Not surprisingly, everyone in the local press (and some in the national) is writing about the fatal ceiling collapse Monday night in one of the Big Dig tunnels. Here is a brief tour through some of the coverage.
Both papers call for Amorello to step down. The Globe's and the Herald's editorial pages have both called upon Turnpike Authority chairman (for now) Matt Amorello to step down. The Globe says he should step down as chairman, but doesn't call on him to resign from the board. The Herald is unclear, just saying that he "needs to go." Relatedly, the Globe reports that Governor Mitt Romney may limit his legal proceedings against Amorello to stripping him of his chairmanship, rather than trying to fire him from the board, in the hope that his action won't be reversed by a court down the road.
Legislative support for Amorello evaporates. Perhaps not surprisingly, Matt Amorello's previously stalwart allies in the state legislature have clammed up - except to give anonymous quotes that they expect Amorello to "pay a political price." Amorello is suddenly radioactive on Beacon Hill; no one will be lifting a finger to help him retain control of the Turnpike board now.
One loser out of all of this will be Jordan Levy. Levy's term on the Authority expired recently, but the legislature sought to extend it through January via an outside section in the budget - a section that Romney returned for amendment and was set to veto if his amendment was rejected. The point of the outside section was to enhance Amorello's power, since Levy was a close Amorello ally, and to prevent Romney from gaining control of the Turnpike board via another appointment. Now, however, there is virtually no chance that the legislature will take up the issue again; they will just let the issue languish in legislative limbo until it expires at the end of the session. Which means that Levy's term is expired, and will stay expired. This is also a bonus for AG Tom Reilly, who likely will now not have to face the difficult choice of whether to defend Romney in a tricky lawsuit over whether the section would have unconstitutionally interfered with the Governor's appointment powers.
Romney doesn't escape criticism. More than one commentator has noted that Mitt Romney hasn't exactly been bird-dogging the Big Dig in his nearly four years in office. Joan Vennochi says that Romney "and his presidential ambitions were unexpectedly on the hot seat," and that "When it comes to the Big Dig, Romney is not much different from other Massachusetts politicians." Peter Gelzinis says that yesterday "we were reminded just how shallow Gov. Mitt Romney truly is," and quotes an anonymous witness to the confrontation between Romney and Amorello at the disaster site as follows:
“He (Romney) kept repeating that,� said one eyewitness to the tirade. “ ‘So, the mountain has to come to Muhammad.’ Where the hell does that come from? There’s a woman dead. Amorello’s clearly devastated and angry and looking for answers. And the governor’s ranting and raving about ‘Why didn’t you come to the State House? You were supposed to come to the State House!’"
And Eileen McNamara says that no one in state government has any credibility on this issue, including "Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, who has seen those tunnels mostly from the back seat of a limousine whisking him to Logan International Airport for yet another campaign trip in his doomed pursuit of the 2008 Republican presidential nomination." Adam Reilly too, in last night's BMG pundit smackdown, opined that Romney's presidential ambitions may have had a bad day yesterday.
Assclown Of The Day award. Last, and definitely least, I will borrow a phrase from Bruce to crown Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald the Assclown Of The Day for this morning's wretched column. Fitzgerald's message is basically this: "Never mind the Big Dig! Never mind the fact that a woman was killed because a tunnel collapsed, and that for all we know none of the tunnels is safe! Never mind that we may have wasted 15 billion dollars on a tunnel system that doesn't work! THE HOMOS ARE GETTING MARRIED! People, where are your priorities?" What a moron. The Herald really ought to stop publishing this guy.
There's lots more to read in both papers, and no doubt much more to come.
