There’s been plenty of outrage over Gov. Deval Patrick’s appointment of state Sen. Marian Walsh to a transparently unnecessary $175,000-a-year job. Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have editorialized against it.
But I’m especially struck by mild-mannered CommonWealth magazine pundit Michael Jonas’ post on CW Unbound, which ties together a number of loose threads in order to demonstrate precisely what a business-as-usual governor Patrick has become. Jonas frankly describes the Walsh appointment as an “outrage” and writes:
It’s hard not to see that as the trajectory Gov. Deval Patrick is on after the latest slap in the face to those expecting more from an administration that pledged to sweep out the culture of patronage and cronyism on Beacon Hill.
Jonas connects the Walsh appointment to Patrick’s high-handed, Big Dig-tainted transportation secretary, Jim Aloisi, and his pension-abusing stimulus czar, Jeffrey Simon, as well as to the goodies Sal DiMasi handed out as he was leaving Beacon Hill.
Well, DiMasi’s gone. Patrick is still here, and he’s got to persuade the public that it should put up with some pretty draconian budget cuts and tax hikes in the months ahead. Good luck with that, Governor.
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io saturnalia!
Patrick “has become” a business-as-usual politician? What evidence did you have that he was anything but one?
Rick in Duxbury
Get ready for much preaching from folks who have undergone battlefield conversions. NOW they want substance? Somewhere, Muffy is laughing her espadrilles off.
lkcape
Maybe Muffy is spending the week at the Taj Deval.The political oligarchy is alive, well and thriving across the Commonwealth.I, for one, welcome to converts to the cause of clean and corruption-free government. We, the people, need all the converts we can get.
Dan Kennedy
Rick: If Kerry Healey had bothered to run for governor, who knows what would have happened? I certainly wouldn’t call whatever the hell she was doing that fall “running for governor,” except in some hypertechnical sense.
Brad
“The electorate deserves the politicians they get.”If ever there was a state that SHOULD have thriving third-party candidates, especially Green Party (and similar), you’d think it’d Massachusetts. Well, okay, California would be tops of THAT list. But Massachusetts would be in the top two or three, right?And yet, somehow, Massachusetts can’t even muster TWO parties. Much less a viable third. For a state that fancies itself being so “enlightened”, it really is just 351 clusters of idiots.
lkcape
And somewhat greedy idiots, at that.Rep. Bosely might take issue with these statements, however.