Battle Of The Bulger: The Mutter Of All Trials

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

The trial of reputed mobster James “Whitey” Bulger proceeds apace this week with the prosecution opening up FBI informant files detailing what came out of Bulger’s rat trap as he sold out friends and enemies alike. But today’s local dailies have – wait for it –  different versions of Bulger’s reaction to the revelations.

Start with the Boston Globe’s report:

Jurors see FBI files describing Bulger as informant

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James “Whitey” Bulger fed the FBI information for 15 years about everyone from New York Mafia don John Gotti to some of his closest South Boston associates, sometimes blaming others for his own alleged crimes, according to detailed reports presented in court Monday.

FBI informant files shown to jurors at Bulger’s racketeering trial indicate that in 1980 he warned his handler that “an armored car score is going down in the very near future” and named six men involved, including his longtime friend Patrick Linskey of South Boston.

“They expect the score to be in excess of a million dollars,” top echelon informant 1544, code for Bulger, advised the FBI, according to the report. “[Bulger] advised that the weak link is Patty Linsky [sic] and although crafty, Linsky [sic] is a drinker and would be the logical one to tail.”

Then the Globe story adds this . . .

Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.

 

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Why We Love The Stanley Cup Playoffs (What The Hell Just Happened? Edition)

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

When Milan Lucic scored at 12:11 of the third period to put the Boston Bruins up 2-1 in last night’s Stanley Cup Finals Game 6, the hardwatching staff was pretty sure the Chicago Blackhawks would come back to tie the game in regulation.

And so they did, at 18:44.

 

At which point the hardwatching staff – and apparently the Bruins – settled into overtime mode.

Until this happened 17 seconds later:

 

Hey – we love the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But, man, that just sucked.

In his 1952 book Chicago: The Second City, the great A.J. Liebling recalled his boyhood love of Rudyard Kipling, who wrote of Chicago in 1889, “Having seen it, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages . . . ”

Well yes, the Chicagoans certainly savaged the Bruins last night. And yes, we urgently desire never to see Chicago again.

At least not in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

 

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Mariano Rivera: “Pitching God”

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

From our Late to the Going-Away-Party desk

Last week – the hardworking staff has a serious periodical backlog – New York magazine ran a cover story on Mariano Rivera that was as sharp as the cut fastball he’s lived off for the past two decades.

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On the mound, God is always with Mariano Rivera, in victory and defeat. But baseball is a boys’ game, not a calling. And now, as he prepares to hang up his cleats, the greatest closer baseball has ever seen is embarking on his real mission.

What follows is a terrific reporting job by Lisa Miller, who got Rivera to open up about both his faith and his good works.

Sportswriters often discount athletes’ religiosity as a sideshow, and the secular viewers of cable TV may prefer the bloodless scrutiny of slo-mo video than to give credit to divine causes, but the full story of Rivera’s career is unmistakably a story about faith. On the mound, Rivera is implacable, a warrior with the Buddha’s face. But talking about faith with Rivera is like opening a bottle; years of feeling come out. He speaks less like a theologian than like an enthusiastic believer, channeling all his considerable charisma, curiosity, and preternatural seriousness into the conveyance of passion.

The article also details Rivera’s religious initiatives, including these:

[W]hen Rivera says “church,” as in “My plan after baseball is to focus on church,” he means something much bigger than a new space to pray in. What he has in mind is a brotherhood (and sisterhood) of Christ, a spiritual and material outreach without boundaries, giving help to whoever needs it wherever they are, in the form of school supplies, haircuts, hot meals, Thanksgiving turkeys, toys at Christmas, college scholarships, bed sheets and bath soap for Sandy victims, and on and on. (The Mariano Rivera Foundation already donates between $500,000 and a million dollars each year.) He wants to keep funding church start-ups, as he’s already done in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, California, and Florida, not to mention New York. “In Panama, we have done I don’t know how many,” he says.

It’s a fabulous piece. And one Mariano Rivera offering no one should miss.

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Wait – Nadal Can’t Beat THIS Guy?

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

Rafael Nadal just lost in the first round at Wimbledon . . . to the #135-ranked player in men’s tennis . . . in straight sets.

Huh?

From USA Today:

1372095255000-AFP-520852372-1306241335_3_4_r343_c0-0-340-450Nadal bounced early at Wimbledon again

WIMBLEDON, England — Rafael Nadal is out of Wimbledon early for the second year in a row.

Nadal, playing his first match since winning the French Open, was outplayed, outserved and ultimately ousted by Steve Darcis of Belgium, ranked No. 135 in the world, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (10-8), 6-4.

“I tried my best out there,” Nadal said. “I had my chances, it wasn’t possible.”

It’s the first first-round loss in a major for the two-time Wimbledon champion . . .

Nadal has turned into the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Tanned) of Wimbledon, having lost in the second round last year to Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic. Nadal spent the next seven months out with a knee injury, and it may be that history is repeating itself.

Nadal clearly was not at his best on Monday, not moving particularly well and struggling with a sore knee.

Nadal deflected questions about his health, saying “today is not the time to talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk about my knee,” he said. “Steve Darcis played a fantastic match. He deserved it. If I talk about my knee, it’s an excuse.”

Okay, but sounds like he’ll be talking about it eventually. Let’s just hope it’s not seven months from now.

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Our ‘Beat The Press Party’ Bakeoff (PBS=Panel’s Big Sneer Edition)

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

A nice little crisscross in this week’s Great Boston MediaWatch Dogfight: The tabloid went after a public broadcasting star journalist, while the public broadcaster cuffed around the tabloid’s star columnist.

Start, as usual, with the Underdog: The Boston Herald’s Press Party webcast featured this lineup:

Is the courtroom camera ban in the Whitey Bulger trial depriving the public of the chance to see the alleged mobster murderer get justice?

The Boston Herald’s “Press Party” panel tackles that questionimages and others in this week’s episode of the new, half-hour web show. The panel, led by host Joe Battenfeld, also looked at Herald columnist Howie Carr’s role in the testimony of former Bulger “Hitman” John Martorano; President Obama’s attempts at damage control by giving a friendly interview on PBS; and the media’s coverage of the Boston Bruins’ Stanley Cup run. The “#Mediafail” of the week was CNN reporter Jake Tapper’s decision to take a role on a soap opera.

Regarding the interview Obama did on PBS’s Charlie Rose show, the consensus was that it was a softball affair, with Rose not even raising the issues of the Benghazi embassy murders, the IRS/Tea Party rumpus, or the harassment of AP and Fox News reporters.

Reasons offered by the panel for the non-grilling: 1) Rose cut a deal with Obama not to ask tough questions in exchange for the exclusive; or 2) Rose was afraid to ask tough questions because “Obama is his boss [and] pays Rose’s salary.”

Okay, then. Glad we sorted that out.

Crosstown at WGBH’s Beat the Press, one topic of conversation was Carr Crash:

The Boston Herald’s Howie Carr is facing some blowback this Screen_Shot_2013-06-21_at_5.02.27_PMweek after confessed killer John Martorano testified at the James “Whitey” Bulger trial, testimony that included details about his financial arrangement with Carr for the book “Hitman”.

That discussion – wait! stop the ‘Beat The Press Party’ Bakeoff! WGBH is now posting BTP video on YouTube. So see for yourself:

 

The consensus: Carr got too close to Martorano and went too soft on him for journalistic comfort.  Then again, as a couple of panelists said, Carr’s not really a journalist, is he?

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Why We Love The Stanley Cup Playoffs (blackhawks win in regulation Edition)

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

The hardwatching staff comes not to praise the Chicago Blackhawks’ Bruination in Game 5, but to appraise it.

First off, the ‘Hawks deserved to win. They outplayed the Bruins in every aspect of the game.

Second, the loss of Patrice Bergeron is major.

 

Third, will Jaromir Jagr ever find the back of the net? (See 6:10.)

 

Finally, no ref would ever call this trip of Torey Krug in the final minute of play.

 

See you Monday night.

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WSJ On Markey/Gomez Race: Mass. Dems Mean, National GOP Withholds Means

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

The Bay State is blessed! There are two – count ’em, two – pieces in the Weekend Wall Street Journal about the Ed Markey/Gabriel Gomez special U.S. Senate bakeoff.

First up: This piece about conservative donors holding back on Gomez, in contrast to their contributions to Scott Brown in his 2010 special U.S. Senate race.

OB-XY213_masen0_D_20130621180743GOP Donors Are Sitting Out Massachusetts Senate Race

Next week’s special Senate election in Massachusetts is offering a stark contrast to a similar contest three years ago that came to symbolize a newly emboldened Republican Party.

In 2010, a bevy of conservative groups and outside supporters surged in to help the Republican candidate, Scott Brown, pull off an upset victory that shocked Democrats and complicated their quest to overhaul the country’s health-care laws.

This time, such groups are giving scant help to the Republican nominee, Gabriel Gomez, in his uphill battle against veteran U.S. Rep. Ed Markey for the seat vacated by Secretary of State John Kerry. The dearth of outside support has left Mr. Gomez exposed to a wave of ads from the Markey campaign and its allies, stirring anger in some Republican circles that the party is being too hesitant and too timid.

Then again, that reluctance to grubstake Gomez might just be a grasp of the obvious by conservative groups, given this Eric Convey WSJ op-ed:

Mr. Markey’s much better funded campaign has pulled out all ED-AQ918_CC_D_20130621180232the stops, launching a barrage of negative ads that Mr. Gomez has had a hard time countering. Between Jan. 1 and June 5, Mr. Markey raised $7.87 million, compared with Mr. Gomez’s $1.78 million. As of June 5, Mr. Markey had $2.26 million on hand; Mr. Gomez, $997,000.

Translation: Money talks. Gomez walks.

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Globe Floods The Zone With Hernandez Coverage

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

Both local dailies are on the Aaron Hernandez whodunit like Brown on Williamson. The Boston Herald devotes half its front page to it:

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Inside are double-barreled columns from Ron Borges and Joe Fitzgerald(the latter a Never Mind to a piece Joe Fitz wrote about what a great guy Hernandez was upon his arrival at Gillette Stadium . . .

Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.

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Quote o’ the Day (How Obama Beat Romney Edition)

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

National political correspondent Jim Rutenberg has a killer piece in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine about the digital whiz kids who steered Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Nut graf:

Previous campaigns would make decisions about how to direct their television-advertising budgets largely based on hunches and deductions about what channels the voters they wanted to reach were watching. Their choices were informed by the broad viewership ratings of Nielsen and other survey data, which typically led to buying relatively expensive ads during evening-news and prime-time viewing hours. The 2012 campaign took advantage of advanced set-top-box monitoring technology to figure out what shows the voters they wanted to reach were watching and when, resulting in a smarter and cheaper — if potentially more invasive — way to beam commercials into their homes. The system gave Obama a significant advantage over Mitt Romney, according to Democrats and many Republicans (at least those who were not on Romney’s media team).

How much of an advantage? Money quote (tip o’ the pixel to Politico Playbook):

Obama ran nearly twice as many cable ads as Romney did, 588,006, on more than twice as many channels, 100 … [A]n analysis by the Republican ad-buying firm National Media found that Obama paid roughly 35 percent less per broadcast commercial than Romney did. Kantar Media CMAG, an ad-monitoring firm, showed that Obama and his supporting super PAC got nearly 40,000 more spots on the air than Romney and his super PACs did despite spending roughly $90 million less.

That’s a clock-cleaning of historic – and aspirational – proportions.

Your 2016 presidential campaign goes here.

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Dead Blogging The Boston Mayoral Forum At The BPL

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Campaign Outsider

Well the hardworking staff trundled down to the Boston Public Library yesterday afternoon to catch the Education Matters: Boston Mayoral Candidate Forum hosted by MassINC, The Boston Foundation, TeachPlus, and others.

The forum went from 5:30 to 7 pm, and suffice it to say if you chose “longer school day” for your drinking game, you were knee-walking by 5:50.

Other highlights:

• Outside the BPL, there were lots of Charlotte Golar Richie signs on lampposts, and three Bill Walczak signholders.

• Inside the BPL there was a sign that said No Campaign Literature Allowed in the Library.

• In the Live Feed Overflow Room, there was a big screen that featured a wide shot from the back of the Rabb Lecture Hall, which showed all the candidates in miniature – a perfect metaphor for the mayoral campaign at this stage.

• Inside the Rabb Lecture Hall, the eight candidates who showed up – John Barros, Daniel F. Conley, John Connolly, Charlotte Golar Richie, Mike Ross, Bill Walczak, Marty Walsh, and Charles Yancey (Felix Arroyo was a no-show) – delivered the predictable bromides about supporting the Boston Teachers Union (“stop scapegoating teachers!”), challenging the Boston Teachers Union (“start scapegoating teachers!”), expanding charter schools (“how can you limit something that works?”), limiting charter schools (“let’s make all schools great!”), retaining outstanding teachers (“great teachers matter!”), supporting arts education (“arts programs matter!”), and etc.

• The hardwatching staff happened to be sitting next to a Boston public school teacher who punctuated the proceedings with, variously, Oh, brother, Thank you! and Um-hmm! 

• There should have been a cash register on stage so that every candidate proposal with a cost attached to it would trigger a ka-ching!  That’s the theme song for the Boston mayoral rumpus right now.

• Over all, the forum was really interesting. In a boring sort of way.

 

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