Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s surrogates are starting to sound like Capt. Renault in “Casablanca” who was “shocked, shocked to find gambling going on,” in a gambling room of Rick’s Cafe Americain – just as an employee handed him his winnings.
The governor’s aides are professing shock and outrage to hear that poor, helpless, rank-and-file state representatives are the victims of strong-arming, pressure, arm-twisting and the like at the powerful hands of House Speaker Sal DiMasi, which they fear will squash Patrick’s casino initiative in the back (no longer smoke-filled) rooms of the Statehouse.
How could this be? Things like that have never happened before at the Statehouse, have they?
The gov needs to both get a grip and a clue. If he doesn’t think this is the way business has always been done on Beacon Hill, he doesn’t belong in the corner office. It also seems he has a very short memory. It was Patrick himself who was doing some arm-twisting a year ago, urging the Legislature to violate the state constitution and duck a vote on a petition aimed at putting gay marriage to a statewide vote.
Patrick still doesn’t seem to have figured out that there is more than one branch of government.
