Herald Hits Tsarnaev Trifecta

December 17, 2013

The hardworking staff predicted, the feisty local tabloid delivered.

After yesterday’s buckshot, today’s Boston Herald aimed its big guns at the stately local broadsheet’s Pulitzer-seeking takeout, The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev.

Start with Yin ‘n’ Yang Twins (we know – it doesn’t make sense, does it?) Howie Carr and Margery Eagan.

Carr’s drive-by:

OH, BROTHER! WHAT A DOOZY

Globe pens ‘Joker’ of a tale on suspects

The Boston Globe is 
going for a Pulitzer Prize — in Political Correctness.

And if some other 
money-hemorrhaging broadsheet does manage to out-moonbat the Globe, well, there’s always the consolation prize — the Profiles in Courage award, for being courageous enough to take the wrong, but fashionable, position.

The Globe’s take: the Tsarnaevs are “homegrown” terrorists. Yes, they were. Their home was a Third World backwater overrun with savages like themselves — Muslim terrorists.

 

Nuts graf:

The headline was “The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev,” although a more 
accurate title might have been “The Fall of the 
Sect. 8 Apartment of Tsarnaev.”

Welfare, though, is one of the parts of the family’s U.S. history that the Globe just sort of skates over, only once mentioning their Temporary Aid to Needy 041513blastaftermath3Families, welfare that is disbursed in, you guessed it, EBT cards.

“Even with that,” the Globe mourns, “money was in short supply.”

Perhaps they could have … worked? But why should they have? By God, these foreign freeloaders were victims.

 

And etc.

Right below Carr’s piece, Eagan checks in with this:

Paper’s report sheds some light on darkest hour

If it makes you feel better, call this Boston Globe report pandering to liberals and making excuses for terrorists. Tell yourself, “If 
we only ditch the PC 
and get tough on radical Muslims,” these attacks will stop.

But you’d be deluding yourself. And some of us would like to know why the Tsarnaev brothers did what they allegedly did.

The Globe did provide details on Tamerlan, 
always the easier to explain. His increasing alienation, anger, religious radicalism. Trolling Jihadist websites. Ditching his snazzy silver boots and fur hat for a Muslim prayer cap. Raging at fellow Muslims for such outrages as celebrating Thanksgiving.

 

No easy explanation of Dzhokhar, Eagan writes, but the Globe report “did cast doubt on an 
expected defense strategy: that he was the dupe of his big brother.”

For the tiebreaker, we go to the Herald’s editorial page and find this beauty:

Those of us who know the cost of newsprint and reporting and artists to draw portraits of the imagined world of the Tsarnaev clan can only express dismay at this shocking waste of resources and its often fawning portrayal of two terrorists — “Jahar’s soft features and mop of hair,” the report card that remarked on his “heart of gold” and Tamerlan, the “gifted athlete” who was “flamboyant, occasionally doing handstands and cartwheels in the [boxing] ring.”

The media spotlight is a powerful thing. There was a time when the Globe used it wisely to ferret out public corruption, not to write tone poems to terrorists.

 

Feisty local tabloid indeed. And 100% irony deficient.


CNN Thumbsucker Whacks Boston Globe Tsarnaev Coverage

December 17, 2013

Apparently it’s not just the Boston Herald that takes issue with the Boston Globe’s The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev.

CNN chinstroker Michael Welner does too.

On last night’s Piers Morgan Live (sorry – CNN’s kudzu-like website features only a half-assed blog for Morgan, perhaps because he’s in the ejector seat), Michael Welner – “forensic psychiatrist & Chair of The Forensic Panel, pioneer of forensic peer review & the Depravity Standard, examiner of precedent cases” whatever the hell that means – went off on the Globe, accusing it of humanizing the inhumane and providing inspiration for copycat killers.

(No video, because Morgan’s in the ejector and etc.)

But . . .

From @PiersMorganLive:

 

Screen Shot 2013-12-16 at 11.52.06 PM

 

Who’s next to pile on the Globe?

Our money’s on Fox Newshound Bill O’Reilly.

Really.


Boston Herald: The Fail of the House of Tsarnaev

December 16, 2013

Okay, well not everyone thinks the Boston Globe’s big Sunday takeout – The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev – is Pulitzer prose the way the hardswooning staff at Campaign Outsider does.

From today’s Boston Herald:

‘SICKENING’

Globe’s bomber tales disgust mother of Marathon survivors

The Stoneham mother whose two sons each lost a leg in the Boston Marathon bombing called “sickening” a nine-page special section in yesterday’s Boston Globe that downplayed Islamic extremism, suggesting the Tsarnaev family’s bad luck, poverty and mental issues had more to do with the plot, while legal experts said BI1E1611.JPGthose claims are likely to figure strongly in any effort to spare surviving accused terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the death penalty.

“I hope people don’t fall for this. It’s a joke. There’s no excuse for what those terrorists did,” Liz Norden said of Tsarnaev, 20, and his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed in Watertown in a firefight with police after four people had been murdered and more than 260 others wounded — with numerous amputations.

Both Norden’s sons, JP and Paul, lost their right legs as one of two pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel exploded in Copley Square on April 15.

 

The feisty local tabloid notes that “[a] Globe spokeswoman declined to comment.”  Herald readers, by contrast, are staging a regular Who Struck John in the comments section.

Representative sample:

 

Picture 2

 

From there, they were off to the races (123 comments as of this posting).

Check the Herald’s editorial page tomorrow for Chapter Two.


More Beer at Fenway Park! Less Disclosure at Boston Globe!

December 14, 2013

From our Boston Globe/John Henry Watch desk

Friday’s Boston Globe featured this piece on Metro Page One:

City OK’s Fenway beer sale changes

State must still sign off on plan

Fenway Park bills itself as a fan-friendly venue, and next season promises to be a little friendlier for customers who enjoy a beer or a little hard alcohol with their peanuts and Cracker Jacks.

The Boston Licensing Board on Thursday approved requests from the Red Sox to expand sales of liquor to three more stations 06222011_cd22recycle2-7966323inside the 101-year-old ballpark and to allow sales of all alcohol until the end of the seventh inning. Through last season, the cutoff had been 2½ hours from the first pitch or the end of the seventh inning, whichever came first.

With many games lasting more than three hours, a leisurely pace that suits the Red Sox more than most Major League teams, the elimination of a time limit could result in an increase in alcohol sales.

 

And an increase in beer bottles, in order to “curb the long lines that often form at concession stands, where each beer is poured into a cup.”

Next season, customers can opt for a bottle instead of a draft beer and walk away with an opened container.

Licensing Board chairwoman Nicole Murati Ferrer said the panel did not consider bottles to be a safety issue.

“With this particular ballpark and the fans that we’ve had, there’s no history of projectiles being used” outside long past, isolated incidents, Murati Ferrer said.

 

Right. Until the Beerded – sorry, Bearded – Ones start losing games.

But what’s really lost in this report is any disclosure that Fenway Park owner John Henry also owns the Boston Globe.

Memo to the stately local broadsheet: Good news is not no news.

P.S. It’s Cracker Jack, not “Cracker Jacks.”


Jacoby Ellsbury Hates the Herald

December 13, 2013

Three things we know for sure in this world:

 

• Jacoby Ellsbury has departed the Olde Towne Team

• Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy still has his hair

• The Boston Herald will always operate at a disadvantage

 

Exhibit Umpteen, from today’s Globe sports section:

 

Picture 4

 

The feisty local tabloid?

Whiffed.

So the hardreading staff just tweeted this at the erstwhile Sox centerfielder:

 

Picture 6

 

We’ll keep you posted.


All Helle Breaks Loose at Boston Herald

December 12, 2013

Our selfie-obsessed local tabloid is back at it again today, as if yesterday’s examination of Barack Obama’s shutterbug diplomacy at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service wasn’t enough.

Today’s Page One:

 

Picture 12

 

From there readers got the usual left-right punches from Margery Eagan and Howie Carr, along with a thumbnail sketch of Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the dame who started the whole rumpus. Topping it all off: a piece that featured the local chinstrokerati tsk-tsking that Obama should have known better.

Uh-huh.

Crosstown rival Boston Globe has been more selfie-possessed: The stately local broadsheet ran a New York Times wire story yesterday and has pretty much given the Great Dane the air.

But cruise down I-95 to the Big Town, and the New York Post more than makes up for the Globe’s selfie-restraint.

 

NY_NYP8

 

Post firebrand Andrea Peyser really unloads on Obama’s merry memorial. We’ll skip right to the climactic conclusion:

Thorning-Schmidt attempted to laugh off the whole thing, saying, “It was not inappropriate.’’ Not inappropriate?SAFRICA-MANDELA-MEMORIAL

Pairing a black suit and blue tie is not inappropriate. Giving your wife grounds for divorce might be seen as otherwise.

But people won’t soon forget the escapades of the people whose salaries they pay.

President Obama has some ’splaining to do. To the woman he married. To his daughters. To the people of South Africa. And to the scandalized folks here at home.

He owes the world an apology.

 

Wow. Talk about selfie-righteous, eh?


Jeez: Only Boston Globe Reports Quincy Creche Crashers Returned Stolen Statues

December 8, 2013

If it’s Advent, it’s open season on nativity scenes everywhere.

But pity especially poor Quincy, MA, which suffered yet another creching loss on Wednesday.

From boston.com:

Statues stolen from Quincy Center nativity scene; third theft in nine years

tlumacki_jesusisstolen_metro028

Statues of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and a lamb were stolen from a nativity scene in Quincy Square early Thursday morning and a shepherd left behind on a sidewalk in the third such incident at the creche scene in the past nine years, Quincy police said . . .

A street sweeper discovered the crime when he found the shepherd statue on a nearby sidewalk at around 2:24 a.m., police said.

“The shepherd was out on the sidewalk and the Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and a lamb were missing,” said Captain John Dougan, Quincy police spokesman.

 

Happily, the Boston Globe reported yesterday, at least some of the lost are found.

Statues from nativity scene are recovered

Lamb taken from Quincy creche is still missing

Three statues plundered from a nativity scene in Quincy Center sometime overnight Wednesday were discovered undamaged early Friday by a construction crew and were returned to the manger Friday afternoon, officials said.

“They found Jesus, Mary, and Joseph at the end of Furnace Avenue,” said Captain John Dougan, Quincy police spokesman. “They found all of them except for the lamb. That is still on the lam.”

 

Bada-boom.

Yesterday’s Boston Herald print edition, which was thinner than the gold on a week-end wedding ring (tip o’ the pixel to the great Raymond Chandler), had nothing about the recovery.

Regardless, here’s our question for the good folks of Quincy:

What’s the Baby Jeez doing out there on December 4th?

Is this some kind of Preemie Jesus protest in the War on the War on Christmas?

Or what?


‘Anchorman 2’ Has News for Stealth Marketers

December 5, 2013

Nifty compare ‘n’ contrast in the Boston dailies today regarding their coverage of Emerson College’s renaming its communication school the Ron Burgundy School of Communication.

Boston Herald:

Selling ‘Anchorman 2’

Bold campaign could start new trend

 

 

Will Ferrell’s visit to Emerson College as TV newsman Ron Burgundy — the latest in his tour of quirky in-character appearances to sell the “Anchorman” sequel — is a “brilliant” marketing strategy, industry insiders say, that could set a new standard for movie promotion if it pays off at the box office.

“It is quite an amazing campaign,” said John Verret, a Boston College advertising professor and former ad executive.

 

(Not to get technical about it, but John Verret teaches at Boston University  – not BC. Ron himself couldn’t have done it better.)

“If there are people in the movie business who thought they could pull it off and this does work, then I think you are going to see lots of attempts to do it,” Verret added . . .

Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.


More Than One Hitch to Baker/Polito Union

December 4, 2013

The shotgun wedding between Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker and lieutenant governor hopeful Karyn Polito had its engagement announcement in Monday’s Boston Globe.

Running mate issue gets thornier for Charlie Baker

Karyn E. Polito, the former Republican legislator who lost a 2010 run for state treasurer, is poised to announce her candidacy for lieutenant governor this week, a move that puts GOP gubernatorial favorite Charlie Baker in a difficult spot as he ponders a potential running mate.

Polito, a 47-year old Shrewsbury resident, is expected to declare as early as Tuesday that she will seek the nomination for the second spot on the 2014 10282010_28treasurer_photo3-7754405gubernatorial ticket, according to several state Republicans with knowledge of her plans.

Baker is expected to lead the ticket, and Polito’s candidacy would pose a politically ticklish question for him: whether to try to control the makeup of his ticket, as he successfully did in his 2010 run for governor, or to leave the decision to voters.

Having Polito as a running mate could be both an asset and a potential liability.

 

And etc.

The GOPpy couple tied the knot in today’s edition of our stately local broadsheet.

Charlie Baker picks Karyn Polito as running mate

Nod to conservatives may also help him with women voters

SHREWSBURY — Charlie Baker, the leading Republican candidate for governor, named former state representative Karyn Polito as his running mate Tuesday, presenting voters with a unified ticket fully 11 months before the gubernatorial election.

Polito’s selection serves as an overture to party conservatives, among whom she is popular, and as an effort to raise Baker’s standing among female voters, a baker-bigconstituency he lost heavily when he ran for the corner office in 2010.

Her hometown of Shrewsbury also bolsters Baker’s candidacy in Worcester County, a stronghold for Republicans in recent elections.

Polito, in her 2010 bid for state treasurer, racked up more votes than Baker did in the three-way race for governor. As she announced her candidacy at a Shrewsbury diner on Tuesday, she said she wants voters to see her as a “mom, a business owner, and an optimist.”

 

Leave it to the Boston Herald, though, to crash the reception.

Insider: Pick not Charlie’s first choice

Former State Rep. Karyn Polito wasn’t Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker’s first choice — or even his second, according to a source who said Baker considered several other female GOP running mates and even former Attorney General Tom Reilly before settling on Polito.120313politotf05

“It’s not uncommon, when candidates look for running mates, that you get further down the list than you hope to,” said a Republican source close to the Baker campaign. “Discussions were had with a lot of other people, and there were a lot who weren’t interested.”

 

Karyn Polito: mom, business owner, optimist . . . second runner-up. 

According to the piece by Hillary Chabot and Matt Stout, “Baker . . . reached out to Mary Connaughton, a former GOP candidate for auditor, who told the Herald two weeks ago that she turned down the offer because she is happy with her job at the Pioneer Institute.”

Finishing behind Connaughton is one thing, but Tom Reilly? Really?

Today’s feisty local tabloid also has a Joe Battenfeld piece on the Two-Time Charlie/Karyn Enough knot-tying, along with a pro & con honeymoon preview.

(Skunk at the Garden Party honors go to the Globe’s Scot Lehigh, who says Massachusetts should tear the sheets and dump the lieutenant governor’s office altogether, which will happen about the same time Baker and Polito adopt Tim Murray).

The hardreading staff gives that couple 11 months.


Boston Herald Suffolks Up Again

December 2, 2013

It’s all gubernatorial all the time at the feisty local tabloid today.

 

Picture 1

 

Start with the Herald’s big announcement:

Herald, Suffolk U. team for gov race

On to the race for governor!

The Herald and Suffolk University, building on the success of an innovative partnership in providing in-depth coverage of the Boston mayoral race, are teaming up again for the Massachusetts governor’s race.SuffolkHerald_Gov1col

Respected pollster David Paleologos will offer his surveys and analysis exclusively in the Herald along with deep behind-the-numbers analysis in his featured “Poll Pal” column. Suffolk’s John Nucci will weigh in with commentary on the latest from the campaign trail alongside Herald reporters and columnists.

New this campaign cycle will be “Boiler Room,” a webcast featuring Suffolk students and professors joining Herald political staffers and GOP and Democratic strategists to look closely at the issues and campaign messages.

 

Here’s how that looks:

 

Picture 2

 

And this:

 

Picture 3

 

And this:

 

Picture 4

 

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The Herald should be covering Suffolk University, not serving as its satellite campus.

But wait! There’s actually a Suffolk-Free Zone at the Herald, starting with Hillary Chabot’s column on the Menino Machine being up for grabs in the gubernatorial race.

The impending demise of Mayor Tom 
Menino’s king-making political machinery means Boston is wide open in the upcoming gubernatorial race — and even GOP candidate Charlie Baker is looking to make inroads in the true blue city.

“I think Boston will be very much in play,” said former Boston City Councilor John Tobin, who noted that the same well-honed operation that clinched statewide elections for Gov. Deval Patrick and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren will fragment when Menino leaves office in January.

“There’s a splintering effect,” Tobin said. “It took a long time to build that machine and it’s going to be interesting to see how the race takes shape.”

 

Not surprising then that Holly Robichaud’s piece predicts blood ‘n’ guts in the Democratic primary.

Nationally many congressional Democrats in vulnerable seats have already started to abandon the Obama regime and the Obamascare law. With millions more voters about to lose their employer health insurance coverage, the ranks of mutiny will grow.

Back here at home the division will be brought on by a nasty Democrat gubernatorial primary now that John Walsh is no longer the state party chairman. There will be no clearing of the field like Walsh did for Lizzy Warren.

It’s going to be a Democrat shootout at the O.K. Corral between Attorney General Marsha [really?] Coakley and state Treasurer Steve Grossman as they fight for their political lives.

That’s what Two-Time Charlie Baker is hoping as well.

(Crosstown rival Boston Globe, meanwhile, looks at a potentially pesky partnership Baker might have if Karyn Polito succeeds in a GOP lieutenant governor bid.)

Let the [your campaign spending estimate goes here] rumpus begin!