Friday, October 17, 2003

Tunnel Revision or throwing a Mitt fit

Governor Decaf is still beefin' with the Great and General Court over which name goes on Boston's Big Dig.
The Legislature, being sensible for once, wants to name the tunnel for the late Speaker of the U.S. House, Thomas P. O'Neill Junior. That seems only fair since O'Neill scrounged up all the initial funding for the whole mishaugas.
Romney is still fixated on naming it "The Liberty Tunnel" which he insists somehow confers new honors on Massachusetts' veterans.
This is the flag draped successor to his earlier scheme to hold an internet contest to determine the name of the tunnel.
What the current controversy does in an admirable way is hold a mirror up Mitt's lack of gravitas and thin political skin.
Faced with a simple "no" from the Transportation Committee on an admittedly minor matter, Romney has opted to bang the podium, throw a tantrum, and demonize his opponents as unpatriotic.
He "went to the funeral" of a soldier killed in Iraq this somehow sez to the slack jawed yokels in the State Senate, that Big Mitt means it.
No doubt the grieving family broke out into tearful smiles when Willard promised them their loss would be immortalized in "The Liberty Tunnel".
Are these the sort of childish fugues his colleagues had to endure at Bain Capital Group all these years?
Now I'm begining to wonder....
The Onanist in Chief and his staff have even gone on record as sneering at the "local mania" for naming public buildings after politicians.
Spoken like a true Viceroy.
Spiteful bastards when they don't get their way aren't they?
And not for nothing, but our Civic Spaces are being relentlessly assaulted by the arrogance of private commerce.
Naming rights to civic arenas are routinely sold off to sinister energy conglomerates and clothing manufacturers whose hiring practices in foreign countries perpetuate new form of serfdom.
Mitt of course has nothing to say about this malign trend which is a blight upon a free democratic polity.
Meanwhile here at home the democratic space shrinks as sports announcers are contractually threatened to call it the "Fleet Center" or whatever.
So there is something quaint and ridiculous about this famous commerce worshipper, Mitt Romney demanding the State Legislature bow to his will over the "Liberty Tunnel".
Why not auction the naming rights off, as we have done with virtually all other publicly paid for spaces in this country?
Call it the Halliburton Tunnel, the Hasbro Road, the Enron Hole, or the Bain Capital Gruppe Expressway...
What better way to honor our veterans than to forget our rights as citizens and sell off a fat chunk of our legacy?
This is the problem with having a wealthy pampered businessman with no training in the public sphere as Governor.
Nobody has ever said "no" to this jerk-off back in his palmy private sector days so of course he doesn't like it and gets riled like a stubborn five year old.
There is something equally childish about disparaging a departed statesman, if Romney can't achieve O'Neill's stature he'll dick on the late Speaker's memory.
In all
Sick
Demented
Typical...

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