Herald Sees Red Over Brownout

November 7, 2012

There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth and bitter recriminations at the feisty local tabloid over Scott Brown’s loss to Elizabeth Warren in the U.S. Senate bakeoff (Pow Wow Chow, anyone?).

And know whose fault it is?

YOURS!

This morning’s edition started out benignly enough with this front page:

But on the other side of that page was this dope slap of a column  from Howie Carr:

Bay State’s voters got faked out way too easily

Scott Brown never had a chance.

It’s amazing. This guy is probably the best retail politician in the state. He worked his way up the greasy pole, from assessor to selectman to state rep to state senator to U.S. senator.

“He’s for us,” his yard signs said. They might as well have said, “He’s one of us.”

But all of it counted for nothing. He couldn’t beat “the machine.”

“Anything is possible,” Brown was saying last night in his concession speech, “there are no obstacles you can’t overcome, and defeat is only temporary.”

Unless you’re a Republican in Massachusetts.

Bay State voters, Carr clucked, got suckered by a phony.

Holly Robichaud, on the other hand, was beside herself with anger (which is weird since she’s the Lone Republican, right?).

Voters disgraced themselves, state

It was a tragic night for the commonwealth, for taxpayers, for people who believe in the checks and balance of government, and for the GOP.

Voters sent a message that they like one-party rule and all the scandals that party brings to the table . . .

They want a U.S. senator who will vote 100 percent with the Democratic Party even when it kills the economy. They sent a loud and clear message that a Democrat can make any claim to further their career and there is no accountability. That’s right — do I as I say not as I do is the motto of our elected elite.

The defeat of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is a disgrace. Unfortunately, Massachusetts will once again be the butt of every joke. President Obama refused to nominate our newly elected fake Indian senator to head up her consumer agency because she could not get through the confirmation process. Yet, voters turned a blind eye to all her problems. Voters will come to regret this decision.

Yeah, especially if Holly keeps yelling at us like this.

 


Scott Brown ‘Certainly’ Dodges Final Debate with Elizabeth Warren

October 31, 2012

Yesterday Scott Brown (R-I’ll Only Debate Hurricane Sandy) cancelled his fourth and final debate with challenger Elizabeth Warren (D-Hurricane Liz), after saying that “the two candidates will ‘certainly’ have the debate before Election Day, if not Tuesday, then later in the week,” according to the Associated Press (via WBUR).

Cut to today’s Boston Globe (updated version here):

Brown cancels fourth debate with Warren

Senator Scott Brown, after insisting for days that he was eager for a final face-off with Elizabeth Warren, said on Tuesday that he did not believe another debate was necessary and that he would not be able to reschedule the one that was canceled because of the storm.

“With only days remaining in the campaign, and with a long-planned bus tour kicking off Thursday through Election Day that will take Scott Brown to every corner of the Commonwealth, our calendar simply cannot accommodate a rescheduling of this fourth debate and the planning and preparation that would go into it,” read a statement from campaign manager Jim Barnett sent late Tuesday.

The Boston Herald, no surprise, has a different take on the Brown out.

Joe Battenfeld column:

Voters have heard enough already

Let’s see, meet with voters or take part in one more debate organized by an unfriendly media conglomerate?

This was a no-brainer for U.S. Sen. Scott Brown. Pick the voters.

Democrats and some in the media are predictably in a lather about the Republican incumbent forgoing a fourth televised debate, but the fact is Brown has already taken part in one more debate than then-U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy did in 1994.

Howie Carr column:

No debate about it, Scott Brown made the right call

Good for U.S. Sen. Scott Brown. Why should he do the Globe a favor and show up at their fakakta debate?

So he can listen yet again to Granny Warren yapping about the middle class getting “hammered,” and how Brown voted against a bill to produce “jobs” (which in this context means taxes)? How much more nonsense does he have to hear about Roe v. Wade?

Trick or treat indeed.

Boston Herald editorial:

Debate debate redux

The Democratic blogosphere is simply agog at the notion that there was no Senate debate here last night — and they seem intent on blaming incumbent Scott Brown. The fact that his challenger, Elizabeth Warren, sent in her cancellation moments later seems not to matter much.

In fact, the one thing these two agreed on was that, as Warren’s campaign put it Monday, “Elizabeth believes the focus now must be on public safety and ensuring people get the help they need during the storm and its aftermath.”

But to look at our email in-box, you’d think Brown had personally arranged for Hurricane Sandy to blow up the East Coast just so he could avoid one more match-up with Warren. “He makes it sound as if the reason that he can’t debate is that he’s just too busy manning rowboats and handing out blankets,” wrote one voter who — we’re just guessing now — has already made up his mind in the race.

In fact, after three TV debates polls show the “undecideds” in single digits and frankly some of those are just toying with pollsters anyway.

The same way Scott Brown is toying with voters?

Just askin’.


Boston Herald Jumps the Snark

October 23, 2012

Say, the Boston Herald didn’t like all that sarcasm Barack Obama threw at Mitt Romney in last night’s debate, did they?

Start with Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

Then the columnists got in on the action.

Paging Howie Carr, paging Mr. One-Note Carr.

Once they got beyond the boring foreign policy part of the foreign policy debate, they reverted to form.

Obama was petulant and petty and, of course, he wants higher taxes on “the wealthiest.” He condescendingly lectured Romney on naval matters, and on these new “ships that go underwater … nuclear submarines.”

Next up, Joe Battenfeld:

The president’s snarky one-liners — such as lecturing Romney that “we have these things called aircraft carriers” — may have alienated some voters and will definitely fire up Republicans.

Certainly worked for Boston Globe columnist Farah Stockman:

At his best, [Romney] came off sounding like a diluted version of the president we already have.

By contrast, Obama sounded comfortable with the material. My favorite moment was after Romney brought up his often-repeated line about the US Navy having fewer ships now than it did in 1916, Obama said: “We also have fewer horses and bayonets . . . We have these things called aircraft carriers. Planes land on them.”

So, obviously, do newspaper columnists.


Boston Herald: Too Much Candy!

October 17, 2012

No sweet tooth at the Boston Herald today.

Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

And that’s just for starters. Next up, Joe Battenfeld’s column:

Romney sours after Candy butts in

Mitt Romney got lost in Candy-land and ended up losing a chance to put away President Obama.

Moderator Candy Crowley’s unusual backing up of Obama’s claim that he called the attacks in Libya an “act of terror” effectively stopped Mitt’s momentum and allowed the president to turn what should have been a bad moment into a victory.

And Crowley’s admonishment of Romney to “go to the transcript” of Obama’s Rose Garden remarks on Libya didn’t help.

Battenfeld goes on to say that “Obama actually did not call the Benghazi attacks ‘an act of terror’ but made a general statement about ‘no acts of terror’ shaking the nation’s resolve.”

Not to get technical about it.

Then there’s Howie Carr’s drive-by:

Obama running on fumes

They don’t like each other. They really don’t like each other, do they? No knockout blows. Barack Obama was better than in Denver, but he’s still got this very big problem, namely, his record.

It doesn’t matter how many extra minutes moderator Candy Crowley gave Obama (somewhere between three and five, depending on which network you were listening to), he’s still stuck with his dismal economy.

“Does that mean you’re not hurting?” Obama told one New Yorker after rattling off a few bogus sunshine-y stats. “Absolutely not. A lot of us are.”

It was Obama who was hurting, though, when the topic of Libya came up, at least until Crowley rescued him, Carr says:

Obama had no answers, because there aren’t many. But then Romney, with a chance for a walk-off home run, got tripped up on what Obama said in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12. OK, Obama didn’t precisely say Benghazi was a terrorist attack, but he had thrown in a CYA reference to “no act of terror.”

Then Candy couldn’t help herself and jumped in on the president’s side by misrepresenting what he’d said, in a positive way.

Two-on-one is moonbat fun.

If you say so, Howie.

Then, just for the heck of it, the Herald assigned a reporter to blow the lid off Candyscam.

Candy Crowley edges into fact-checker role

CNN’s Candy Crowley ventured into dangerous territory last night, briefly playing the role of live fact-checker while moderating the feisty presidential title card.

“Unless a moderator is going to offer live fact-checking of both candidates, she should steer clear of that,” said Peter Ubertaccio of Stonehill College. “Moderating a debate shouldn’t be confused with analyzing what the candidate is saying.”

Okay, then.

And how did crosstown rival Boston Globe match all the Herald’s Candy dish.

It didn’t. Here’s the only mention of Crowley (and not even by name) the hardreading staff could find:

Romney’s supporters were happy . . . though they criticized the debate moderator for not giving their candidate as much time to respond to questions as Obama got.

“I thought the moderator was a little biased, but what are you going to do,” said Sarah Jasper, 18, a political science major wearing a Romney sticker who said she was “definitely happy with what I heard from Romney” at the debate.

Clearly, Sarah will never work at the Boston Herald. Way too reasonable.

 


Today’s the Day the Chinstrokers Have Their Picnic

October 12, 2012

Two local dailies, two different worlds of vice presidential debate post mortems. At the Boston Herald, it was joltin’ Joe time.

First up, Howie Carr:

Joe Biden makes case for . . . term limits

Hey Joe Biden, what’s so funny?

The only real takeaway from this debate is we really need term limits for politicians. Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 30. Somewhere around 1992, he should have had to go out and get a real job.

Nothing like having to answer to a boss to make you a little more humble. What’s up with the smirking? It seemed like Clint Eastwood was back up on stage, this time in character from “Gran Torino.”

“Get off my lawn!”

Not to mention don’t sit in my chair.

Next, Holly Robichaud:

Off-the-rails VP a boost for Paul Ryan

OMG. Vice President Joe Biden was an embarrassment not only to the Democrat ticket, but also for the country.

Clearly he was attempting to make up for the inadequate performance of President Obama by attacking Paul Ryan’s every syllable.

He overcompensated with the phony laugh and the constant interruption. It was hard to get over Biden’s wild-eyed look to hear what he was saying. The best word to describe his performance is: unhinged.

Wow. Not sure Holly’s all that hinged herself.

Even though it was two-on-one, Margery Eagan managed to hold her own with this minority report:

Goofy Joe Biden gets the job done

Joe Biden, the 69-year-old granddad best known for his gaffes and goofs, committed conduct unbecoming a vice president last night. He mocked Paul Ryan. He grinned and laughed too much. It was dismissive and annoying. It reminded me of Al Gore’s exasperated, exaggerated sighs at George W. Bush . . .

But good ol’ Joe did what Obama needed him to do. He attacked Ryan’s facts repeatedly (“With all due respect, you’re full of malarkey”). And he had a far better abortion answer for pro-choice women. (“I refuse to impose (my pro-life personal views) on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman,” who would criminalize abortion.)

Biden bought his boss some time. Panicked, demoralized Democrats can only hope Obama shows a quarter of Biden’s fight at his next debate.

Panicked, demoralized Democrats can also check out the Boston Globe, where Biden got a more modulated (read: less rapid) welcome from the chinstrokers.

Start with Derrick Jackson:

Is Biden’s performance enough to stop the slide?

HAMPTON, Va.

With so much of Thursday night’s vice presidential debate centered on foreign policy, incumbent Joe Biden had a clear path to victory. His depth of knowledge separated him from Republican challenger Paul Ryan. The cheers at a Hampton Democratic Committee viewing party were ample evidence that Biden said much of what these Democrats had wanted to hear from President Obama last week.

So we’ll take that as a yes.

Tom Keane issued a split decision:

Biden on policy, Ryan on style

In theory, vice presidential debates shouldn’t matter that much — only 18 percent in a recent Rasmussen Poll said it would be “very important” to their vote — and that’s the way it should be. Neither guy, one hopes, will be president and the basic task of each is to demonstrate, if disaster strikes, that he would be up to the job. Biden has proven before that he would be, and Thursday night Ryan seemed competent on a national stage.

Yet this particular debate did matter and especially for Biden. He had to stem the Mitt Romney surge that over the last week has remade this race. He may have helped slow it, but probably it hasn’t been reversed.

So we’ll take that as a draw.

And just for fun, we’ll throw in this Glen Johnson analysis:

Paul Ryan shows he is no pushover in debate

Presidential campaigns are akin to gestational periods, with months of campaigning giving voters time to slowly form their impressions of a candidate.

Against that backdrop, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin stepped onto likely his biggest stage yet on Thursday night and showed an American electorate still getting to know the Republican vice presidential nominee that he is no pushover.

In a contentious 90-minute debate with Vice President Joe Biden, Ryan engaged in a frontal assault on a politician nearly three decades his elder. And he didn’t cower even when the discussion started with and kept coming back to foreign affairs – a supposed weakness for an economic policy wonk like him and strength for a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee like his opponent.

So we’ll take that as an okay, and leave it at that.

 


The Herald Heralds Itself . . . Again

October 4, 2012

From our Wave Those Pom-Poms! desk

It’s always instructive observing what the Boston Herald considers newsworthy, especially when it involves the paper itself.

Latest case in point: Today’s big news story about . . . That’s right: The Herald.

‘WARNING’ – Herald tops again!

Yesterday’s Herald Page One, advancing last night’s presidential debate, went national as one of the Newseum’s Top 10 front pages — the 11th time the prominent journalism institution has honored the paper this year.

The page, designed by Page One Editor Paul Keaney, was selected from hundreds of newspaper covers from around the world by the Washington D.C.-based organization.

 

Here’s the Newseum’s Top Ten feature from yesterday:

Rumble in the Rockies

How do you tell readers what they already know, that the two presidential contenders will debate tonight in Denver? Creativity is one way to do it, and it’s an approach shared by our 10 top front pages. If we had to pick just one for the pre-debate prize, it would be the Asbury Park Press with its “Rumble in the Rockies” reminder.

Close, Herald, but no cigar.

 


Just Call Him Howie Carr-toon

October 3, 2012

Actually, that’s unfair to Howie. The entire front page of today’s Boston Herald is sort of cartoonish (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

Start with the don’t-watch-without-Howie warning. His must-read column  – “It’s lights, camera . . . and drool all over Obama” – is just more of the same: the Chris Matthews tingle up his leg, the limousines, Granny Warren, and, of course, this zinger:

How can it be that Mitt Romney putting his dog in a crate on the roof of his car is approximately 100 times as big a story as Barack Obama actually eating one in Indonesia?

Talk about predictable: Carr has essentially moved beyond the formulaic into the algorithmic.

At the bottom of Page One, you’ll find the predictable self-promotion lower left, and the not so predictable self-promotion lower right.

The former:

Debate dominates local airwaves, Web

A stunning 338,000 viewers tuned into the UMass Lowell/Boston Herald U.S. Senate debate Monday night on Ch. 7, WHDH-TV, easily trouncing all the competition on the other stations.

The live-stream of the debate also generated more than 155,000 total streams and was viewed nationwide and in Canada, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Italy, France, South Africa and the Russian Federation, among other places.

“It’s just amazing. We’re delighted with the incredible viewership all over the world,” said UMass Lowell Chancellor Martin T. Meehan, who added he was bombarded with calls from former colleagues in Congress about the debate.

The latter:

Faceoffs in need of a facelift

Tear down the podiums. Toss out the time limits. Make the candidates squirm. Let a live audience watch.

It’s a formula that made the Herald-sponsored U.S. Senate debate at UMass Lowell so compelling, and it should be a model for future political showdowns — especially the presidential faceoffs starting tonight.

But that’s not really the surprising part. This is: “The Senate debate on Monday night showed what happens when a world-class questioner such as David Gregory of NBC’s “Meet the Press” is allowed to push the candidates to explain their positions and cut them off if they’re not answering.”

Joe Battenfeld is definitely swimming upstream in that take on Gregory’s moderating chops. (See here for opposite impressions.)

But, hey, that’s what makes horse races.

 


Herald Whoopie Gold Edition

August 17, 2012

This week the Boston Herald has been making whoopie pies a major issue, and the results have been sweet for the feisty local tabloid.

It started with this front page on Wednesday:

Lede of the cover story:

A Walpole baker — appalled that welfare abuse now seems almost as American as apple pie — is putting her whoopie pies where her mouth is in a dispute with the Braintree Farmers Market, refusing to take EBT cards for her baked treats.

I don’t think American taxpayers should be footing the bill for people’s pie purchases,” said Andrea Taber, proprietor of the Ever So Humble Pie Co. in Walpole, who peddles her wares at the Braintree market on Fridays and now finds herself in the middle of the state’s raging fight over welfare benefits.

“To me it’s no different than nail salons and Lottery tickets,” Taber said. “It’s pastry, it’s dessert. My pies are great, but come on.”

So the Herald went on, devoting two full pages to the story yesterday – one of them a sampling of reader reactions like these:

“Let’s make a statement by making her a national symbol and a millionaire for standing up to the welfare-government industrial complex!” — libertytree

“Even poor children deserve a treat.” —sailor21

“We need a few thousand more just like her and our country will be back on the right track.” — davejss

“Your missing the point entirely …WE are buying the pies, NOT the welfare lay-a-bout. Get it?” — Wesley_Mouch2

“Sure I get it, we are also ‘buying’ the wars, the Wall St. bailout the tax breaks for the uber wealthy, and many many many many other things that are a lot more pressing and expensive than a whoopie pie, you get it ?” — RatzoRizzo

There was also the obligatory Howie Carr drive-by, and a story about the previous day’s story:

Baker story causes stir on the Internet

A Walpole baker’s controversial refusal to take EBT card payments for her gourmet pastries exploded into the national spotlight yesterday, as her whoopie pie fight with a local farmers market emerged as the latest battle in the growing welfare policy war.

The Herald’s report on Andrea Taber’s dispute with the Braintree Farmers Market, which wants her to accept tokens paid for with EBT cards for her baked goods, was read online by more than 250,000 people nationwide, garnering more than 750 comments. It made the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, and was picked up by The Drudge Report, Fark.com, Reddit.com, Lucianne.com and Freerepublic.com. She is due to appear on Fox and Friends and Neil Cavuto’s Your World today. She fielded calls from talk shows all day.

“My email is just incinerated,” Taber said. “Ninety-five percent of it is positive. There is a fair amount of venom coming my way.”

Today’s Herald features Gov. Deval Patrick dodging the issue, the Herald editors flogging it:

Whoopie for courage

Just once wouldn’t it be wonderful if bureaucrats applied a small dose of common sense from time to time.

Case in point: Andrea Taber, owner of Ever So Humble Pie Co., has taken a principled stance and chooses not to sell her whoopie pies and other pastries to those presenting SNAP vouchers at her stand at the Braintree Farmers Market. Now she faces possible eviction from her market stall.

“I don’t think American taxpayers should be footing the bill for people’s pie purchases,” Taber told the Herald.

Whoopie for courage?

Easy as pie for the feisty local tabloid.

 


Herald Foursome Whacks Warren Edition

August 9, 2012

The Boston Herald has sunk its teeth into the EBT Voter Push story and is taking bigger bites every day. Yesterday the feisty local tabloid ran three pieces (to the Globe’s none in its print edition). Today the Herald has upped the ante to four.

The beauty of this story, of course, it that’s its a twofer for the Herald: They get to rough up the welfare layabouts while inflicting maximum collateral damage to Elizabeth Warren, the paper’s particular bête noire.

Today’s edition kicks off with Warren on the defensive:

Elizabeth Warren: Nothing fishy about my kid’s role in EBT campaign

Elizabeth Warren scoffed at U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s charges that her daughter is leading a taxpayer-funded crusade to get welfare recipients out to vote for her mom, even as records show the Democrat scored thousands in campaign dough from the group’s bigwigs — including a former Boston Globe publisher.

“The organization that Amelia’s involved in was working on voter registration issues I believe before she ever joined,” Warren said. “And they were working in several different states, they’re working with other organizations and they were working with the commonwealth of Massachusetts before I ever became involved in the campaign.”

There’s also a backgrounder on Demos, the group organizing the campaign. And what would a pig pile be without the smooth stylings of Howie Carr?

It’s not enough that Granny Warren, the fake Indian, is raising more campaign cash from the Beautiful People and, yes, the machine, than any congressional candidate in the country. Now Brown has to contend with campaign mailings from the Department of Transitional Assistance, i.e., welfare, paid for by money extracted from the taxpayers — his voters.

Oh, yes – just for good measure, the paper tossed in an editorial:

A true voting scam

Ah, yes, we can hear the governor once again blaming the Herald for “making sure you’re angry” with yesterday’s front page story on how nearly $300,000 of your tax dollars will be spent to tell welfare recipients how to register to vote.

That the national voter registration effort is led by a left-leaning group whose board is chaired by Amelia Warren Tyagi, daughter of Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is, well, just one of those funny political coincidences — no?

And etc.

Meanwhile, the crosstown rival Globe ran its story – an expanded version of what the paper posted yesterday afternoon on its website – front page above the fold. The broadshet also ran this chinstroker about  the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s “aggressive effort to expand upon and invigorate the grassroots organization that propelled Deval Patrick to two terms as governor after 16 consecutive years of GOP control over the Corner Office.”

We’ll see tomorrow who makes an aggressive effort to expand upon and invigorate the voter registration story. We’re laying plenty of eight-to-five it’s the Herald.

 


Whitey Bulger Testify Edition

August 7, 2012

Most Bostonians thought they’d never live long enough to see this headline in the Boston Globe:

Bulger plans to take stand in his defense

What follows is a straightforward recounting of what J.W. Carney Jr., Whitey Bulger’s lawyer, told news organizations yesterday:

James “Whitey” Bulger, once America’s most wanted criminal, will for the first time address the charges against him, taking the stand in his own defense in hope of convincing a jury that federal officials once granted him immunity for his many crimes, his lawyer said Monday.

J.W. Carney Jr. announced that plan during a hearing in US District Court in Boston. He said Bulger wants to provide a firsthand account of his relationship with the FBI and the deal he had for working secretly as a government informant.

“He is going to tell the truth, if the judge permits him to,” Carney later told reporters outside the federal courthouse.

The Boston Herald, not to be outdone, has two straightforward recountings of what Carney said (here and here).

So that’s a wash. It’s the columnists who provide today’s compare-and-contrast moment.

First, Herald resident wise guy, Howie Carr.

There are three chances of Whitey Bulger testifying at his own trial next March.

Slim, fat and none.

As a taxpayer, I demand a refund from Whitey’s public defender J.W. Carney. Is this the best you can do, Jay?

And it’s not just Howie who says that.

“I guarantee you that punk won’t take the stand,” Boston defense attorney Tony Cardinale was saying last night.

Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, though has a different take in this web piece that didn’t make the hardreading staff’s copy of the paper:

Did you really think that Whitey Bulger was going to sit there in the courthouse named after his old neighbor Joe Moakley and merely take notes on a yellow legal pad while federal prosecutors painted him as a killer of women, an enabler of drug dealers, and, egads, worst of all, a rat?

It was always in the cards that Whitey Bulger was going to take the stand in his own defense. His lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., has been saying as much for much of the last year, making it official with Monday’s announcement.

The only surprise is that anybody’s surprised. Whitey may be venal but he ain’t stupid. What’s he got to lose? This is the last dance. He has one shot to counter the prevailing image that took hold while he and Cathy Greig spent what Judge Doug Woodlock deliciously called “16 years of extended banality” on the run.

Who’s right? Flip a coin. Then wait until March.