Walsh Inaug: Herald Trumps Globe in Local Crookerati

January 7, 2014

Both local dailies did a good job covering Marty Walsh’s inauguration as Boston’s 48th (or 54th or 58th) mayor.

The Boston Globe gave it it nearly four full pages in the A section, along with the requisite sonorous editorial.

The Boston Herald seemed to throw its entire newsroom at the torch-passing: eight columnists, seven reporters, twelve pages, and a cautiously optimistic editorial.

But, not surprisingly, it was in the boldface coverage of the day-long shindig where the Herald proved superior, especially in noting the less-than-luminaries who attended.

The Globe pointed out the Big Three:

Even some whose political legacies are shadowed by controversy showed up. Dianne Wilkerson, a former state senator, who was released from prison last fall after serving time for a bribery conviction, was in the audience. So, too, was Thomas Finneran, the former House speaker who pleaded guilty to obstructing justice in 2007, and former state treasurer Tim Cahill, whose trial on public corruption charges ended in a mistrial, probation, and a fine.

 

Howie Carr also gave a nod to the if-you’re-indicted-you’re-invited set. But the Inside Track had a little something extra:

 

Screen Shot 2014-01-07 at 3.12.46 PM

 

Score one for the feisty local tabloid. Don Forst must be smiling somewhere.

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Herald’s Gelzinis: Cahill a Good Guy. Globe’s Vennochi: Good Law, Bad Case

March 9, 2013

Two different – but not necessarily contradictory – takes in the local dailies about former Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill’s close call with the law over financial shenanigans in the Bay State’s 2010 gubernatorial race.

First up: Joan Vennochi’s column in Thursday’s Boston Globe:

With Cahill, a good law and a weak case

IT’S EASY when it’s cash stuffed between a state senator’s breasts or checks funneled through a law partner directly into the pockets of the speaker of the House.

It’s harder — as it should be — when a case for political corruption consists of a feel-good lottery ad campaign that cost taxpayers $1.5 million but never mentions the name of the state treasurer who ordered it up. Those are the underlying facts in the case that Attorney General Martha Coakley brought against former state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill.

While treasurer, Cahill spent public money to advance a personal political agenda — his failed campaign for governor. A new state law makes it a crime for politicians to do that — if prosecutors can show “fraudulent intent.” But in the case against Cahill, the evidence of fraudulent intent simply wasn’t strong enough.

 

That’s the legal angle. Peter Gelzinis had the human angle in his Friday Boston Herald column:

PQ5W8772.JPGTim Cahill: I’m still here

Tim Cahill tucked himself away at a back table a couple of mornings ago, inside his favorite breakfast haunt, McKay’s in Quincy. The word other customers kept tossing his way was, “Congratulations!”

Cahill thanked them all with the grateful smile of someone who’d just come out of a coma.

“I hesitate to think of these past two years as a near-death experience,” he said, referring to his disastrous gubernatorial bid, followed by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s corruption indictment, the threat of serious jail time, a trial that ended in a hung jury and, finally, a negotiated plea to something called “a perception of wrongdoing.”

 

The piece ends with this, which is bound to warm the hearts of Cahill supporters and make his detractors burning mad:

The experience, he said feels “as if I’ve been to my own wake. For two years, I couldn’t really talk to anyone and yet I’ve had all these friends come by to wish me well and tell me they were praying for me. Then, the weirdest, or perhaps, the nicest thing, is that I’m still here to be with them all.”

 

Instead of in the sneezer, where very few ever thought Cahill should wind up.

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Herald on Tim Cahill Mistrial: Not Exactly Martha C(r)oakley

December 13, 2012

Not only did the prosecution of former Massachusetts Treasury Secretary Tim Cahill on ethics violations end in a hung jury, so did the Boston Herald’s coverage of the verdict.

From Hillary Chabot’s column today:

Defeat seen as big blow for Martha Coakley

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s stunning courtroom defeat in the Tim Cahill trial dealt another blow to her political career — spoiling her hopes of rebooting her image and marring her chances for a gubernatorial run, political observers said yesterday.

“Anyone eying the field for the ‘14 gubernatorial race certainly is no less enthusiastic about doing it after today,” said Dan Cence, a key state Democratic operative, after Coakley failed to net a corruption conviction against the former state treasurer.

Added Democratic consultant Mary Ann Marsh: “Obviously it’s a loss for her in that some people will think that while people are sick of politics as usual, this jury thought she was overreaching.”

 

Then again, from the Herald’s editorial on the trial:

Far from innocence

This was never going to be a slam dunk. This case against ex-Treasurer Tim Cahill was always tricky to understand, a complex stew of politics and of governing. And then there was the “but everybody does it” defense.

And so at the end of the day we can’t fault jurors who wrestled for seven days with weeks of testimony for not being able to reach a verdict. Nor should anyone fault Attorney General Martha Coakley for bringing the case in the first place — although there will be many who fall into that camp.

 

Yeah – like the Herald’s own Hillary Chabot.

Not to get technical about it.

Bottom line: Score one for the separation of news pages and editorials.

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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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