Praise the Lord and pass the ballots: Boston’s long Meninorama is about to end.
Tom Menino’s hagiographic sendoff has for the most part been toe-clenching, as a former colleague of ours might say. Sure, there have been the occasional whacks: Robert Campbell got in a few in his architectural digest of Boston development over the last 20 years, and Dig Boston got in more than a few digs in its valedictory.
But generally, Mistah Mayah has gotten the equivalent of a Duck Boat Parade from the local media.
So it was refreshing to read Scot Lehigh’s op-ed column about Menino in Saturday’s Boston Globe, especially these passages about “the counterproductive parts of his record.”
Topping that list is the way Boston’s public conversation suffered under a thin-skinned, insecure, often peevish mayor. City actors and observers quickly learned that Menino saw himself less as mayor than as sultan — and could be as petty and imperious as one when angry.
And he was nothing if not easily vexed.
Proposing a project, initiative, or idea that hadn’t first been cleared with the mayor was enough to put one crosswise with him. He was, meanwhile, hypersensitive about criticism and quick to take umbrage at those who differed on policy matters.
Truth is, Tom Menino may have been the smallest mayor in Boston’s history.
Twenty years or no.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 
mmmmmmumbles!