“When did you rais
e your hand, Carr?” I thought.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more disgusted at a writer than I was at the article written by Howie Carr on election day concerning the race for Congress between between Seth Moulton and Richard Tisei. He wrote “Imagine Seth Moulton at some future Democratic national convention, raising his right hand in salute: “This is Lt. Seth Moulton, reporting for duty!” Or is it doody? Yep, he fancies himself the next John Forbes Kerry. Might not admit it yet, but he’s got the same pedigree — Brahmin bloodline, prep school, Ivy League, military service “in a war he opposed,” and of course, the de rigueur legion of worshipful bowtied bumkissers on Morrissey Boul-evard. They swoon at the very mention of his Seth-ness — “a humble hero (who) has emerged for cynical voters,” as one of the rumpswabs gurgled about their latest crush.”
It irked me, and I’m sure it did the voters in that district who gave the race to Moulton by 15 points, that Howie Carr who never raised his hand to defend the country denigrates those who do. You know I’m no Brahmin lover but that pedigree: “Brahmin bloodline, Ivy League, military service” is one which has served our country very well from the days of the Civil War when people like Oliver Wendell Holmes stepped up and volunteered to fight.
Moulton was a Marine Lieutenant leading a company of Marines in combat in Iraq. He won two decorations for his heroism, the Bronze Star and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation for valor. You can read about the citation here. It is people like him who put their lives on the line for our country because of their belief in our values who we need in Washington, DC. Did you notice how things have fallen apart since those without military experience have gained the ascendency in our nation?
The only thing Howie ever fought was his waistline and the only thing he ever fought for was his hairline. He’s a prep school bumkisser of the Globe ownership where he longs to work. He’s on his way out of WRKO after 20 years to greener grayer pastures taking his 75-year-old plus pale Depends audience of begruders with him. Like Russ Limbaugh he’s belongs to an America of the past.
Another part of the comment is Carr’s supposed disdain for the “bowtied bumkissers on Morrissey Boul-evard” saying “the Globe is heads over heels for Seth Moulton.” For those who don’t know it, Howie has a very cozy relationship with the Globe and its writers. His alleged disdain for them is fake. Look at the names of the people who the Globe writers thanked for helping them write books about Whitey and Howie’s name is right there. During the Whitey trial he and Globe reporters played around like bosom buddies.
Charlie Baker, of course, knows that he got the job thanks to the phony Globe poll within ten days of the election that put him up by 9 points. Designed to chase Coakley voters away by discouraging them, it did just enough to tip the balance. Those who are up to the Globe’s sinister way of doing business could spot its doings but most people who think it is on the level can’t. I pointed out its sinister campaign against her as it progressed. Of course, there’s a great irony in this. Coakley long ago lost the support of people who know O’Brien and Cahill didn’t deserve to be prosecuted but she went ahead and prosecuted them because she was urged on by the Globe which then stabbed her in the back. One can only wonder what deal Baker has made with the Globe and its ownership. That’ll be something to watch down the line.
Too bad, we now have to live with Baker and his fishy story as governor. By the way on election day Charlie Baker and Howie Carr were in an extended discussion about the election even to the point of Carr pushing Baker not to give Coakey a judgeship. For you who voted for Baker, Howie thanks you from the depth of his cold heart. You should know that when you support people who Carr is close to you are empowering his vile act.
One final note, another Carr buddy Scotty Brown having lost his bid for the senate in New Hampshire announce two years from now he’s going to take a shot in Maine. If that fails he’s been telling people he’ll keep moving north and that he’d run for the U.S. Senate in Quebec. You gotta admire his grit.
* Dershowitz
* numbered ( I am a perfectionist, what can I say 🙂 )
William :
I will check into the Ex Libris system for access to what I gather is your tenth e-book. Heard Alan Dershoeitz on radio recently talking about his e-book TERROR TUNNELS, which gets out the true story of the terrorist subterranean infiltration Israel has suffered from ISIS fellow travellers, HAMAS. Professor D spoke highly about the power and versatility of the e-book platform. And I think this is so. Matt speaks of his audience, among which you and I are numberd for a fact ; And the sheer fact is that indeed he has one. Modern social media allows him, agree or disagree with him, to publish what amounts to at least several columns a week on this creation of his, this Blog. This is a powerful consciousness shift, a Gutenberg Galaxy Redux quantum shift in getting ones message ” Out There ” that has taken place in the new media. The old Gatekeepers are now just that. Good on you then William as they say in Dublin !!!
Matt and John: Wait till you read Character Assassins II which rightfully pummels Howard “The Corrupt Fatso” Carr and gives him a little dose of the slanderous medicine he constantly hawks and doles out against others. He’s damaged a lot of public persons and their families with his sadistic lacerating tongue. He laughs at others’ sufferings. He mocks scars. You know they old saying, “They mock scars who never felt wounds.” He mocks murder victims. He befriends serial killers. More people should call him out. Ignoring inveterate mud slingers like Carr is to the detriment of all good men of good will. Stand up to bullies like Carr. It’ll help the next guy and next family down the road he chooses to malign.
William:
Cannot wait for the book.
Matt.
You paint with too broad a brush perhaps .
Matt:
Are we supposed to ignore your characterization of his audience? There was no ” missed the point ” involved as you so plainly stated your feelings, your ” point ” was unmistakable. You threw out the baby with the bathwater in your zeal to swipe at your nemesis. Your feelings towards old folk in general do not depend on your feelings about Carr and his audience however, we are quite confident . 🙂
John:
His audience is what it is.
Right .. Yep … Well I like Brahmins too. Why only last week I got a nifty copy of Cleveland Amory’s THE PROPER BOSTONIANS for less than ten dollars including shipping from Amazon. Read it years ago, searched local bookshops unsuccessfully for it, and, brushing up on this noble breed, brushing up on my Boston Brahmins as you might say, I secured a copy. I have known a few of them . Bill Weld is a particular favorite. I have read John P. Marquand’s THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, Santayana ‘s THE LAST PURITAN, and Henry Adams’ THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS. So, yes, I have studied them. Today’s Harvard that only recently allowesld ROTC back on campus is radically different from the Harvard of these gentlemen and its very distinguished Sanders Theater War Alum. A distinguishing character feature of the few Brahmins I have known is a self-effacing sort of humility . In all due respect to Seth Moulton, his tv ads, citing that he ate only after his troops had eaten, seemed a departure from this. As for Howie Carr, Matt, you seem obsessed with him. Ignoring him would have been your wisest strategy. I do not think he is a Brahmin -Noser ( I coined that 🙂 ) as you suggest. He’s a real bastard as we native Bostonians like to say, but in a curious way he is Our Bastard. You must agree as you are quite the fastidious chronicler of his every tic and blemish. There is nothing wrong in that . But again, you would de-potentiate what is hus very toxic energy to you as you agonize so often over, simply by…. ignoring him , rather than quoting him so frequently.
John:
The Harvard people of today are not those who were there as you rightly point out. William reminds me that without them there might not have been a country. Carr belittled Moulton’s Brahmin, Harvard, Marine background. That was wrong and suggested those with that background are people to be belittled which is totally wrong. Especially is it wrong from someone like him who didn’t serve our country.
I rarely read Carr or listen to him because years ago I found him repellent. I guess his criticism of public servants as all do nothing hacks angered me since I was one and was working long weeks trying to do something beneficial. I knew some public employees were bad but to hold those few slaggards up as representing all turned me off. I had to read him doing the Whitey stuff and his column on Moulton being so bad moved me to write.
I’m not obsessed in any way by him. He’s got his act and his audience and I have mine. I’m happy with what I got and pleased that I can call him out whenever I come across something outrageous. I was told he had written a scurrilous article about the guy my son was supporting for register of probate in Plymouth throwing the sins of the father upon the kid. I never read it but it fit his pattern of attacking others for what someone else in their family had done. So I disagree totally that I am a chronicler of him other than pointing out his falsehoods when it comes to the Whitey saga.
It surprises me that you suggest somehow I err in calling Howie out. That is Howie’s stock-in-trade. To let some of the things he says that I happen to come upon pass without comment would be doing a diservice.
Market Basket puts people and service over profits, I meant to write, not “profits over service.” Politicians in general put profits over service. I should triple check my writing but I’m not afraid of making mistakes, never have been, never will be, that’s why I’ve made many of them along life’s road and will continue to do so. Let’s jump off the Quincy Quarries!! Let’s try this!!! Why not? Who cares? So what? Says who? Leave him alone!!! Stand up to bullies, no matter how big. The bigger they are the harder they fall. The bigger they are the harder they hit. So what!
William:
If you are afraid of making mistakes do nothing. And, if you do nothing you will be making a big mistake.
I agree: Remember the Red Sox Jimmy Pearsal’s book, “Fear Strikes Out!” Also remember whatever we say or write, people out there will vehemently disagree with it. No one can please all of the people, so just be true to yourself and like Shakespeare said you then can’t be false anyone.
2. One point of disagreement, saints are few and far between and I haven’t canonized anyone lately, but it was Arthur T.’s lawyers, not he himself, who were sanctioned for setting up another lawyer and trying to get dirt on a judge (Lopez who decided against his father and his father’s side of the family). As I understand it, and I’ve read a lot about it in Lawyers Weekly and elsewhere since the 1990s, two lawyers took it upon themselves to engage in unscrupulous behavior. Both were sacked and sanctioned by the Board of Bar Overseers because of their unethical tactics. Neither ever said that they were just following orders.
1. Piersal and Whitey were born in the same year. Shakespear was of course joking around.
2. Arthur T’s lawyers followed Arthur T’s directions. When the lawyers were sacked they were hired by Arthur T.
Matt, I agree whole heartedly on your assessment of Carr, of course, he is the nation’s leading character assassin and mud slinger who never served anyone or anything but his own pocket book. In my book I call him a vile creep and predict he’ll live in infamy if history remembers him at all. History will remember Rush Limbaugh, and he is not passé as it seems his views have won the day with the Republican sweep nationwide. You may be giving the Globe too much credit: Remember the voters ignored their endorsements on three out of four of the ballot questions. Also, historically, when the Globe called for the boycott of the 1996 St. Patrick’s Day parade over one million spectators showed up according to police estimates to welcome back the Veterans’ version of a St. Pat’s Day parade. 2. You made clear the old folks you were disparaging were not all old folks but the sadist Howie Carr’s chuckling followers. 3. Old age is funny and if we live long enough we all face its challenges, but also its joys. I’m joyous for my birth, upbringing, past, present and likely future, living in the land of milk and honey. I’m joyous for the fighting spirit that keeps me throwing punches at the bad guys l and freely expressing my views. I’m joyous that’s is 6:00 A.M. and I’m about to have my first cup of coffee. I’m joyous for family and friends. David Gray sings, “Everyday when I wake up it feels like a Saturday.” Freedom. 3. Yes, the country is in moral decline and we need more true patriots to serve and more public servants and more businessmen like Arthur T. Demoulas and more businesses like Market Basket that put profits over service. 4. And by the way, thank you for your service in the Marines and along many fronts. 5. Not all people who like Howie Carr are bad; Howie Carr is. 6. The best thing you wrote is “Baker rhymes with faker.” Many, many politicians in America today are power drunk cravens who go along with the herd and expand big oppressive anti-life welfare-state plantation-mentality race-bating overly-intrusive imperialistic government. 7. I like Brahmins— a strong group of them organized to help Boston College secure its first parcel of land in Boston, amid No-Nothing opposition. Also, visit Harvard’s Sanders Theater and look up at the walls in the atrium; there you will see the name of all the young men from Old Yankee families who died in droves in our Civil War. They’ve served nobly in all our wars and like the Irish at Valley Forge, without them we would not be free. 8. A pox–a small pox—not Smallpox—on all the politicians who don’t have the guts to make government small and manageable. Government, federal, state and local, even in the 1950s after World War II took 30% of the GDP; today it takes 46% and it wants more. 9. Get the warmongers out of Congress, get the Lobbyists off Capital Hill—reduce all lobbying from any and all Americans to one written postcard per individual (or per corporation) per year and reduce all tax filings, personal and corporate, to a postcard. I know how to do that; Congress does too, but won’t. 10. The politicians are playing all of us and the Globe and Carr are going along for the ride: none act in the best interests of the American people, today, and that’s what rots.
William:
1. Disagree that Rush is a factor in the election, what won it was the weariness of the American people with the present administration not the adoption of the hatred and bile preached by Limbaugh. The Globe’s fake poll was a major factor, it discouraged a lot of Coakley leaners; its editorial and anti-Coakley columns took their effect especially considering how close the election actually was.
2. True, I was talking about Howie’s followers.
3. The column was not about the joys or woes of getting old. There is a lot of freedom in old age for those who know how to take advantage of it. As one guy said to me, “getting old is not for sissies.” One draw back to it is that as we know from history each generation feels the ones that follow are lacking something. WWII generation was no more the greatest generation than the Vietnam or the Iraq generation. Many old people dislike change and cling to people like Carr; others, like yourself, find a joy in each day and interact with all age groups finding the ideas of the young both strange, challenging. worrysome, and comforting – but you don’t expect them to see the world like you see it.
3. Don’t sanctify Arthur T – he’s done some pretty despicable things in the past like having his lawyers try to set up a young law clerk by promising him a fake job to get evidence against a judge.
4. You may recall when I served in the Marines America did not engage in any wars. I always figured our enemies didn’t want to have to face me.
5. Not all people are anything; most who like Carr have problems with liking life as it is.
6. Baker will be a faker as governor. I’ll give the Globe about six months before it is screaming at him – we’ll supposed to have forgotten by then that it endorsed him.
7. I said I have no love for the Brahmins – that doesn’t mean I don’t like them. (Figure that out) You remind me that they did step up in the Revolutionary war and give us our country and its freedom. They’ve never been reluctant to take up arms to defend the country. True, like the Irish and the Scot-Irish and, sad to say, the Bloody British, they don’t mind a little bit of a brawl.
8. I wonder if you can have a small government in a nation as large as ours. 46% of the GDP is a little high – but I’d have to see what can be realistically done to cut it back. We do expect the government to do an awful lot for us especially in the area of safety – the problem, of course, is creating a nation of free loaders where it does too much. No doubt the disparity in wealth is greater today than at any time in our country’s history. How does that play into the idea the government is too big?
9. You just saw the people put more war mongers into Congress. We’re going to destroy ourselves with our wars in the Middle East as I noted today. We are taking our eyes off the ball. Unfortunately Congress is becoming a closed club and it just got more so with the election results. Expect a heavy push for war against Iran when the talks fail.
10. Agree – America has become a land of grab what you can – live for the day – we have to be thankful we have some young people who still answer the call of the country but most have no idea what it is like to serve other than their own selfish desires.
* ” Taking his seventy five year old plus Depends pale band of begrudgers with him ” ….WHOAAAAAHHHH BOY, WHOAAAAHHHHH !!! …. Physician heal thyself, Matt. Oh those damned old white men, those ” bitter clingers” , that nearly now eradicated generation of World War Two veterans who freed the World from tyranny by defeating Hitler and bringing the Emperor Hirohito bowing and scraping before Douglas MacArthur, let’s shame those wicked, incontinent, senile WHITE Oppressors who are the empty pated lefties favorite bogeyman. What you decry Carr for, Matt, pales next to this poisonous tirade of yours. You know as well as any that you get old, if you’re lucky arguably, and you die ; invariably, the older you get the more your health declines. What the older members of Society “Depend” upon is the understanding of their vigorous younger compeers is the understanding that they too realize that the bell will toll for them as well, all too soon. This hatred of the old and of ageing in our shallow Madison Ave youth mania collective cultural psyche is just plain SAD !!! … I do nit like people who place old folks in an abhorrent category ; to be mocked and kicked at with ” Depends” slurs about their migration into senescence. It seems to me that some people never properly got out of diapers themselves. Matt, get onto yourself. You know better and are better than the self portrayal of this vile screed. GROW UP MAN , AND LEAVE GRANDPA AND GRANDMA TO THEIR WELL EARNED PEACE, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY…. THEIR DIGNITY !!!
John:
Again you miss the point. Carr’s appeal to the elderly reflects an ignorance of the society in which he lives. That’s why he’s going down the drain. How you can find any “hate” in what I said is beyond me. That they happen to make up most of Carr’s audience is a fact. Am I suppose to ignore facts?
Martha Coakley gave a gracious speech in defeat, thanking Charlie Baker for himself being so gracious in his victory. Her speech stands in sharp contrast to the “sour grapes” tenor of this post. I personally detest Howie Carr, but I believe Baker won because because of the electorate’s disdain for professional politicians like Martha and because Baker is a successful businessman who can get Massachusetts o a more sustainable fiscal track.
Clarence:
Baker rhymes with Faker. Did you ever think of that?
You couldn’t detest Carr if you voted for his friend Baker. You should know your enemies.
Massachusetts is on a very sustainable fiscal track as it is so how can he do what exists.
Disdain for professional politicians is not a reason, look at Mitch McConnell or the MA Congresssional delegation – professional politicians all – Coakley lost because the Boston Globe stabbed her in the back. Graciousness in defeat is no credit to her; she should have gone off boldly into the night. It only means she is planning a future run for some other office.