Jon Keller may have written the nastiest commentary I’ve ever seen about former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld. Keller: “The man is either a world-class liar or in a pathological state of denial.” Whoa! I’d better get my hand off the stove.
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Jon Keller’s negative tone is too strong here. If the disastrous Michael Dukakis can still get the red carpet treatment in Boston, then Bill Weld should get a state holiday in his honor. To wrest control of the Governorship from the Dems with their overwhelming advantage in party registration is one thing. But to sweep in 17 Republican Senators, restore fiscal discipline and begin 16 years of Republican domination in our state is another, especially just two years after our previous Governor was the Democrat nominee for President.Sure, Weld got waaay too cozy with Bulger, Berlandi, Bellotti and other Dems, he cursed us with appointees like Margaret Marshall and he got bored with the job, but overall he righted the sinking ship known as the S.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts.I enjoy Jon Keller’s material and as a Republican I found Weld exasperating at times. That said, Keller’s commentary today is far too harsh. Weld, Cellucci, Malone and Romney will always be worthy of respect, if merely for getting popularly elected against overwhelmingly adverse party registration figures. As Mitt Romney aligns himself with traditional Americans on social issues, he can utilize Weld to neutralize the pro-homosexual marriage, pro-partial birth abortion yahoos and other extremists. Clever move by Mitt, I say.
Keller is the king. Remember his commentary after 9/11? BZ got so many requests they aired it three times. Long live Keller!
Geez .. and here I was thinking that Bill Weld fixed the economic mess left behind by Michael Dukakis; championed a women’s right to choose; and was a staunch advocate of gay rights long before most Democrats got on board, much less the GOP. Keller comes off like a small-minded, petty man here.
While I liked having a Repub in the corner office…I think he is now treated wwwaaaaaaay to nicely in these parts.He basically used us….then “moved on”.Overall, I don’t think he was honest with us. Thats his biggest flaw.
Convenient passive voice, that implies universality of the sentiment while dodging personal responsibility for it:…reasons why the sight of Weld brings back unhappy memoriesIf you mean “…brings unhappy memories back to me”, then say so.Then, a new one–guilt by physical proximity:Suffice to say that Weld’s appearance at the convention center yesterday placed him within a few hundred feet of the site where Milena DelValle of Jamaica Plain was crushed to death…Suffice to say? No, not suffice to say. Or, while we are slinging mud under cover of this little rhetorical device, suffice to say that Jon is either a world-class lazy windbag or a pathological cheap shot artist.He ends with his typical bombastic presentation of trite “advice”, as if it were bold–Mitt, take any advice person X says, at your own risk! Mitt thanks you for this keen insight Jon, he’d have never come up with it on his own.
Keller is a master of overstating the obvious. It’s hardly scathing to make such remarks nearly a decade after Weld quit as governor; it’s more like piping in during the chorus.But that’s Keller, the single most spinable “analyst” around. But that’s to be expected in a city where television political analysts are notoriously vapid — witness the use by various local television stations over the years of such pundits as Al Benjamin (an employee of the Mass Teachers Union), Dick Flavin (missed the mark as BOTH a satarist and a commentator), Dick Sennott, John Henning (advice: being around forever does not make one especially perceptive),Andy Hiller (pop quizzes are cute, but not erudite) and a stable of UMass profs with axes to grind (apparently on the theory that a Ph.D bestows an intelligent understanding of practical politics).