Nothing like a good slapfight between the Boston Globe’s editorial board and its newsroom to get the juices flowing.

The back story:

On Tuesday the Globe’s Metro section featured a report on the demotion of a senior Boston police commander who happened to supervise Detective Thomas M. Menino, Jr., the son of Boston mayor Tom Menino. The piece called the demotion “a surprise decision that has sparked questions among the ranks over whether City Hall was exerting an unusual level of influence over the management of the police department.”

The piece – how to say this? – hung together like the Red Sox after Game 3 of the ALDS. There were a lot of “members of the department hypothesizing” and there was confusion and conjecture among members of the commissioner’s command staff.” Oh, yes – and did I mention that the demotion occurred four-and-a-half months ago?

(On the same day the Globe also ran a story with this lead: “The Menino administration approved a $120,000 payment to a Quincy drug suspect in 2001 to quietly settle a federal civil suit that accused four Boston police officers – including the mayor’s son – of fracturing his skull while arresting him in Quincy, nearly a mile outside the Boston city limits.” Despite the eight-year lag,though that was new old news, since ” the details were never publicly disclosed until the Globe requested information last month.” All in all, not the Menino family’s favorite edition of the Globe.)

The front story:

Fast-forward to today’s Globe, which featured an editorial headlined, “Police flap isn’t Menino’s fault.” The piece defends Menino and attacks the story, asserting that:

 Mayor Menino would have been especially naive to pick this fight . . . It would make sense, however, that the department’s superior officers’ union, which endorsed mayoral challenger Michael Flaherty, might be stoking this fire.

And then, for the coup de grace, this:

Lately, Menino has been dismissing any criticism of his administration as so much election-season mischief. In this case, he has a point.

 Yikes! It’s all so . . . Wall Street Journal. 

Wonder who, if anyone, is going to fire back in defense of the newsroom. Or maybe they’ll just take it outside during recess.