Howie Carr

I traveled much to Boston in the late nineties, and discovered a columnist I never would have otherwise: Howie Carr.

Carr, who writes for the Boston Herald, is, I would think, reveling in a certain redemption at the moment.

Since I've known of him--and I'm certain, for years previous--Carr's two hobbyhorses (I mean, besides Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, aka "The Swimmer" and "Lurch" respectively, who are almost two too easy targets) have been the historical debacle known as the Big Dig, and the Bulger brothers. Whitey and Billy Bulger have mostly been represented by the press as a kind of Goofus and Gallant; one brother (Whitey) a made man in the Irish mafia; the other (Billy) the President of the Massachusetts Senate, a pol to whom even the Kennedys cowtowed. "What irony!" we were always told.

Well, yes and no. Whitey truly was all that and a pint of Guiness, a killer who snuck off with $40 million in, as they say, ill-gotten gains, and is on the lamb from the FBI to this day. He is number two on the FBI's most-wanted list. For comparison purposes, consider that Osama bin Laden is number one. Billy, though, is hardly the older boy in the Prodigal son parable, for the list of his misdeeds stretches, as they say, "From heah tuh Mahbulhead." After his tenure in the State Senate, he moved over to the Presidency of UMass, until his stumbling, bumbling testimony about his brother before a Congressional Committee gave Governor Mitt Romney the ammunition he needed to unseat Billy, albeit with nearly a million in severance, plus over $11,000 a month in pension until they put him in a pine box.

Good stuff.

Today, sampling of Carr. A sampling of a sampling:

Look, Cleveland has “the Jake.” Suddenly everyone is referring to the Ted Williams Tunnel o’ Death as “the Ted,” although given the recent killing of a woman in a car below sea level due to political corruption, perhaps a more appropriate handle would be “the Teddy.”

Get to know this guy.