Bulger
I spent most of the day yesterday watching the House Government Oversight Committee's hearing on the FBI and the mob in Boston, at which UMass President and former State Senate President William Bulger testified. Predictably, Bulger said he did not know where authorities could find his brother, James "Whitey" Bulger, a fugitive wanted on 18 counts of murder (and other nasty things) who is on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.
Bulger is pilloried in the Boston Globe today for what Dan Burton (the same mild-mannered Indiana rep who called Bill Clinton a "scumbag") termed during his questioning "convenient memory loss." Brian McGrory has a reasonably even-handed take on the proceedings, but Scot Lehigh and the lead editorial take Bulger to task.
Once the Globe decides a public figure is their enemy, they really go to town with as much damning coverage as they can come up with. Bulger has been a favorite target over the years, and the pattern has been the same with politicians including former governor Paul Celucci. One could argue that this week's series on John Kerry's life has not exactly portrayed the local presidential candidate in the best light possible either. I find the appearance of a crusading newspaper that seems to have its own agenda extremely distasteful. Certainly, commentary is valid on the op-ed page, but a constant drumbeat of negative news stories, re-hashing the same old information, begins to look suspicious.
The Bulger issue has been deliberately overblown by politicians hoping to score points with the public, and the Globe has gleefully gone along. The federal authorities should focus on finding the man accused of these crimes rather than perpetually harassing his law-abiding brother, a man who has dedicated his life and considerable talents to public service. All of the alleged misdeeds discussed yesterday have been investigated before, some multiple times, and going over them again now is useless as anything other than an effort to put Bill Bulger in a media spotlight for enemies to take potshots at him. The show in Congress had nothing to do with actually bringing the fugitive to justice, the only legitimate aim here.
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