Elias Quoted:

I'm actually quoted verbatim off the .08 Site Comments Board on the Boston Phoenix Website.

The rumor on the street is,

Tim Murray the current Mayor of Worcester wants to run for Lieutenant Governor on the democratic ticket naturally.
The Blue Mass Group has the clues and details such as they are.

Don't know much about this guy, he could be a saint or a sinner, I do know there is a something of a vacuum in the Lt. Governor's race and the entry of a seasoned pol with a constituency and a fundraising base could be a good thing.
Right now the Lt. Guv's race is dominated by un-tried well meaning activists, there is a need for higher profile people therein.
And this might shake the race out a bit, clearly Murray would be competing for the towns-and-cities vote with Deb Goldberg from the git-go.
As for Andrea Silbert and Sam Kelley...can't assess the impact on them other than to speculate the race is gonna get tighter and media scrutiny will ramp up.
So polish up those stump speeches kids.
Moreover, this a Boston-suburban centered pack, it might be nice to see what Worcester County has to say in respect of the burning issues of the day.

"Springtime for Romney"

Or so sings Scot Lehigh in his latest Sycophantic Screed.
Scot is the original imbedded reporter, nowhere in this long appraisal of Mitt's elevation of the chairmanship of the GOP Governors Conference does he dare question the ethics of morality of Willard's ongoing abandonment of the Commonwealth.
Nope its all props for Mitt's clever political manuevering in the lead up to Campaigns 2006 and 2008.
Oh there are some clouds on Mitt's horizon...somewhere out on the hustings Willard might just be forced into a position where the inherent phoniness of his Moderate GOP bona-fides might at lat be exposed.
Scot practically shudders at this prospect.

Meanwhile, Peter S. Canellos is idly talking up a "McCain-Romney" Ticket in 2008, a columnist's Wet Dream Team surely...The ubiquitous McCain paired with an entirely ersatz moderate Republican Governor for Veep...the punditariat will masturbate itself into oblivion at the mere thought.

Kultur Notes:

Why does Boston Catholic Television sell airtime to their nominal religious competition evangelical protestantism?
Is the Dioceses in that much financial pain that they must sell prime time slots to freakjobs like Jack Van Impe and those godawful Left Behind Films starring that aging Tiger Beat Lothario Kirk Cameron?
To quote the Timeless Shane "Hurricane" Helms "Whassup wid dat??"
Normally BC-TV is given over to the harmless antics of Mother Angelica re-runs, clean cut priests running incoherent game shows, the rosary and talking heads which sometimes feature my old college chum Father Stan Fortuna.
But then on Sunday Nights seemingly every born again zombie from here to Waco starts screaming for cash and blood.
Its disconcerting, no it is sad quite frankly.

BullSchmidt

vulgar and ill-tempered Congresswoman Jean Schmidt(R-Ohio) has been rightly chastised for calling her colleague John Murtha a coward.
Only afterwards did this profoundly stupid and surly woman discover that Rep. Murtha was after all a decorated veteran of the Marine Corps.
Left twisting in the wind, Schmidt did the "right thing" and apologised and then blamed the whole thing on da liberal media.
Ho hum just another day in the Rightical Chic Utopia.
Except for this, somewhere in this whole mishaugas there is an unwholesome assumption, ergo that the only thing in question here is Jean Schmidt's attack on a decorated combat veteran. Implicit in this sub-rosa reasoning is the malign notion that she'd be justified in calling say Ed Markey a coward if he'd a gotten up and called for a pullout from Iraq.
And isn't it interesting that the only response they've got for a call to pull-out is an assault on the advocate's manhood?
I mean...talk about ideological bankruptcy.
You see how all this just enables the bullying? And how it ever easier to indulge in this kind of petty brutality on the floor of the US Congress?
look for more of this kind of nonsense as the bodies keep piling up.

A ray of light in the darkness...

Somone decides to speak up on behalf of Senator Kerry.

John Kerry as Jury Foreman

Yahoo's News Summary gets all cutesy with the news that JK got yanked for Jury Duty down at Suffolk County Court House.
Of course, nowhere in the this article does it mention that our Junior Senator was once a District Attorney, and might on the face of that and other accomplishments make an unusually able Jury Foreman.
Maybe too able...can't figure out why he wasn't excused quite frankly, but it sets a good example for other potential jurors I guess.
And if you want some especially gruesome reading click "Discuss" at the bottom of said article, the scum of the nation are, as usual, in full cry.

Blogleft Event...

there is an upcoming event for local bloggers being run by Lynn of "Left in Lowell" fame. The details can be found Here.
Hell, I'll be there...Humble Elias will be the one dressed very very nondescriptly.

Flip....and Flop...

Governor Romney has abruptly thrown over the notional Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative after praising the pact as "good business" not two weeks ago.
Of course, since then, the usual coalition of potential campaign contributors have gone to work on Willard with the desired result achieved in but fourteen short working days.
That has to be local record for abject spinelessness.
Ah but these oil and gas guys know how to play a political amateur like Romney...promises of money, pledges of support in tropical primaries, jobs for the lackeys who carried his banner in the legislative races, its an old story believe me.
And all this comes at a odd and telling moment for Mitt and his ambitions to be President, suddenly improbably, he looks like a credible candidate.
Look at the competition...Frist is up on ethics charges, Santorum is falling apart like a cheap toy, Jeb's state has been reduced to picturesque rubble...that leaves Condi, McCain and Mitt as the only GOP aspirants who are unscathed and ready.
So of course, he is throwing over the Greenhouse Gas Initiative, he is after all if nowhere else but in his own mind, the Front Runner for 2008.
Nonetheless, for you "principled conservatives" out there take heed, see how quickly Mitt changes up when there is benefit or commodity in the air.
He made be sold to you as a number of things, but please when the time comes, DON'T buy into any of that nonsense about Romney's lonely courage!

Mary Matalin on the Imus Show today...

caught a few minutes of her extended rant this morning on the way to work. Humble Elias no longer drives to work every day so today was an anomaly.
Truly my friends, there is nothing more exquisite, no finer vintage of sheer schadenfreude to be had than the sick sad spectacle of Mary Matalin whining like a schoolgirl over the "criminalization of politics".
This would be the same Mary Matalin who as Bush I's campaign flunky made it her life's mission to paint Hilary Clinton as a corrupt shyster lawyer who wanted to pee in the Men's Room and sell your children to Castro.
Ah Mary truly what can we say? Only that politics gets criminalized, wehen crooks go in for politics.
And really good luck with that "Everyone in town knew that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent" line, it sounds like you are preparing an insanity defense, for your husband and kid's sake lets hope it works.
Maybe you should start dressing in rags and affecting the mannerisms of the Simpson's "Cat Lady" tossing felines at unwary reporters.
***
Still, you have to give Matalin credit, Libby, Rove and Cheney are all about to get frog marched off to Leavenworth (and who knows Mary might be in that number as well) and she is still ever shrill in her insistence that it is all Joe Wilson's fault.
Oh and Bob Woodward? He is man of integrity, so squeaketh Mary.
Honestly Emmett Kelly and the Clown Car at Ringling Brothers Circus was not so funny as this.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Shameful...

Romney is whipping up the tattered remnants of the state GOP to gather signatures for the anti-gay marriage ballot question.
I'm too god-damned tired today to rant on about what a bad idea this ballot question is, I've already quoted Abraham Lincoln at length with respect to this malicious perversion of "popular sovereignty".
No I just wanna say I think it's appalling that the State GOP is so desperate and ideologically bankrupt as to go whoring after the fag-bashing vote. This proposal is a great way to keep their base in a state of morbid terror and excitement and its fundraising potential is limitless (Especially when you factor in the out-of-state-wowsers) but as policy the gay marriage ballot question is a moral and ethical catastrophe.
These ass-holes actually propose to ride to power in 2006 over the backs of a minority of their fellow citizens....nothing is more reprehensible...nothing.
If this question does make it onto the ballot in 2006 then i urge my readers (all six of you) to vote against any restrictions on the right to marry in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
To place the rights of a minority before the electorate is in and of itself the very negation of personal sovereignty.
There...I've said my peace, let the rubble fall where it may.

Spiteful Joanie is at it again...

She must write this "spineless dems" shit twice a month now.
Her argument today seems particularly strained in that John Edwards and John Kerry are somehow complicit in Bush's catastrophes because they believed his lies.
Which is naught but the same line of attack the President favored on Friday last in his celebrated Veterans Day harangue before the troops.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Barking Mad on the Potomac?

the trendily conservative Washington Times (Owed by that paragon of two fisted Americanism The Rev. Sun Myung Moon) seems to think GWB might have a few problems...upstairs.

Fletcher Knebel once touched on this very subject in his novel The Night of Camp David...and of course true devotees of political fiction recall the sorry fate of Allen Drury's "President Edward M. Jason".

February, 1952

Whenever the praetorian class gets into serious trouble, they shudder, bulge their eyes and start invoking the hallowed example of Harry Truman's lonely courage to keep their spirits up.
That would be the same Harry Truman that the praetorians and punditariat of 1952 were hell bent on driving from office by fair means or foul.
Such is the case today with that Laughing Young Senescence Jeff Jacoby who compares his tattered hero George Bush to the late President Truman.
As I've said before, the problem with Jeff is, not so much his conservatism as his glibness, superficiality and charmless gullibility.
He forgets that February 1952 (The Month of Truman's 22% Approval Rating) was a killing time for Harry S. Truman, McCarthy was running amok, the electorate was pissed off at him for firing General MacArthur and the war in Korea was at a stalemate.
The Jeff Jacoby's of that far off era were calling him every name in the book and braying for impeachment....when they weren't bellowing for atomic war and apocalypse now. When Truman left office, Allen Drury noted in his Senate Diary that the President was a feisty gamecock whose blundering had nonetheless brought the World to the brink of war and the US to the brink of defeat worldwide.
Yipes!
Did Harry fly off to an army depot to denounce his opponents as dupes and cowards on Veteran's Day? Did he get loaded up on something and go staggering through press appearances like a berserk rock star? Did he retreat to Camp David to rage and pout?
Did Truman lie to get us into Korea and then lie about the lying???
No.
But he didn't exactly prosper either, in due course a now forgotten Tennessee pol named Estes Kefauver beat Truman in the New Hampshire Primary and compelled the President to decline re-election. In effect for all his now celebrated heroism and Missouri contrariness, Harry threw in the towel after almost eight years at the top.
People forget that part of the story.
In time, much of Harry's pugnacity and good judgement was vindicated, but we shouldn't conflate that with George Bush Jr's stupidity, bluster and infantile stubborness...because after all there is a difference between being right and being an angry self deluded freak.
So you see, there really wasn't any comeback for Truman in February 1952, he kept on with his job, did his best for the troops in the field and remained honest and upright.
Very little of the same can be said of President Bush.

Sick
Demented
Typical

The never ending Search for the Worst and the Stupidest

goes on and on.
Is this the same Michael Graham who got caught taking "pundit payola" from the Bush Admin?
Ghod where does WTKK find em'?
They must have to look under rocks, that is the only explanation.

"It is all John Kerry's Fault!"

or so the President screamed into the microphone on Veterans's Day.
Well, once a dismal little prick, always a dismal little prick I say.
Who else but our oafish graceless President would defame the honor a REAL veteran in front of our very own armed forces? A callow and desperate performance that calls to mind the Emperor Nero's frantic attempts to win back the loyalty of his wavering praetorians.
I begin to think Bush is losing it for real, he is out of ideas and out of luck so it seems. And we are stuck with his tantrums and increasingly bizarre behavior til' 2009.

Deval Patrick in Menotomy Part II

last week the local democrats hosted a "candidate night" wherein the usual suspects can brush up their stump speeches in front of a carefully vetted audience whilst the Town Committee rakes in some necessary scratch.
And there is a cash bar too...not a bad take in for a famously sleepy burg like Menotomy.
Alas on the gubernatorial level, the only attendee was the ubiquitous Deval Patrick, Galvin hasn't announced yet (Note to Billy, just announce already willya!?? Leave the Drama Queen Act to Romney) and Reilly was a no-show. This was slightly disappointing as I've yet to take Tom's measure up close and personal.
Galvin I've seen in action back in '02.
As such it was another sterling performance from Patrick, his stump speech has gotten tighter since April and he is still calling out Romney on the right emotional issues. Patrick has also mastered the art of the dodge (He sounded down on Hanscom AFB expansion but said nothing definite)and the resolute unpopular stance (He is for the Cape Wind Farm).
Patrick also made a charming admission to the effect that he is not an education expert.
Good god such candor!
Most of the Great and General Court and the Executive Department of the Commonwealth have already formed a vast College of Pedagogy on Beacon Hill and here is Deval Patrick declining admission??
It was the most sensible thing said all night.
The man speaks well and is undeniably charismatic, but is Massachusetts ready for him?
By that I mean, what does he have to say to Shrewsbury, Bellingham or Greenfield to bring them over into the democratic column next year?
2002 witnessed the political immolation of two female candidates for Governor (Jingle Money and O'Brien) who can say that 2006 won't occasion a Waterloo for Deval Patrick?
I'm just not sure the Commonwealth is ready...I wish it was but I have my doubts. Since the Imperial Glory Days of Ed Brooke, African Americans haven't fared too well in statewide races.
Anyone else out there remember another bright articulate go-getter named Augie Grace?
***
Then out rolled the Candidates for Lieutenant Governor, chiefly earnest Sam Kelley and Deb Goldberg. Andrea Silbert was a no-show.
Frankly nobody impressed in this field, Kelley is a doctor and an activist but he is new to the game and hardly more qualified than Kerry Healey for the Office he seeks.
Goldberg on the other hand is well spoken and smart, but she is a selectperson in Brookline which is way down in the political minor leagues. She wants to be a voice for cities and towns, but how that plays in Peru and Mendon I do not know.
Frankly we could use a stronger candidate or two in the Lt. Governor's race, Senator Havern was in the back of the room...he is an able man but he has a good solid committee assignment and the state senate is well run these days...so why bail on a sure thing?
Reps, Marzilli, Kaufman and Paulsen were all there too...but you don't see them thinking about a race for Lieutenant Governor either.
Thus is the field is left to do-it-yourself politicians, activists and earnest uplifters.
Then Cam Kerry (The Senator's Brother) got up and rolled out his stem-winder in anticipation of a run for Secretary of State. HE came off as reasonably well-informed and earnest. My only cavil is that he sounds like his brother in every way and has a slightly tentative tone to his voice, gotta work on that a bit. Otherwise, Cam seems like a sure bet in the sparsely attended S of S primary.
Of course, if his brother had won last year, anyone else out there doubt Cam would be running all out for Governor this year?
The candidates for DA were all there as well, but that race has a serious embarrassment of riches goin' on. It is hard to pick out one man who overawes the others.

Up to his old tricks...

at a meeting of the conservative Federalist Society this week, Governor Romney laughed uproariously when his hosts compared Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to Klansmen and then got up to denounce the Commonwealth's Supreme Judicial Court as a bunch of brie-eating faghags.
The whole sick sad story can be found here.

Of course, a few hours later an abashed Governor Romney was compelled to "back off" those remarks and absolve Kennedy and Kerry of any kanoodling with the Klan. Senators John and Ted seem to have taken it in stride, Mitt just can't seem to attend any of these movement conservative events without either saying something stupid or laughing like a trained chimp at some slur at the Commonwealth.
None of this made Romney look particularly decisive or strong, so Humble Elias has to wonder, do these Federalist Society-Wednesday Group types really want someone this servile as President?
Trust me, folks, Mitt will say anything, slur anyone and abase himself in the crudest fashion possible in the quest for the White House.
This is hardly the M.O. of the GOP's next Man on Horseback in other words.
Good ghod if this keeps up by 2008 Mitt Romney will be explicitly denying that he was ever Governor of such a politically incorrect place as Massachusetts.
So really, if the lege quietly impeached him, they'd be doing Mitt a favor.
:)
Ah but Humble Elias kids, he kids because he loves, he loves...to kid.

Health Care Blogging (Revised)

My sources on Beacon Hill tell me the current round of health care legislation is gonna end up in conference committee and may well languish there for a good long time.
As callous as it sounds, that might be a good thing.
A bill of this size should be thoroughly publicly vetted prior to passage, the natural venue for such a process is a gubernatorial campaign.
Then maybe we can get a proper debate about issues important to the residents of the Commonwealth instead of the usual wowser pleasing nonsense from out Governor Romney. But of course for this to happen, Willard has to sh*t or get off the pot politically, and so far he is taking his sweet time with that decision.
And another thing, why write a mediocre bill now, that the Governor feels he can sign and use is campaign lit drops up in Epsom Circle, when a better bill could be had with a democrat in the corner office?
I say write a bill the Governor can't sign and let both sides make their case next year.
Or are we afraid to make a campaign for state office revolve around purely state issues?

Please note...

Sam Kelley, a democratic candidate for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, has seen fit to link to this, "The Little blog that Cried". Humble Elias has a nominal policy of link reciprocity (He needeth the click throughs)...however the link below does not repeat not constitute an endorsement of Kelley's candidacy at this time.
Chimes at Midnight will make endorsements (such as they are) when the time is right and the democratic slate has filled out.

Waterloo Preview...

When the piously praetorian President of the United States can't get a vengeful yap elected Governor of Virginia on a promise of blood and dynamite...then there is something seriously wrong with movement conservatism mah frens'.
The bastards tried everything in Virginia right down to a bizarre sandbox screed accusing Kaine of being soft on Nazism.
And it all blew up in their face...lovely couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Of courseelsewhere in the nation, to spite Massachusetts, Texas has outlawed marriage, sodomy and male-only bathrooms...I forget which.
Sadly setbacks like this only intensify the GOP's desire to find ever more bloodcurdling issues with which to inflame wowserdom. So get ready for yet another propaganda fugue on the subject on gay marriage...it was quite literally their only winning issue last night.
Already Texas anti gay marriage activists are talking up a constitutional amendment, something that would really be a wow on the hustings next year.
of course this is nothing but movement conservatism's version class warfare, they've marked out a single sector of society, preferably small and slightly exotic for punishment, Lenin couldn't have done it better.
However, its a long way to November 2006, and they will undoubtedly be other issues out there.

Sundays with Eileen...

for lack of anything else to do, Globe columnist Eileen McNamara took time out on Sunday to jack up Maureen Dowd ace columnista for the Globe's better half, the New York Times.
This old stuff to any readers of the Chimes at Midnight (all seven of you), Humble Elias has been criticizing MoDo for years....anyone else remember her appearances on Imus wherein Dowd would wax rhapsodic over George Bush Jr's Presidential Candidacy?
"HE is just SO comfortable in his skin" Dowd would sigh.
I remember it well.
Of course now, Maureen has supposedly turned on the President for what exact reasons we cannot know, after all, Dowd's belief system seems to be stale mixture of "Sex in the City" and the book from "Of Thee I Sing".
For all we know, Bush wore white after Labor Day and that was the last straw for Maureen.
Of course, Maureen's glib post ideological snarkiness has opened doors for other writers, Joan Vennochi being MoDo's most consistent local imitator (Or she would be, if Joanie had a shred of talent, which she does not). So as a style Dowd's syndrome seems to be roaring success.
The irony is of course, Eileen McNamara has no discernable belief system to speak of either, much like everyone else in the Globe's Op Ed Section. It seems a bit late to be practicing your stone tossing in the crystal cathedral...but there you have it.

The notion of

Bush's admin, sitting down last Thursday for a half-day cram session on ethics, is nothing sort of hilarious.
Imagine honest G-9 Admin Assistants being forced to sit next to glowering corruptards like Karl Rove and theft apologists like Andy Card is straight out of the pages of the late Terry Southern.
Ethics, insofar as they apply to pulbic life, are the very things these bastards are trying to destroy. Ethics after all means public service presupposes a need for a honest and competent administration, something La Famiglia Arbusto must annihilate if they are ever to sell the nation en masse to Walmart,China and News Corp and thus achieve the conservative eschaton.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

FEMA has the nerve to bill Louisiana some 4 Billion Dollars

for their disaster "recovery" efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
This is akin to getting a bill from the inept and crooked roofing firm who burned down half your house and put your oldest kid in the hospital with a broken leg.
Blanco should fight this in the courts lest the whole thing degenerate into shotgun justice.
4 BILLION meanwhile we are handing out free money in the streets of Iraq to every rug merchant and Mullah who'll take!

Sick
Demented
Typical...

What is the difference between Tom Delay

and the hapless geek who allegedly tried to rob the Maida Pharmacy in East Arlington this Summer?
Operationally nothing, they are both accused crooks in their respective professions be it a stick up man supposedly out for oxycontin or an alleged boodle addicted vengeance hack from Texas.
However, Tom Delay, gets to pick his own judge at his trial, whilst the Maida Pharmacy perp must take his chances in the Courts of this Noble Commonwealth.

Sick
Demented
Typical...

Right on schedule...

Jeff Jacoby blats out another one of his "Everything is Peachy Keen in Iraq" columns.
And just as predictably, the guerillas blew up another half a dozen of our brave soldiery.
His current column though, does contain this exquisite howler:
Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time?
If the war is now about said struggle against tyrannical Ba'thism, then why are we re-hiring Saddam's Preening Prussian Officer Class for the nascent Iraqi security forces?
Because the old Fanatic, the Young Fanatic, General Haddad, Mullah Achmed or Major Ashami will all need shock troops when it come time to proclaim the neu Iraqi Ordnung.
And who are we to stand in their way?
Meanwhile poor Jeff stuck in the rear with the gear keeps spouting this nonsense in the forlorn hope that if we simply re-shuffle the ethnic cards enough times in Iraq we will come up with a winning hand.

Jeff's naivete' stopped being charming months ago quite frankly.

Boy oh boy, Janeane Garofalo is starting to look like a prophetess, didn't she say Iraq would get thousands of US Troops killed for no good reason? And that was back when all was high fives and slam dunks from here to the Heritage Foundation.
Ah but none of that registers with Jeff, he is playing the stern modern patriot, that is to say completely unwilling sacrifice either blood or treasure for this mishaugas on the Euphrates.

A Little Touch of Harry in the Night...

Why shouldn't Harry Reid invoke secret session rules to force a review of US war policy in Iraq?
Was it sneaky and underhanded?
Yes.
Ah then he is the minority leader of a Senate run by the National Cat Torturer Doctor Bill Frist a notorious crook and abject toady for the White House.
Desperate times require desperate measures.
Hell last week GOP Staffers on the Hill were allegedly gathering anti-Harriet Miers information as a prelude to her aborted appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Why shouldn't the democrats take partisan advantage in such troubled and chaotic times?
Harry amde Frist look like a querelous weakling...a page right out of the Gingrich playbook.
And what the hell it worked, the Senate GOP caved and gave Reid everything he demanded.
Does the GOP really expect to rewarded for misgoverning and bankrupting the nation?
I say GO Harry GO!
Lets have some more of the same, maybe this will embolden the democrats to play to their base with a filibuster of Judge Alito, a move I heartily support.
Let that groveling bastard Frist invoke the nuclear option, he will do it sooner or later anyway at least let it go down on terms favorable to us.

Its Autumn...

and we still have no idea as to Mitt Romney's pending political plans. Wasn't he supposed to enlightened us, his "loyal" serfs by now?
I think the current political melt-down in DC and all the weather crises around the country are crowding Willard off the front page.
And we all know how much he hates that.
Nonetheless I still say there is a strong fifty fifty chance he'll run for re-election. The usual collection of corruptards, virtue pimps and zealous hacks would much prefer Romney hang on as Governor as opposed to enduring what may be a contested GOP gubernatorial primary.
However if he does clock out, I do think that its the patriotic duty of everyone within earshot to bombard him with high level policy type questions.
Like does he favor the current GOP brand of reactionary socialism aka "Borrow and Squander"?
Would he nominate the odious likes of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court?
Will Mitt clean up FEMA the way he cleaned up the Department of Conservation and Recreation?
The answer of course to all this is "yes" but it'll be fun to get him on record as a reliably unimaginative and craven lout.