A New Lees on Life...
I remember with the simplest nostalgia sitting with a former executive director of the Massachusetts GOP and watching the 1988 election night returns.
He was jubilant, not because his hero George Bush senior had won the Presidency, but because republican Brian Lees zealous reformer and suburban puritan had been elected to the State Senate. Oh he predicted great things for this simpleminded businessman and former aide to U.S. Senator Ed Brooke....Brian was gonna bring the reign of the godly to Beacon Hill and clean up politics for all time in the Bay State.
Now, fifteen years later, sheer attrition among his endangered GOP colleagues has propelled Lees to the lonely eminence of being Senate Minority Leader. A meaningless position in this commonwealth, akin to being a Grand Admiral in the Ohio State Navy.
Once, long ago, Brian could've been somebody, a contender to quote Bud Schulberg. Alas the jerk legion calls and Brian is never one to forego the great muster of the vengeful and brainless.
His current patriotic project is to impose high fines from anti-war protesters to offset the costs of carting them off to the pokey when they civilly disobey. So get this straight, Brian an otherwise predictable fatuous yanker from Erewhon Ma. wants to raise taxes on war-protesters!
Taxes never go away even for the most committed anti-tax hysteric. Normally what is sold as a tax cut is more precisely a shift in the burden from one politically active cohort onto a more torpid subset of citizens. Governor Romney uses just this exact scheme by cutting local aid forcing localities to raise property taxes to keep the roof on the High School. The salubrious effects of this policy are immediate, the price of land goes up, only millionaires can buy land here, soon the entire electorate will be rich and will vote Romney in as Governor for Eternity.
Brian however, wants to apply this on a tactical scale against the latest outrageous out group i.e. anti-war demonstrators.
In effect he's using law enforcement as a cover for a new state revenue scheme....
Shilling for new taxes... look at what happened to the golden boy of election night 1988.
If Brian Lees had a shred of dignity or self respect he'd be Lieutenant Governor by now, but seventeen years of hauling water for a endless stream to GOP gubernatorial hacks, thieves, and mediocrities have reduced the Senate Minority Leader to a grubby ape-like political mentality.
Sad isn't it?