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Mayor Menino and friends joke about e-mail scandal
By thirstybear39 on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 12:19pm
Check out the end of this Herald article which tells how Mayor Menino and his friends joked about the e-mail scandal at a Councilor Tobin event last night. Note: the mayor was skipping an East Boston event to attend this toast.
The mayor turned down the East Boston event and instead attended a ritzy gala on Newbury Street, where he was given an achievement award. Later that night he went to a 40th birthday party fund-raiser for Councilor John Tobin at a West Roxbury Elks Club.
Though the party was a roast for him, Tobin said the "shrapnel" was spread around - and the controversy swirling around Menino's policy chief, Michael Kineavy, for routinely deleting his city e-mails, in apparent violation of public records laws, became fodder for comedy.
Tobin said Matt O'Malley, political director for MassEquality, teased state Rep. Michael F. Rush (D-West Roxbury), saying, "His legislative accomplishments are thinner than Mike Kineavy's in-box."
The mayor himself even poked fun over the e-mail scandal that has dogged him during this week's build-up to Tuesday's preliminary election.
Apologizing for arriving late, Tobin said Menino quipped, "I have been out looking for my e-mails. Has anybody seen them? I don't know what they look like."
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Comments
Levity
Some amateurs who want to run a major city in a time of national crisis distracting from talking about any actual day-to-day issues just before the election? When you're looking at clowns like that shortchanging the populace, it must be a joke.
Really
Really? While Menino was out joking about how his top people are breaking the law, Flaherty, Yoon and McCrae were in JP attending a forum and talking about the issues. Menino is the one who bagged it to make jokes and laugh out loud about criminal behavior in City Hall.
Did the Mayor's oh-so-funny
joke about a scandal at City Hall raise lots and lots of money for Tobin? Really guys, try not to be so glib when so many of your constituents are outraged.
Re: Francesca
What's truly funny are the desperate, 11th hour flailings of a couple of amateurs trying to get the city off-track from an issue-based conversation about Boston. While you're getting red-faced and self-righteous, people could be talking about the environment, transportation, education, jobs. Way to go, guys!
That's what they were taklking about at forums!
Sarah S says: - "...people could be talking about the environment, transportation, education, jobs. "
People were - Yoon, Flaherty & McCrae at a voter forum with 500 people in JP. Meanwhile Menino was cracking jokes about corruption at City Hall.
I think that this is the point of this post. Go back and read it again, Sarah.
Easy, Francesca
These moans of "outrage" are all coming from the same camp. He was at a "roast" and was getting roasted so he replied with a quip. Consider the venue, should he have given a speech instead? C'mon, get real. You're better than that.
then again, it's silly season ... and two candidates won't be around in a couple of days, please come down from hyperspace and rejoin we humans.
Sorry, I don't agree
Sorry, I'm seeing plenty of outrage out there that is genuine and coming from folks who are not associated with any camp (as it turns out, I am out among the humans each and every day).
I also don't believe that this is an issue invented by Menino's opponents. What I understand is that the Globe first became interested in the email story many months ago after Kineavy responded to a federal subpoena with many fewer emails than would have been expected for a period of about a year. The Globe printed their story when they printed it, I don't believe the other candidates had anything to do with when the Globe printed it, and I don't blame the other candidates for making a campaign issue out of it. Afterall, the breaking of the public records law within the Menino administration illustrates some aspect of what all three challengers have been talking about in their campaigns.
And considering the venue, no, I don't think Menino should have been making a speech, but I do think that good politicking, as well as good comedy, relies on timing and knowing your audience. So if he was in the right crowd at the right time to be joking about what even the Herald is calling a "scandal" -- one that is even still unfolding -- then fine. That crowd and I apparently think very differently, because I find the remark glib, and glibness is exactly what I don't want from my mayor when his top advisor admits breaking the law.
You've posted anonoymously, so I have no idea who you are and how you might be in a position to know what I might be better than. But thanks for the vote of confidence.
Forum
Maybe Menino should have gone instead to the MassVote Forum put together by more than 50 community groups. There, he could have told us all how funny it is to destroy public records. I am sure that it would have gone down well. Menino just doesn't care that his administration broke the law. He is there too long and has too much power.
Menino has done more forums than any incumbent in recent history
Four in the prelim, more for the final. Did Kevin White or Ray Flynn ever do that many when they were "in". Nope.
Plus he has a real, full-time job ....
Yes
According to the Boston Phoenix, there were more than 80 forums in the 1983 Mayor's race.
If Menino prefers to go tell jokes about breaking the law, that's up to him. Voters seemed pretty annoyed that he dissed them though.