that Major Walsh as a life-long union member who rose to a top union leadership position is using his position as mayor to extort others into giving fellow union members jobs. Unfortunately for Mayor Walsh Ortiz operates like the Queen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland who said: “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” She has arrived at this conclusion the major is committing a crime without any evidence. Now she seeks to find the evidence to prove her belief is true.
To get the evidence she and her staff scare people into telling them what they want to hear. If the person does that then they get a “get out of jail free” card; if they don’t then they get dragged before grand juries, warned of the consequences of perjury, and told if they are indicted they will face long prison terms. Then, after sentencing they will again be dragged before the grand jury in a never ending cycle.
The media on the other hand knows Walsh is not into any of that. It knows he is on the level and doing a fine job. Even so it still does not like him. He’s too – you know – too – like ah – well you know. He’s not their cup of tea to put it mildly.
A guy named Joe Battenfield just wrote a column in the Herald that is filled with non-sequiturs and huge exaggerations that plainly makes no sense. He wrote about the mayor after his papers received some City Hall emails under the freedom of information act. There is nothing in them anything like a smoking gun. But having gone to the effort of getting them he has to pretend there is.
He turned Brissette’s interaction with Boston Calling into “an alleged union extortion scheme rocking City Hall.” He writes that “Walsh’s tourism czar [Brissette] was shaking down” the Boston Calling promotors. He says Birssette “teamed with Walsh advisor Timothy Sullivan” a former union official. He writes “it is no coincidence” Brissette got his “job through [Joyce] Linehan” the mayor’s chief policy adviser.
It all sound pretty horrible even though it is hyperbolic and adds nothing. It does however show the media gang up going on against Walsh to unfairly destroy his reputation. The mayor is as honest as the day is long but no one in the media will stand up for him to protect his reputation.
Boston’s media have become a bunch of bleating sheep. There is not one person of courage among all of them. How poorly we are served.
The media is acting as usual. Totally superficial. Wolfpack mentality and abjectly dishonest. It took over a year for anyone in the media to expose the obvious fraud of the Duke lacrosse charges. How many said the Probation scandal was a fake? None. How feckless are these unions? The press is attacking their members and supporters and the unions produce zero response. Couldn’t the Teamsters who deliver these papers refuse to do so until the Brissette and union charges are dismissed? Are they powerless or do they want their members and friends framed? Passive resistance could work.
NC:
I even saw that after I did my post another attack by the Globe on the mayor. It starts out properly with the line “drip, drip, drip” which tells of its ongoing program in conjunction with the U.S. attorney (is she thinking of running for mayor) to damage the mayor’s reputation. We know their goal is to muddy him up so much that he will get slaughtered in any reelection attempt.
As for the unions they are feckless as you state. They should be picketing the federal court house after seeing what the U.S. attorney is up to in her vendetta against them. Indicting Brissette on a 20 year felony because he tried to get a few union people hired is absurd. No damage was done – no permits were withheld – his history in the position showed he was an advocate for unions but he has a right to do that – but as you point out they all run and hide which is a big mistake. It is past time for passive resistance. The unions should be mounting major campaigns to support the mayor. Right now it is the media that has the bully pulpit. The unions should get out there and show that being a member of a union means support for someone who has their interests at heart.
Matt,
Dave Boeri comes to mind…..besides yourself, of course.
Rather:
Dave Boeri does not totally follow the others in the media but he has said nary a word that I recall about the sinister relationship between the media and the U.S. attorney’s office. I guess that is because he is a reporter and does not have the freedom to express himself as I do. He has gone along with a lot of the media madness concerning Whitey and has a belief that Billy was involved somehow which I don’t understand. I think he is a man of courage and integrity unlike so many of the others.