Senator Everyman
The Boston Globe has made the mistake before of publishing fiction not identified as such. In fact, that’s how Mike Barnicle became a national figure—losing his column in the Glob for the twin sins of plagiarism and just making stuff up.
But now they’ve gone and done it again. They’re trying to convince us that John Forbes Kerry, multimillionaire and blue-blood, has become Senator Pothole:
When the longtime mayor of North Adams, John Barrett III, picks up the phone these days, he often hears a familiar deep voice that he once acidly complained wasn’t heard very much in his city or other smaller venues in Massachusetts.
“He’ll say, ‘What do you need? What’s going on back there? How can I help you?’ ’’ Barrett said.
Could you lend me a couple of hundred till next month would be my response.
But the Glob swears Kerry is a new man:
For decades, Kerry has been dogged by a reputation for a lack of interest in local affairs and aloofness around his Senate colleagues - an attitude that, combined with his patrician habits, often got him labeled as arrogant. Even when he rode the strength of his foreign policy experience and the drama of his personal story to his party’s presidential nomination, a lack of affection for him hampered his candidacy.
But the Kerry who returned to the Senate from the presidential trail was a different man, many colleagues noted, and now, with his presidential ambitions behind him and the senior colleague who long dominated his state sidelined by cancer, Kerry is experiencing what fellow lawmakers describe as a midcareer metamorphosis.
Midcareer? MID-career??? He’s in his fifth term, and we’re supposed to endure another couple of decades of his humorless monotony?
Not so, says the Glob. He’s a regular Joe now. A back and knee slapper:
Long regarded as a loner, Kerry now lingers on the Senate floor during votes, talking with colleagues. Once known more for his solo speeches on the floor, Kerry for months has been leading weekly strategy sessions with other senators to find consensus on a climate change bill - a tactic usually identified with Senator Edward M. Kennedy - and following up with friendly meetings with individual senators to address their objections.
Kerry’s Senate schedule is heavily packed with hearings, speeches and international travel associated with his new role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But in Massachusetts, Kerry has taken an elevated role, keeping in close contact with local officials and securing federal grants for in-state projects. His staff has been directed to hold “office hours’’ in more than 350 communities, and has completed about 200 of the sessions this year to hear constituent concerns.
Note that’s his staff that is dispatched to Belchertown and Athol to talk to the yokels. “Live Shot” himself has never been west of Cambridge, unless it’s to Tanglewood, where he choppers in and out.
Come on, Boston Globe. Next you’ll tell us Barney Frank is dating Megan Fox. I’d believe that first.