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| Home Front: Politix |
| Congressman Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts: Pompous, Pretentious, Ineffective. |
| 2010-03-03 |
| Going The Way Of Marsha Coakley Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley by five points in the senatorial contest to succeed Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. But, in William Delahunt's congressional district, Brown beat the lady by 20 points. This was not good news for Delahunt, not good news at all. He's serving his seventh House term in a state delegation that is all Democratic (which, alas, it won't be come Election Day 2010). The tenth C.D. has been Democratic since Gerry Studds won it in the seventies, and Studds held the seat for nearly a quarter-century. The only chance the Dems had of retaining the seat was for Joseph P. Kennedy III, one of the twin sons of Joe Kennedy Jr. (with whom, you may recall, I've had my quarrels) and grandson of JFK's brother Bobby, to leave his job as a prosecutor in Barnstable County and run. But JPK III ruled out that prospect Sunday in an interview with the Boston Globe. I don't know the man, but I am reliably told of his seriousness, diligence, and wit. I wouldn't have minded at all if there were someone in American politics who had the gene for responsible patriotism in his blood. Alas, Delahunt does not. Not even in the elemental sense of reliability as a prosecutor. Back in 1986, Delahunt, now the morally haughty congressman, was the unbelievably casual district attorney in the Bay State's Norfolk County when Amy Bishop was arrested for shooting her brother. Yes, the University of Alabama professor who killed three of her colleagues (and wounded others) in mid-February had a record. Police suspected she sent a mail-bomb to her Harvard Medical School thesis adviser, Professor Paul Rosenberg, in 1993. And nothing happened. |
| Posted by:Fred |