It’s time for Trump’s off-the-record enablers to step out from the shadows

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic posted a blockbuster Thursday evening, reporting that President Donald Trump has repeatedly disparaged those who died in war as “losers” and “suckers.”

But the story probably won’t have the devastating effect that it should because Goldberg’s sources refused to go on the record. I’m outraged, as I have been many times over the past four years, at the gutlessness of these insiders and former insiders, who privately express their disgust with Trump while acting as his enablers.

Yes, attaching their names to this report would subject them to withering criticism and possibly even place them in danger. But the country is in danger, too. It’s time to step up.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

The Ed Markey I know

Sen. Ed Markey at a rally for the Green New Deal. Photo (cc) 2019 by Victoria Pickering.

Now that U.S. Ed Markey has survived a Democracy primary challenge by U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy, I want to offer a few observations. I didn’t say much during the campaign because I’ve never met Kennedy, and because it didn’t strike me that the outcome would make much difference in terms of policy. Kennedy probably would have made a perfectly fine senator. But, like many liberals and progressives, I didn’t think his decision to run against Markey made much sense except in terms of sheer personal ambition and a cynical calculation that the Kennedy name was all he needed.

I covered Markey for The Daily Times Chronicle of Woburn back in the 1980s, including his toughest re-election fight, in 1984. That’s when Markey decided to run for the Senate following Paul Tsongas’ announcement that he would be leaving because of ill health. At the last minute, though, Markey got cold feet, pulled out and announced he’d run for re-election to the House instead. Most of the Democrats who were running for Markey’s seat immediately dropped out. But Sam Rotondi, a state senator from Winchester, decided to stay in. (John Kerry won the Senate seat, by the way.)

Rotondi ran a spirited race, but the power of incumbency and Markey’s considerable skills as a politician were too much to overcome. You may have heard that the COVID pandemic put Kennedy at a disadvantage since he’s a better retail politician than Markey. That’s ridiculous. Markey is an excellent one-on-one campaigner and, at 74, his energy seems to be undiminished. And his rapport with young voters, always strong, may have been the difference.

There was a time when the sky seemed to be the limit for Markey. He was a leader in the nuclear-freeze movement of the 1980s, which sought to pressure the Reagan administration to negotiate a no-more-nuclear-weapons deal with the Soviet Union. Some people even talked about him as a future presidential candidate. But his decision to stay in the House in 1984 led to a lowering of his profile, although he continued to be a hard-working legislator in both the House and later the Senate. By the time Kennedy jumped in, Markey was kind of an after-thought, and the challenge forced him not to redefine himself, as lazy pundit spin would have it, but to remind voters of who he is.

The one development in the Markey-Kennedy campaign that didn’t fit what I know about Markey was when the parents of Danroy “DJ” Henry Jr. accused him of acting indifferently — even using the term “colored” — at a meeting over the 2010 killing of their son by a white police officer. There was certainly no reason to doubt the Henrys’  account, and I thought it might be the beginning of the end for Markey. For some reason, though, it seemed to have little or no effect.

What did have an effect, in my opinion, was Kennedy’s indefensible decision to attack Markey because internet trolls were saying hateful things about the Kennedys. I was stunned when Kennedy rolled that out at the third debate, and Markey seemed stunned, too. But Kennedy doubled down on it during the final days of the campaign. It came across as desperate, especially when Kennedy and his supporters also cried foul at Markey’s ad that mildly and humorously played off an old John F. Kennedy quote by saying, “With all due respect, it’s time to start asking what your country can do for you.” Given the events of the past four years, JFK would probably agree.

I found it interesting that Kennedy, who’d built a reputation for not relying on his family’s name, went all in and clung to Camelot like a life raft once it became clear that his campaign was in trouble. Unfortunately for him, the number of elderly voters who have side-by-side portraits of Pope John and JFK in their homes is considerably smaller than it used to be.

Frankly, Joe Kennedy never struck me as someone who’s comfortable in his own skin. He has much to contribute — but maybe he ought to consider whether elective office is really the right place for him to make that contribution.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

We need ranked-choice voting — and this November we can make it happen

GBH News graphic by Kaitlyn Locke.

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

Here we go again.

As of Wednesday morning, it was still unclear who had won the Democratic primary in the Fourth Congressional District. In a field of nine candidates, including two who had dropped out before the primary, Jesse Mermell was running ahead of Jake Auchincloss by the razor-thin margin of 22.4% to 22.3%. One thing we can be sure of, though, is that whoever is nominated in the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy will have received far fewer than a majority of the votes.

That also happened two years ago in the Third Congressional District, when Lori Trahan edged out Dan Koh in a 10-candidate Democratic primary. Trahan received 21.7% to Koh’s 21.5%, which was enough to propel her to victory that November against token Republican and independent opposition. This time around, Trahan, now the incumbent congresswoman, ran unopposed in the primary.

This is no way to run a democracy. Elections that produce winners lacking majority support fail to reflect the will of the voters. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

One solution would be to have a runoff election between the top two finishers. That’s the way they do it in some states, and it would be preferable to what we have currently in Massachusetts. But that’s expensive and time-consuming. Even then, it looks like Mermell and Auchincloss together will receive less than 50%, as was the case with Trahan and Koh in 2018 — which means that a majority of Democratic voters wanted someone else.

That’s why ranked-choice voting — also known as the instant runoff — is a better solution. And it’s on the ballot this fall. If Question 2 is approved, the system would go into effect in 2022, covering most state and federal offices but exempting presidential and local elections.

Here’s how ranked-choice voting works. Let’s say five candidates are running. You can vote for one, just as you do now. Or you can designate a second choice and, if you like, keep right on going from one to five in order of preference. It’s entirely up to you.

If no one wins a majority, the fifth-place finisher would be eliminated, and the second choices of voters who supported that candidate would be awarded among the remaining candidates. The instant runoff continues until someone emerges with a majority. Third-place (or lower) votes would be counted if more rounds are needed to produce a majority winner. (For more information about ranked-choice voting, visit Yes on 2.)

This accomplishes two things. First, it eliminates the possibility that a minority winner might be someone who is loathed by voters who backed other candidates. Instead, the winner will be someone who had broad enough support to have been the second or third choice of many voters. Second, it eliminates gamesmanship at the polls. No longer would voters have an incentive to pick someone who isn’t their top choice in order to block someone else. Instead, they could rank their favorite first and their backup second.

The bane of this sort of strategic voting — or, rather, non-strategic voting — is why Maine adopted ranked choice in 2018. The bombastic Republican Paul LePage was elected governor in 2010 and 2014, each time with less than a majority, because a strong independent candidate split the anti-LePage vote with the Democratic nominee. Given what a polarizing figure LePage was, it seems likely that most independent voters would have picked the Democrat as their second choice (and vice versa), thus reflecting the will of the majority that someone other than LePage serve as governor.

I’ve been a fan of ranked-choice voting since 2000, when Ralph Nader’s independent candidacy may very well have cost Al Gore the election and handed the presidency to George W. Bush. As I wrote for The Boston Phoenix at the time, if you make the reasonable assumption that most Nader voters would have ranked Gore second, Gore would have taken Florida and thus the White House.

The question now is whether Question 2 will pass muster with voters in Massachusetts. It’s got a lot of support. According to State House News Service, all but one Democratic candidate in the Fourth Congressional District, including Mermell and Auchincloss, said they supported ranked choice.

Moreover, a recent poll by WBUR and the MassINC Polling Group showed that respondents were evenly split on the measure — but that among those who said they understood ranked choice “very well,” 52% were in favor and 37% were against. With two months to go before the November election, proponents have a chance to win over skeptics.

Of course, the power of inertia is difficult to overcome. Ranked-choice voting isn’t as simple as the system we have now, and there’s a lot to be said for simplicity. But elections should reflect the will of the voters as closely as possible. Ranked choice does that. Which is why I’m voting “yes” on Question 2.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

Album #8: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’

During a long reporting trip to Washington and Baltimore in 2002, I began listening to WAMU, which at that time played a lot of bluegrass — not the sort of thing I normally liked (or so I thought). But as I was driving around from interview to interview, I started to enjoy what I was listening to. After I got back home, I started listening to the WAMU internet stream on occasion.

That led me to check out  the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1972 album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” a 38-song compilation starring some of the great bluegrass and old-time country stars of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. As this Wikipedia article explains, many of these folks’ careers were on the decline, supplanted by the slick Nashville sound that eventually morphed into (God help us) contemporary country music. By contrast, there is a real sense of authenticity to “Circle,” an album of traditional music about God, death and heartbreak, with a backdrop of virtuoso playing by guitarist Doc Watson, banjo player Earl Scruggs and fiddler Vassar Clements. Many of the songs are instrumentals, and the musicianship is so stunning that it sounds like bebop from an alternate universe.

The album cover is a real period piece, depicting the American and Confederate flags and a picture of an unnamed military officer. Obviously that would never fly today. But in the ’70s, there was still quite a bit of Confederate nostalgia infecting the culture, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — a country-rock band from Southern California — was not immune. Around the same time, the Band was recording “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” an ode to the Confederacy that was an enormous hit for Joan Baez, just to give you an idea of how pervasive it was.

Of all the guest stars on “Circle,” my two favorites are Mother Maybelle Carter, from the original Carter Family, and Roy Acuff, who leads on two of the strangest, most intense songs on the album. “The Precious Jewel,” which Acuff wrote, is a weeper about a young love who’s gone on to her reward in heaven. “Wreck on the Highway,” written by Dorsey Dixon, and first recorded by Acuff in 1942, is even wilder. Here’s a taste:

There was whiskey and blood all together
Mixed with glass where they lay
Death played her hand in destruction
But I didn’t hear nobody pray

Acuff’s singing is a revelation — a ragged, full-throated yowl that stands in contrast to the polite vocalizing on most of the album. Bruce Springsteen was so impressed by “Wreck on the Highway” that he wrote a completely different song by the same name — one of his finest, which captures the bleakness of its predecessor if not its weird mixture of piety and violence.

Maybelle Carter was a member of the first and second iterations of the Carter Family as well as the mother of June Carter Cash. She’s the only woman on the album, and her participation gives the entire project the feel of a last roundup. She takes the lead on “Keep on the Sunny Side,” “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes,” “Wildwood Flower” and, of course, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” She also plays autoharp, which isn’t something you hear much of these days.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band itself pretty much disappears on “Circle,” providing little more than some background accompaniment. They released a second volume in 1989 that fails to recapture the magic despite the presence of Johnny Cash and John Prine. A third, released in 2002, is better, and features the likes of Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, Iris DeMent, Emmylou Harris, June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash and Dwight Yoakam as well as old standbys Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs and Jimmy Martin.

Oh, and you can still listen to Bluegrass Country. I had it tuned in Sunday morning, when they played several hours of gospel music by the Stanley Brothers.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

A crazy story about a fake poll in the Markey-Kennedy Senate race

This story from Elections Today about a fake poll showing Joe Kennedy with a substantial lead over Ed Markey is just nuts. Was it a “social experiment”? Was the Kennedy campaign involved in any way? I really hope someone gets to the bottom of this.

In case you were wondering, three non-fake polls show Markey with a healthy lead in the Democratic Senate primary.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

Boston Globe employees told to work at home for the rest of the year

Boston Globe employees were told Wednesday that employees should continue to work remotely through the end of the year, although they may choose to come in to the office for no more than two days a week after Labor Day. What follows is the top of the memo from the Boston Globe Media Partners executive team, which I obtained from a trusted source.

Hello all,

On behalf of the Executive Leadership Team and Safety Committee, we want to provide some important updates and clarification on opening the Boston Exchange Place / 53 State Street office, as well as the Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. offices. We have talked before about how the Boston office would reopen after Labor Day to serve as an optional amenity for people who needed a break working from home, and that it would still be limited to not more than two days per week. We want to emphasize that while we greatly miss being together, not only are you not expected to return work in person, but we do not want or need for you to come in.

We are arranging the office to be safe for people who want to use it on a limited basis, but the preference is that you continue to work from home.  We have been monitoring the pandemic and will continue to respond based on state guidelines, but in the meantime, we are extending this phase of limited, optional-only use of the office through the end of the year.

To be clear, we want the Boston offices to be as empty as possible for the remainder of 2020. While we realize that there could be an expectation that managers may want you to show up in person, or that you may miss out on an opportunity if you are not in the office, we want to dispel that notion by emphasizing that managers do not and must not expect you to return to the office for the remainder of the year. If you have concerns or questions about this, please talk to your manager or reach out to your HR partner to discuss.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

How an intrepid Greek exile, the CIA and The Boston Globe nearly kept Richard Nixon out of the White House

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

Elias Demetracopoulos was a fascinating character — World War II resistance fighter, journalist, opponent of the military junta in Greece and, ultimately, a political exile in the United States. Today, though, he is all but forgotten.

In a new biography, James H. Barron seeks to rectify that. “The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate” (Melville House) portrays a larger-than-life figure who could have altered the course of American history if his warnings about illegal Greek financial contributions to Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign had been made public. As Barron reveals, The Boston Globe came tantalizingly close to breaking that story — but it went untold until years later.

Given what we already know about Nixon’s attempts to sabotage the Vietnam peace talks during the 1968 campaign, the new details about secret Greek money described by Barron can only add to Nixon’s reputation as a corrupt, cynical politician willing to wade illegally into international affairs if he thought it would benefit him. Watching President Donald Trump clumsily bulldoze his way over the path blazed by Nixon calls to mind Marx’s observation that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Barron is a lawyer and journalist based in the Boston area whose career stops included The Boston Phoenix, and who has written for The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, The New Republic and The European. He was the first book review editor for Campaigns & Elections. Barron is also a founding advisory board member of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, now the WGBH News Center for Investigative Reporting. His wife, Marjorie Arons-Barron, is the retired editorial-page editor at WCVB-TV (Channel 5) and a well-known local blogger.

The following email interview has been lightly edited.

Q: What were the circumstances that led you to tell Demetracopoulos’ story?

A: Serendipity. I was rushed to the ER by ambulance in 2007. Before they figured out my problem, I tried to quell my fears by imagining an idyllic morning on the island of Mykonos 40 years before. Afterward, I thought about why, at that perilous moment, my mind went to Greece in 1966.

I briefly considered writing a novel set there, but I’m not a fiction writer. I was fascinated by the Bostonian Greek tycoon Tom Pappas’ role in the 1968 election and started to write about him. In 2009, I told the legendary investigative reporter Sy Hersh about my project. He advised me to focus instead on Elias Demetracopoulos, the person who tried to blow the whistle on Pappas.

After meeting Elias in Washington, I realized this episode was a small part of a remarkable life, beginning with his days as a 12-year-old involved in the Greek resistance. He was captured, tortured, imprisoned and sentenced to death by the Nazis. Later, as an aggressive, fiercely independent journalist, he fled Greece when a military junta seized power in 1967, escaping to the U.S. over State Department objections.

Q: You write that Demetracopoulos went to Democratic Party operative Larry O’Brien in 1968 with information that Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign had received a secret $549,000 payoff from the Greek junta. You also speculate that O’Brien didn’t inform President Lyndon Johnson, even though it could have led to Nixon’s defeat at the hands of Hubert Humphrey. Why do you think O’Brien sat on it?

A: I explore different theories. O’Brien trusted the message, but not the messenger. Before fleeing to the U.S. in 1967, Elias had been a scoop-hungry reporter whose exposés had so angered American officials that the CIA and State Department tried to destroy his reputation and effectiveness, often placing false information in his intelligence files. JFK press secretary Pierre Salinger passed lies and unjustified speculation to O’Brien and others that, beneath his charming exterior, Elias was a communist who secretly worked for “the other side,” and should not be trusted.

Joe Napolitan, Humphrey’s media adviser, begged to use the Pappas illegal foreign money revelation in ads. O’Brien said no. David Broder of The Washington Post told me that, given how close that election was, Elias’ disclosure would have been a “bombshell” that could have changed the outcome. Imagine history with no President Nixon and no Watergate.

Q: There’s a great Boston Globe angle in your story. You write that Washington bureau chief Bob Healy took Demetracopoulos’ tip to editor Tom Winship, who in turn assigned the story to Christopher Lydon. Lydon ended up writing a profile of Tom Pappas, who was part of Nixon’s campaign as well as a bagman for the junta, but he was unable to prove there had been a payoff. Did the Globe ever try to revisit that story?

A: Healy’s tip came informally from CIA agents, not Elias, indicating that American intelligence at some level knew about the Greek junta plot to bribe the Nixon-Agnew campaign. O’Brien told Elias that, because the matter was so delicate, if he wanted O’Brien to go to LBJ to expose the scandal, Elias must not talk to the press. And he didn’t.

Lydon wrote about the Greek money rumor in the Globe but said the charge was “unsubstantiable.” Lydon interviewed Pappas, who denied the charges, and O’Brien’s press secretary, who said nothing to Lydon about Elias — despite Elias’ detailed revelations to O’Brien, his offers to provide corroborating witnesses in Athens, and even to fly some witnesses to the U.S. More problematic were non-Globe reporters like Gloria Steinem, who summarily dismissed the Greek money rumors as an illegality the frontrunning “New Nixon” would not stoop to commit.

The Globe never revisited the story. Elias moved on, considering his efforts to blow the whistle on Pappas a distraction from his principal fight to restore Greek democracy. Lydon later joined The New York Times, where he met Elias and found him to be a credible source.

Q: The title of your book refers to “the untold story of Watergate.” As you explain, the gang of Nixon operatives who broke into O’Brien’s office at the Watergate complex may very well have been looking for O’Brien’s notes on what Demetracopoulos had told him four years earlier. That would place Nixon’s relationship with the Greek junta at the center of both his 1968 and 1972 campaigns. How does that change our understanding of the Watergate scandal and the Nixon presidency?

A: Greece was peripheral to Nixon’s foreign policy interests, save for his preferring a staunch anti-communist dictatorship to a messy democratic government, human rights be damned, and as a source for illegal campaign funds to be milked by his tycoon fundraiser Tom Pappas.

Watergate is a metaphor for abuse of power during the Nixon years. The scandal didn’t begin with the planning for the June 1972 break-in. Its roots are in the illegal financing of the 1968 election, the potential disclosure of which caused, in the words of the historian Stanley Kutler, the “most anxiety” in the Nixon administration “for the longest period of time.”

Elias’ 1971 congressional testimony against Pappas pushed Nixon’s henchmen into overdrive and led to schemes to have Elias deported, not to mention looking away when the Greek junta plotted to have Elias kidnapped and killed. The sole opportunity to expose the reasons behind the Watergate break-in before the election was stopped because of untruthful attacks on Elias’ reputation.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that at least part of what the burglars were directed to find was whatever derogatory information the Democrats had on Nixon, especially financial documents related to foreign contributions.

Q: Demetracopoulos was a well-known, well-connected figure for many years, yet today he is all but forgotten. What do you think is the single most important lesson of his life and career?

A: Fame is fleeting. Two of the most influential columnists of that time, Walter Lippmann and Joseph Alsop are also largely forgotten today.

The central takeaway from Elias Demetracopoulos’ life is that one intrepid individual, against great odds, can make a difference — but standing up to abusive governments often entails profound risks, great personal sacrifices, and a lifetime of relentless attacks and harsh consequences.

To be a whistleblower requires the courage to jeopardize your career and even risk your life. But doing so can influence history.

Talk about this post on Facebook.

Album #9: Al Green, ‘Greatest Hits’

For those of us on the younger end of the baby boom, the great male soul singers came along a little too early. Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Sam Cooke et al. were integral parts of the 1960s. We’re children of the ’70s. But we had Al Green.

Starting in the early ’70s, Green recorded an extraordinary series of singles. It seemed like he was never off the radio during the first part of that decade. And why would anyone have wanted him to be? Green wasn’t a shouter like some of his predecessors; his voice was more delicate, weaving in and around the song, soaring into the upper register with ease and then back down again. Aretha Franklin may be the greatest singer of the past 75 years, but Green is my favorite. Most of his best moments are on “Greatest Hits,” released in 1975 and repackaged several times since then.

Could anyone hit a snare drum like Al Jackson Jr.? It may seem like a small thing, but there was a particular sound that Jackson got from his drum set, especially the snare, that instantly stamped those songs as Al Green songs. The band was as good as Jackson, and together they created magic.

The list of hits on “Greatest” is overwhelming, starting with “Tired of Being Alone.” President Obama memorably covered “Let’s Stay Together.” Probably my favorite is “L-O-V-E (Love),” which was released in 1975, as Green’s religious side was coming to the fore. Like a lot of Green’s best work, it’s kind of weird. it starts off as a typical love song, and then morphs into something else entirely:

I can’t explain this feeling
Can’t you see that salvation is freeing
I would give my life for the glory
Just to be able to tell the story
About love

You want more weird? Listen closely to his 1973 hit “You Ought to Be with Me,” which includes the line “You oughta be with me until I die.” The key word in the song is “die,” which he stretches out to form its own soaring one-word chorus. Yes, you’ve heard the song a bunch of times, but were you paying attention?

The 1995 CD re-release of “Greatest Hits” expanded the number of tracks from 10 to 15, adding “L-O-V-E (Love)” and “Love and Happiness,” originally part of “Greatest Hits Vol. 2,” and “Belle,” which he released just before he entered the ministry. For some reason, Spotify’s version harks back to the LP, so I’ll have to put together a playlist.

Green could be prickly. In an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” during his ’70s heyday, I remember him getting angry and calling out his band for some perceived offense. Then, in 2012, we had the privilege of seeing him in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was in fine voice and put on a terrific show. But at one point he complained to the audience that the promoter had wanted him to perform for more than an hour. I don’t think any of us thought that was an unreasonable request.

Green can be temperamental, but there are moments that are so perfect that you’re left breathless. If you go to YouTube, you can find two versions of Green singing the Sam Cooke civil-rights classic “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The first, from the 1995 concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, is, well, OK. He was clearly having a good time.

The second, from the 2001 United We Stand concert after 9/11, is transformative. Dressed in white, Green is completely serious, a picture of concentration and passion, encapsulating his art into five minutes of anguish and release. It is an astonishing performance.

As one of his albums proclaimed, Al Green is love.

Talk about this post on Facebook.