It’s Time for The Boston Globe to Come Clean on Mayor Walsh

The Globe in an editorial on Tuesday has called upon Mayor Walsh to come clean in what is going on in City Hall. The last line of the editorial reads: “The best way for the mayor to repair that impression [of the lack of integrity of Boston’s permitting process] would be to hold his staff accountable and level with the voters about who at City Hall knew what, and when.”

It arrived at that conclusion after reading some emails that had been given to it through a public records request. These emails show according to the Globe that two aides to Mayor Walsh “were in close proximity to an alleged extortion effort. . . “  What does that mean?  The allegation is that the mayor’s aide Kenneth Brissette forced Boston Calling to hire union workers. I’m sure everyone who worked in Brissette’s office were in close proximity to him during that time.

The Globe editors write that one email “vaguely implies that Walsh himself may have had some unspecified involvement.”  What is a vague implication of an unspecified involvement? Seriously, this is not the level of writing one would expect from a high school editorial.

This is garbage writing by people trying to suggest some wrongdoing with no basis for the suggestion. It reminds me of the time the Globe suggested one man attended Boston College around the same time as another who was charged with a crime. It “vaguely implied” those BC men had “an unspecified involvement.”

Then this in the editorial notes: “Mayor Walsh maintains he has done nothing wrong, and there is nothing in the e-mails or federal indictment that proves otherwise.” If that is the case what is the purpose of the editorial. Is it only to tell us of the “close proximity” and the “vaguely implies” and the “unspecified involvement” that mean nothing. Is it like Seinfeld a show that was about nothing an editorial about nothing?

Or is its purpose, to use the first three words in the editorial, a “DRIP, DRIP, DRIP” attack by the Globe on the mayor pretending he has done something where there is nothing there. Over and over writing the same stuff even though there is nothing new. Tearing into the mayor’s reputation drip, by drip, by drip. We know the game by now: next a columnist is ordered to write something, then a reporter and then another editorial. Drip, drip, drip,

The editorial notes that “It can’t be comfortable in City Hall watching the scandal grow in slow motion.” Obviously that is the case but is seems hypocritical for the Globe which is piling on one drip after another and putting forth editorials about nothing to suggest “it’s a distraction for officials and for the city itself.”

Of course it is so one must ask why is the Globe continuing to make something out of it. Why not let the process play out. It is always disconcerting when the needle gets stuck in the record and it plays the same tune over and over again.

The mayor is in the middle of a Globe inspired unnecessary investigation by the federal prosecutor into people working in the mayor’s office. The mayor must stick to his job. He must not become in any way an arm of the federal investigation nor interfere with it. He must let it take whatever course it will even though it seems malignantly disposed toward him. (Politics anyone?)

The mayor is under no obligation to help the Globe in its attempt to destroy his reputation. The Globe gets sufficient help from the federal investigators. The mayor should know that the Globe is no friend. It would be nice if the Globe would come clean and tell us what it is about the mayor that makes it want to destroy him and his reputation.