Scott Brown Not the Brightest Bulb in the Vanity Mirror

February 14, 2013

Subhead: He’s a bit of a stiff, too.

Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-$$$) made his Fox News debut on Sean Hannity’s show last night, and it has received decidedly mixed reviews in the local dailies.

Boston Globe:

Scott Brown_Fox NewsScott Brown makes his Fox debut

Former senator Scott Brown made a transition from potential comeback politician to pundit in just two weeks, making his debut as a contributor to Fox News on Wednesday night in an appearance also billed as an “exclusive” by host Sean Hannity.

Fans and skeptics alike saw the move as a plush landing pad for Brown, a telegenic former model who used his regular-guy appeal to great effect in his campaign for US Senate and whose upset win in 2010 was championed and chronicled on Fox . . .

Wearing a suit with an American flag on his lapel, Brown started off his appearance on the “Hannity” show smiling uncertainly, but he soon hit his stride with campaign- style talking points.

 

Translation for the Fox News-impaired: Bo-ring.

Crosstown at the Boston Herald, though, the atmosphere (by which we mean, of course, Margery Eagan) was electric:

Scott Brown at "The People's Library"Scott Brown can’t lose as top Fox hunk

Scott Brown isn’t running for governor next year. That’s my bet.

Fox News, where he debuted last night, is a terrific paycheck. Good for him.

But you just don’t help your political career in the bluest of blue states by working for Fox . . .

I for one expect that Brown will do for the men of America what he did for the boyos of Massachusetts: He’ll make them swoon.

 

He’s certainly had that effect on her: “Scott Brown is even better looking than the very pretty Sean Hannity — and in much better, triathlon-ready shape. Brown is almost as gorgeous as Megyn Kelly.”

But while the earth may have moved for Margery, others were less, well, breathless.

“I wonder what political analysis he’s done in the past that is noteworthy. Has he ever said anything that has great political insight?” said longtime GOP political analyst Todd Domke.

“Once elected, he was pretty mushy. He proved that moderation is not necessarily a virtue because it can mean boring. I don’t know what to expect,” Domke added. “Actually, I think I do know what to expect.”

 

Translation for the Domke-impaired: Double boring.

One last mash note (check lower right), this one regarding Ed Markey and Stephen Lynch agreeing to a “people’s pledge:”

Picture 2

 

In the end, only the Herald can make the Herald swoon.

 

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Boston Herald: Your Zumba Hooker Headquarters

January 29, 2013

Margery Eagan has the local dailies’ Maine event in her Boston Herald column today:

zumba122912Potential jurors in Zumba case face probing questions

A truth too naked

“Do you have a domination fetish?”

“Have you dealt with this by hiring a prostitute?”

“Was this a wise investment for you, sir?”

Sadly for dozens of presumably upstanding Maine residents called for the jury pool in the so-called “Zumba” prostitution trial, these are the kind of sexual questions they may be asked.

Worse: A judge’s effort to keep the questioning private has been overturned by the state’s highest court.

 

Bad news for the good townspeople of Kennebunk, excellent news for the Herald.

No news, however, for the Boston Globe, which didn’t mention the trial in today’s edition.

The broadsheet did post this Associated Press piece on the Globe website around 3:30 this morning.

Better late than never, yeah?

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Jury’s Out on Carmen Ortiz

January 17, 2013

Not-quite-matching her & her columns in the local papers on the topic of U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and her (over?)zealous prosecution of Aaron Swartz.

Start with Margery Eagan’s column in the Boston Herald:

IMG_6554.JPGOutrage over zealous feds

Statement too little, too late

Just days ago, speculation was rampant. Gov. Carmen Ortiz? U.S. Sen. Carmen Ortiz?

Well, that’s all over now.

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz is done. Finished. Forever linked to bringing the full and frightening weight of the federal government down upon a 26-year-old computer genius — and a suicide risk.

 

If that’s not tough enough for you, how about this, regarding the six month/guilty plea deal Swartz was offered :

“Oh, so you’re innocent. Do only six months in jail,” said a sarcastic Harvey Silverglate, Boston civil liberties 
attorney and author of “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.” He accused Ortiz’s office of being “drunk with power” and said up to now the media had “protected” Ortiz 
because “she’s a Hispanic woman.”

 

Ouch.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the view was quite different in Joan Vennochi’s op-ed piece.

Swartz case is sad, but not an overreach

WHEN IT comes to the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old computer prodigy who killed himself, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz has explaining to do.

But there are also questions for Swartz’s lawyer, Elliot Peters.

Why reject the government’s offer of a four-to-six month prison sentence? That’s much less than the 35 years and $1 million fine allowed under the federal law that Swartz was charged with violating.

Peters told the Globe that Swartz didn’t believe he was a felon; he was acting on the principle that information on the Internet should be free when he downloaded academic journals from an MIT computer system. But defending principle was not his lawyer’s job. It was to provide Swartz with the best legal advice, given the charges and the government’s refusal to back down.

 

Vennochi says “the widespread revulsion directed at the US attorney’s office is overreach by cyber-bullies.”

So take your pick – did Oriz bully Swartz or are Internet thugs bullying her?

Or both?

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Hark! The Herald! (Power of the Press Edition)

January 10, 2013

The feisty local tabloid has the self-promotion machine in overdrive today.

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

MA_BH

 

And here’s the spread from pages 4 and 5:

Picture 2

 

Just for good measure, the Herald tosses an editorial (“Time for true reform”) and this Margery Eagan column into the mix:

062909rowlings077.jpgShocking! In Mass., they’re fixing a mess

Call it a shocker. A stunner. Another Massachusetts Miracle. Something you would never expect until Boston Harbor freezes over and 90 percent of our lawmakers have an “R” instead of a “D” next to their names.

Last year the Herald ran a series of stories detailing questionable unemployment claims filed by city and town workers. Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick announced reforms. And most everybody thinks Beacon Hill will actually OK those reforms — soon.

 

All thanks to the Herald, of course. Or so it seems.

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Herald’s Inside Trick: Credit Defaults

January 6, 2013

The hardreading staff has noted before the occasional tendency of the Boston Herald’s Track Gals (without Megan!) to borrow material without disclosing their sources.

Sad to say, they’re back at it again today.

From the Inside Track’s We Hear section:

• That Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, late of News Talk 96.9, will guest host for two hours on 89.7 WGBH Radio on Tuesday beginning at noon. The pair — he hosts a show on NECN and she is a Herald columnist — will host a segment within the midday show of live, local talk, according to their old WTKK boss Phil Redo, who just so happens to be managing director of ’GBH Radio. Tryout? Do stay tuned.

 

From yesterday’s Boston Globe:

Former WTKK hosts get one-day gig at WGBH

Two days after they hosted the final talk show broadcast on WTKK-FM, Jim Braude and Margery Eagan have lined up a one-day gig on WGBH-FM that could double as an audition.

WGBH said Friday that the former WTKK morning show hosts will guest host “Boston Public Radio” Jan. 8, filling in for Callie Crossley, Emily Rooney and Kara Miller.

Braude and Eagan hosted the last episode of “Jim & Margery” Wednesday before the station switched to an all-music format.

The pair has no other assignments booked on WGBH, but the station’s managing director, Phil Redo, suggested in an e-mail that there could be more to come.

“I’m a big fan of theirs,” said Redo, who managed WTKK and four other Greater Media Inc. stations in Boston from 2006 to 2009 . . .

 

Not to get technical about it, but next time the Track Gals should File Under: “We Read.”

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Brown: Ex Markeys the Spot in Malden

January 3, 2013

Despite the Boston Herald’s speculation yesterday that Scott Brown (R-Unemployed) might run for governor in 2014, he’s sure acting like a man who wants a return trip to the U.S. Senate.

Today’s Page One Boston Globe story:

Brown swipes at Markey’s residency

Scott Brown, in an attempt to define a potential Senate campaign rival before the race even kicks off, questioned Wednesday whether US Representative Edward J. Markey is a bona fide resident of Massachusetts.

Brown took to talk radio, his favored venue, to question whether Markey, the Malden Democrat whose Senate candidacy top Democrats are rallying around, spends too much time in Washington and not enough time in the Bay State.

The early skirmish was a remind er that the campaign season, seemingly over after the November election, is begin ning again as politicians scramble for the seat likely to be vacated by Senator John F. Kerry, who is expected to be confirmed later this month as secretary of state.

Brown, a Republican who has given strong hints that he is running, is heavily leaning toward another campaign, but has not yet made a decision, according to a person familiar with his deliberations.

Uh-huh.

The piece notes that Markey has faced this issue before:

During the 2010 election, challenger Gerry ­Dembrowski, a Woburn Republican, videotaped interviews with neighbors in Malden asking whether they had ever seen Markey in his home. Most knew his house was there, but said they had not seen him.

The video called “Ed Markey: The Undocumented Congressman,” was posted on YouTube, but it did not stop Markey from winning that year’s race in a 2-1 landslide.

Said video (which is mildly amusing, if a bit heavy-handed):

 

Crosstown at the Herald, columnist Margery Eagan seems to have actually gone to Malden.

TED_8370.jpgQuestion hits home with Markey neighbors

In what may be the first salvo in the race for John Kerry’s Senate seat, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown wondered yesterday whether longtime Congressman Ed Markey, who wants Kerry’s job, even lives in his hometown of Malden anymore.

“I’ve come back and forth (from Washington) every weekend,” Brown said yesterday when he called into my last radio show on WTKK. “I see, you know, most of the delegation, and I have never seen Ed on the airplane. … Does he even live here anymore?”

The results of my cursory inquiry of Markey’s Malden neighbors: We’re not quite sure.

Representative samples:

“I don’t see him, to tell you the truth,” said a man who identified himself as Mr. Iacuzzi and has lived next door to Markey on Townsend Street “for more than 30 years.” Iacuzzi thinks he’s seen Markey before, but “it was long time ago.”

“I’m not sure what he even looks like,” said Josh, the manager at Dockside Restaurant, a Malden favorite for fundraisers. So he Googled Markey to make sure. “No, I can’t say that I’ve seen him in here.”

“I have no idea who he is,” said a worker at the legendary Moe’s Cafe.

A Markey spokeswoman had this reply: “(Brown) is already launching false, personal attacks …”

Ha! That’s not even a slapfight. Unlike with Elizabeth Warren, Brown doesn’t have to worry about gender gaps when he jumps ugly on Markey. And there’s not gonna be no People’s Pledge either.

Get ready for some serious smashmouth politics this time around.

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Howie Carr’s WTKK Drive-By

December 29, 2012

Boston Herald columnist/WRKO squawker Howie Carr is experiencing an extreme bout of Howenfreude over the demise of FM talk station WTKK. (Full disclosure: The hardreading staff did a weekly segment on the Jim & Margery show.)

Today’s triumphant nyah-nyah from Carr:

PL6Q0092.JPGTalk radio’s not dead, just moonbats’ radio

WTKK wouldn’t be turning off the lights next week if I could have just gotten over there back in 2007. No brag, just fact. And by the way, I’m still damn sorry I didn’t make good my escape from the AM band.

But here in Massachusetts, in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls. And you wonder why I dismember so many state judges. Payback is a bitch, you hacks.

Still, WTKK’s failure is not the end of talk radio in Boston. Nature abhors a vacuum, and having no talk station on FM is a gaping hole. Less than 20 percent of the radio audience ever listens to AM radio — and it’s a mighty old audience, too. They don’t call it “Ancient Modulation” for nothing.

 

In his gleeful victory dance, however, Carr gets his feet all tangled up.

Harry Truman used to say, “If you give people a choice between a Republican and a Republican, they’ll vote for the Republican every time.”

Here’s WTKK’s epitaph: “If you give listeners a choice between NPR and NPR, they’ll pick NPR every time.”

Sorry, Jim and Margery, nobody was giving up “All Things Considered” for you guys.

 

First of all, what Harry Truman actually said was this: “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” That makes sense, as opposed to Carr’s mushbrained quote.

Second, Jim and Margery are up against “Morning Edition,” not “All Things Considered.”

Not to get technical about it.

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the Namesniks have  a slightly kinder – and slightly more optimistic – take.

WTKK to abandon talk radio for music

For an all-talk station, the folks at WTKK aren’t saying much. But we’re told the rumors are true: News Talk 96.9 FM is ditching its lineup of loudmouths in favor of music. The format change, which will take place right after the new year, means no more Michael Graham, who was sent packing last Friday, or midday host Doug Meehan, who actually left Boston a few weeks ago, or Rick Shaffer, cohost of the weekend “Money Show.” We’re told Jim Braude and Margery Eagan will be on the air as usual Wednesday morning, but that will be their last day at WTKK. Fans of “Jim and Margery” will be happy to learn, however, that they’re very likely to show up elsewhere on your radio dial sometime soon. No word on what sort of music 96.9 will be playing, but let’s hope it’s more soothing than Graham’s rants.

 

Or Howie Carr’s, for that matter.

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All’s Weld That Ends Weld

December 6, 2012

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (R-Amber-Colored Liquid) made a house call at the Boston Herald yesterday, and the feisty local tabloid made him its coverboy today (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages).

MA_BH

Inside was a two-page Weldian trifecta, starting with Big Red’s pooh-poohing the charges in the Tim Cahill rumpus over his use of Lottery ads during his boneheaded 2010 gubernatorial trot.

e36a1d_ltpwilliamw20121206Ex-gov: Cahill ads just politics

Former governor and ex-U.S. Attorney William F. Weld, in a surprising slap to law enforcement, criticized prosecutors for targeting state lawmakers and ex-Treasurer Tim Cahill in corruption cases that he called just the “business” of politics.

“It seems to me that the theory of the case in both instances is a difficult one for the government,” Weld said in an exclusive interview with the Herald.

Weld, who just moved back to Boston, defended Cahill, who is now awaiting a jury verdict on charges of scheming to use Lottery ads to help his gubernatorial campaign. Asked whether as U.S. attorney he would have brought charges against Cahill, Weld responded: “I don’t think so.”

 

Weld also doesn’t think he’ll be running for the US Senate or governor, deferring to Scott Brown (R-Empty Barn Coat) and Gone-Time Charlie Baker –  for now, anyway.

Margery Eagan rounds out the coverage with some reflections on the Charmin’ Brahmin.

5a8481_010406weldRegular-guy routine refreshing with Bill

Bill Weld has never done what so many politicians now feel they must: pretend to be a regular guy.

At the Boston Herald yesterday, the Brahmin out of Harvard, where buildings are named for his family, talked about the rules of squash and a “dish of tea.”

Oh, how very “Downton Abbey.”

 

Yeah, but who gets to play the Dowager Countess?

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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.

 

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