Markey needs to step it up

Posted on May 20, 2013 by

Senator John McCain is in Boston today to support Republican Gabriel Gomez’ bid for the U.S. Senate race.  Gomez, a former Navy SEAL,  is expected to step up his attacks on Democratic Congressman Ed Markey for being soft on homeland security.  The “soft” votes can be explained, but to so-called independents parachuting late into this low-visibility campaign, in the wake of the marathon bombings, the issue could gain some traction.  What matters is how Markey handles his response.

At issue is a pair of votes against resolutions in 2004 and 2006 expressing sympathy with the victims of 9/11.  Does Gomez really think Markey lacked sympathy for the victims of 9/11?  Indeed, the “no” votes by the Congressman came because the resolution linked that terrorist attack to Iraq, which, as the Markey campaign has pointed out, was by then “debunked.”

Gomez is also quoted in the Globe  attacking Markey for first being for the Patriots Act, then against it.  Many legislators were.  The Patriots Act was passed in the aftermath of 9/11, but afterwards. many thoughtful supporters have wanted to modify it, believing it  overly broad and insufficiently attentive to civil liberties.

Markey’s primary opponent Stephen Lynch tried to pin Markey with being soft on security.  Despite having been a key player in seaport security, nuclear reactor security and related issues, Markey was caught flat-footed and found it difficult to explain the nuances of votes that were legitimate.

In fact, one of Markey’s biggest problems in this campaign is that there are too many times when he has seemed to answer questions obliquely, talking around something and quickly pivoting to prepared talking points.   When pressed by WCVB reporter Janet Wu yesterday to say whether President Obama should be held accountable for the Justice Department’s probe of Associated Press phone records, Markey made a quick shift to say “We need a shield law.”  That didn’t answer the question.

When Wu pressed Markey on releasing his tax returns (Gomez has released six years’ worth. Markey has never released his returns), he said “yes, and soon.” “Will you do it next week?” she said. He responded, “In the very near future.”   Those returns probably will be made public this week, but Markey’s refusal to be pinned down just reinforced a sense that he sometimes unnecessarily sidesteps issues and that he lapses into Washingtonspeak.

Gomez is trying to make a big deal of Markey’s being in Washington too long though he has no problem bringing in McCain, who has been in Congress almost as long as Markey.   The up side of Markey’s long experience is his expertise in law-making, negotiating on bills, actually getting things done.

Right now, this is Markey’s race to lose, but he can’t afford to sit on his lead.  He needs to ratchet up the energy of his campaign, something even some in his inner circle acknowlege. The winner of the Democratic primary is no longer the automatic winner of the general election.  Unlike when Markey first went to Washington, Democrats now make up only 37 percent of the electorate here, and unenrolled or independents are now 52 percent of Massachusetts voters.  Of those independents, only ten percent, according to some polling,  view Gomez unfavorably while 44 percent have an unfavorable view of Markey. This is where the battleground will be, and the upcoming debate could be important.

Given the shortness of the campaign and the lateness of the preponderant unenrolled to tune in, a guerrilla tactic by Gomez supporters, involving Swiftboat-like distortions of particular votes or playing to a majority’s frustration with Washington in general, could land some blows.  Unlike Scott Brown, Gomez has declined to take the People’s Pledge, curbing the flow of money from Citizens-United-spawned national independent groups and individuals.  If those forces decided the race is winnable for Gomez, their money could alter the outcome for Markey.

Gomez is not Scott Brown, who had 12 years of legislative voting record behind him before running for Senate. Gomez is either evasive or uninformed about many issues of concern. Notwithstanding Scott Brown’s pledge to be independent, whenever Mitch McConnell really needed Brown’s vote, he had it.  Gomez is likely to do the same.

Ed Markey is not Martha Coakley. But, while he is running a much better campaign than she did,  he is still not running the campaign that he is capable of.

I welcome your comments in the section below.

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At the heart of the Red Sox – a real estate play?

Posted on May 14, 2013 by

Today’s Globe story that a deal is near for developer John Rosenthal’s Fenway Center is good news for all concerned.  The idea that this project would have a 99-year lease on air rights over the Turnpike between Beacon Street and Brookline Avenue near Kenmore must have Red Sox owners lusting even more to lock in the current low cost street lease they have with Boston over Landsdowne Street (site of Green Monster seats) and Yawkey Way (site of souvenir and sausage vendors.)

I stand second to no one in my lifelong love for the Red Sox, my pride in their performance out of the gate this spring, and my hope that they’ll regain that April momentum.  But  a recent Boston Globe story about the team’s move to make permanent its favorable street lease deal, at the expense of the city and its taxpayers, is a whole other take on the otherwise beloved home team.

You know those Yawkey Way sausages that smell so good but send your arteries closing? I get indigestion when I realize that for the past decade the Sox have had a sweetheart deal to use Yawkey Way, owned by the city,  for the sale of concessions and Landsdowne Street air rights for the Green Monster seats.   Over the past ten years, the Red Sox have paid only an average of $186,000 annually to use these streets, while generating from that license an estimated $5 million a year. They’ve also tripled the price of Green Monster seats, but the license is capped at five percent a year.  Surely these profits are not being passed on to fans, who pay top-of-the-majors ticket prices.

Locking in that low rate for life would significantly increase the team’s net worth should it decide to sell, but I don’t see a commensurate benefit for the city or for us fans.  Someone I love dearly dismisses Red Sox Nation as a clever marketing cover for essentially a private real estate play with a publicly seductive entertainment hook.  I refuse to be so cynical.

I understand this is not the community-owned Green Bay Packers, and I acknowledge that team ownership has an obligation to try to get all it can for its business partners. But the city is under no obligation to acquiesce. And it clearly should not give in to this demand.

BRA Director Peter Meade’s reported earlier insistence that “the fee be increased and tied to income earned on the streets, rather than the consumer price index” makes sense… even for die-hard Red Sox fans.

I welcome your comments in the section below.

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Corner office may be way out of D.C. for Capuano

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

The House has passed a budget.  The Senate has passed a budget.  But we’re not likely to get a budget, Congressman Michael Capuano told Monday’s New England Council breakfast meeting, because Congress is still kicking the can down the road, drifting toward the next crisis, probably this fall.  The only difference between the majority party and the minority party, he asserts, is that, when the Democrats were in control, “at least we had serious debates about serious issues.”  Now, he sees only pontificating and posturing.

Regarding the deficit, he told the business crowd, everyone got a little greedy.  People wanted that $20 tax cut in their pockets, instead of having it go to Social Security.  If you want Social Security, the WIC program, interstate highways, you have to pay for it.  Too many people are afraid to tell the truth. If you want these things, you have to pay for them.

“I am a liberal Democrat,” he said.  “I want to pay our bills.  As Mayor, you have to balance the budget.  It’s the law. The federal government doesn’t have to.  But I don’t support excess debt.”

Capuano’s frustration becomes more evident each time he speaks to the Council.  The former Somerville mayor reflects on how, when he ran in a 9-person race in 1998, he was viewed as a moderate to conservative. These days, and certainly in a national context, he’s introduced as an unabashed liberal.  But, he says, “to have a good liberal society, you need a strong business climate.”  The lesson any mayor can tell you is “there’s no liberal way to collect the trash.”

Positions like mayor or governor  have their own challenges, but Capuano seems to miss his executive days when he could roll up his sleeves and not be dragged down by endless, highly partisan debates about non-issues, generating little more than hot air.  Small wonder then that the Taunton Daily Gazette reported today, in a story filed by the State House News Service, that Capuano is mulling a run for governor. A decision could come soon.

The scrappy Democrat is passionate, liberal, and practical.  He is informed by social justice and animated by the art of the practical. His years in Congress, living the big picture, and his years as mayor, handling the nuts and bolts of government, would make him a strong contender.  He ran a primary race for U.S. Senate but lost to Martha Coakley, who, in the general election, well, you know. If Capuano had been the party’s nominee more than two years ago, he would, at a minimum, have run a more energetic race.  He certainly has the capacity to run that kind of race for governor in 2014.

I welcome your comments in the section below. 

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IRS v.Tea Party: a cause for concern

Posted on May 12, 2013 by

A civic or social welfare organization is not allowed to support political candidates of any stripe.  Partisan activities are a no-no if a non-profit wants to preserve its federal tax exemption. But the law has to be applied evenly.

The Internal Revenue Service has apparently targeted the Tea Party and other right-wing groups to make sure that they weren’t violating their non-profit status by supporting and opposing political candidates. According to the Wall St. Journal, the excess targeting took place during the 2012 election when the IRS noticed that applications for 501(c) (4) status more than doubled. The agency based its greater scrutiny on whether the group had “tea party” or “patriots” in its name. The IRS even asked at least one group to disclose its donors, which isn’t supposed to happen.

The IRS has apologized, but it’s important to know whether this happened due to over-zealous lower level employees in Cincinnati (as claimed) or at a higher, policy level. Liberals should be as concerned as conservatives about the IRS handling of the inquiries.  Can you say Richard Nixon?  As Reuters reported,  secretly recorded White House tapes revealed that the paranoid and anti-Semitic president had ordered Richard Haldemann to direct IRS audits of wealthy Jewish donors giving to the Democratic Party.   Nixon also had the IRS lean on people and organizations on his “enemies list,” including the Fund for Investigative Journalism (which funded Sy Hersh’s reporting on the My Lai massacre) and the Center for Corporate Responsibility.

While there are also stories of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson trying to use the IRS politically,( according to Joe Klein writing in Time, even Franklin Roosevelt did it), no one ever did it like Richard Nixon, who reportedly created a special unit within the IRS for just that purpose. It was closed by the late IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander in 1977.

Using the force of government, especially the much feared and loathed IRS,  as a way of punishing one’s political opponents strikes at the heart of our democracy.  We need to find out how and why this happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I welcome your comments in the section below.

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Muslim community needs to be part of early warning system

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

It wasn’t enough to decimate the core of what was Al Qaeda in 2001.  The landscape in certain hospitable countries like Yemen and Syria is now dotted with Al Qaeda offshoots and affiliates.  And, for the last eight years, the home-grown variety has been particularly vexing.  The Sunday morning talk shows were full of attempts to learn from the Boston bombings: how to deal with self-radicalized individuals like the Tsarnaevs.

Nidal Malik Hasan seems a case in point.  He was the shooter in the mass murder at Ft. Hood in Texas in 2009, a psychiatrist, of all things, who had been in touch with Anwar al-Awlaki, based in Yemen. Apparently Hasan’s colleagues were aware of his  increasingly radical thinking and isolated behavior but did nothing.

A recent article in The National Journal documents how clues were missed in the case of the Tsarnaevs. Starting in 2012, Tamarlan Tsarnaev was reportedly given to angry outbursts during his imam’s sermons and, on at least one occasion, was asked to leave the mosque because of his disruption. This report was confirmed by Reuters. By contrast, a press release from the Islamic Society of Boston says that, “In their visits they never exhibited any violent sentiments or behaviour. Otherwise, they would have been immediately reported to the FBI.”

FBI monitoring can’t do the job alone. Clearly the moderate Muslim community has a role to play, and, according to a study quoted in the same National Journal article, more than a quarter of disrupted plots by would-be Muslim terrorists were exposed by members of Muslim-American communities.  This is a hard time for the Muslim community, and the interfaith community in Boston has reached out to the concerned Muslims who make up the majority.

Calls have increased for better cooperation between federal authorities and  Muslim-Americans, some of whom have asked for training in dealing with these situations. There a lot we  must learn from Britain’s Prevent program, developed in the wake of  the   London bombings in July 2005. To be sure, there have been questions raised about violations of civil liberties, but designing and implementing multilayered community programs, which include concerns about ideological violence as a component but are not the exclusive focus, could ameliorate allegations of profiling, strengthen community ties and foster proactive protection.

Over the weekend, we began to learn about an Obama administration program developed two years ago to strength relationships among federal agencies and community organizations, a plan that to this day still apparently exists largely on paper and is virtually unfunded.

The challenge is to resist the temptation to generalize and stereotype and, on the other hand, to be careful of the political correctness that would prevent an early warning system from becoming effective.  This time around, our early warning systems failed at the federal agency level, which failed to monitor Tamerlan Tsarnaev and dropped him from its watch list, and at the community level, where no one spoke out about the increasingly radical behavior of this dangerous terrorist in our midst.

Today’s New York Times reports that Al Qaeda propagandists are encouraging more “homemade” terrorists.  What will be the reason next time for our failure to intercept the plot?

I welcome your comments in the section below.

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Kerry shares world view with editorialists

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

“Our credibility in one place affects our credibility in another,” Secretary of State John Kerry told about 20 members of the Association of Opinion Journalists in a briefing Monday at the State Department.

Syria’s use of sarin gas “is a red line for the President,” but we’re “not talking about boots on the ground.” We must work with others whose interests align with ours. So, too, with North Korea. China, which provides North Korea food, fuel and banking services, is the key to confronting Kim Jong-un’s saber rattling. (It’s a more nuanced response, not the reflexive muscle urged by Senators McCain and Graham, and it’s what appears to be happening with Iran.)

State Dept. photo

State Dept. photo

In a 25-minute presentation, Kerry laid out an integrated view of American foreign policy, premised on the idea that “We can’t protect America with seal teams, drones and deployment alone.  We need to offer a more kinetic component of combating terrorism.” Besides, he later noted, “it is much cheaper to invest in diplomats than in troops.”

Building new democracy is difficult, but, to avoid extremism, a “minor” level of investment is essential.The budget of the State Department is a scant one percent of the federal budget, for all initiatives, foreign aid, embassies, everything they do. Yet, Kerry contends, it yields a significant return on investment.

Stimulating American international trade is part of this mix.  Every $200,000 in product that we export represents a job created in the United States, Kerry said.  Eleven of our 15 largest trading partners  in the world used to receive foreign aid from us.  Now Japan and Europe are giving aid to others.  Seen that way, “foreign policy really isn’t foreign policy at all but domestic policy carried into a connected world.”

How connected? The varied events of the Arab Spring, he said, were set off by a Tunisian fruit vendor seeking fair placement of his fruit cart without being hassled by local police. Initially, the events had nothing to do with Islamism or ideology.  Tunisia was just the first of several eruptions against governments failing to meet citizens’ needs, eruptions magnified by tensions between modernity and the status quo.

So, too, with Egypt, a generational revolution, fueled by tweets and text messages.  When an election occurred, the oldest organization -the Muslim Brotherhood – stepped in,  appealing to young people without jobs, seeing no future.   Leaders around the world rightly worry about the “tsunami of the disenfranchised.”

If we don’t want extremists exporting violence to various part of the world, we need to work with our allies to help transformation occur. If we don’t offer a better vision, he warns, extremism will move faster than democracy.

Despite many serious worldwide challenges, Kerry is largely optimisitic.  ”With winding down in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, we are less at risk with our forces than we’ve been in many years, ” he said.   The scores of  agencies working with our embassies have blunted plots from abroad that the American people never did see.

“Our nation is the indispensible country. We are looked to for leadership everywhere,”  he said. The challenge, as always, is to get Congress and the American people to be willing to pay up front for foreign initiatives and to see them as related to our long-term domestic well-being.

I come away thinking Kerry’s  views are  not original. He’s  well versed in the issues, knows the Obama priorities and is an able advocate. But his task is daunting.  In the old days, even in the face of public hostility and indifference,  there were leaders in  the Congress capable of shaping bipartisan foreign policies. But most  of them are gone, and those remaining are unwilling to spend their capital educating voters. We’re a nation not known for taking the long view. Failure to do so today has higher costs than ever.

I welcome your comments in the section below.

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Local media continue to shine

Posted on April 26, 2013 by

In the early days following the Marathon bombings, the media made plenty of mistakes as reporters rushed to tell the story.  Reports surfaced that the two suspects were under arrest when they were not.  The boat in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found was outside the police search perimeter, then inside, then, well it’s still not clear.  Tsarnaev opened fire on police surrounding the boat, then he had no gun. The bombers let their carjacking victim  go, then he escaped.  Reporters and security investigators alike have scrambled to figure out what happened, and overall their efforts have been quite remarkable.

While there has traditionally been plenty to fault, in this situation Greater Boston has been well served by its media. Some efforts continue to dazzle.  This morning’s Boston Globe had some remarkable writing, including Eric Moscowitz’s lengthy interview with “Danny,” the car-jacking victim, and Kevin Cullen’s retelling of the events leading up to the Watertown capture on Friday.  Two days ago, the Boston Herald’s Chris Cassidy’s breaking news that the Tsarnaev parents had been on welfare and that Tamarlan Tsarnaev and his wife had received benefits until 2012 added a whole other dimension.  The paper continues pushing to get the records made public  as people wonder whether taxpayer dollars indirectly subsidized the development of the terrorists’ plan.

Even the Boston Business Journal brought something new to our understanding in describing how the insularity of Boston’s typically too tight business and political leadership helped to insure the effectiveness of the One Boston Fund, which has now raised more than $20 million and engaged the incomparable Ken Feinberg to administer the fund.  And I would be remiss not to mention Channel Five’s Ed Harding interview with David Henneberry, the Watertown boat owner who discovered the bloodied Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.  Stories had been rampant that Henneberry had seen the torn, blood-spattered cover of the board and had, on closer examination, found the bomber hiding in it.  There was no blood, Henneberry told Harding.  He was just a guy who, when lockdown was lifted, went out into his yard to look at his boat.  The rest is history.

The Mass. Broadcasters Hall of Fame released a statement this week praising the radio, broadcast and cable news media for their service to the public in this tragedy.  The same should rightly be said of our print brothers and sisters. Their coverage of breaking events, reconstruction of first responder experiences, retelling of victims’ stories, explication of the medical challenges for providers and patients, and more, has helped us slowly but surely come to grips with what has happened to our community.  Against the traditional backdrop of herd mentality, often superficial routine work, there have been stellar contributions, for which we should be grateful in this trying time.

I welcome your comments in the section below.

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