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The Boston Herald reported on September 12 that President Obama will back Vice President Joe Biden's campaign to succeed him as President - but with a condition.
This is no surprise at all. Mr. Obama wants his program of Hope and Change to be institutionalized by another eight years of puppetmastering, and Smilin' Joe Biden is just the nonentity to do it.
Apparently, though, Smilin' Joe has recently shown disturbing signs of actual independent thought, so the incumbent President is setting a price. Yes, Joe Biden will get Mr. Obama's support, for whatever it's worth... if he chooses former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick as his running mate. The Herald believes that Mr. Obama is preparing Governor Patrick to run for President sometime down the line.
In discussing his plan to release billions of dollars to help the Iranian mullahs fund their terrorism enterprises while letting them acquire nuclear bombs, Mr. Obama repeatedly expressed concern for his legacy. He knows that a Republican president would undo much of the damage he's done to our economy and to our international standing.
Seeing Hillary faltering in the polls, not that he finds that at all unpleasant, Mr. Obama seeks someone who can be trusted to protect his legacy. Even if he remains restricted to the two living brain cells he's manifested for the past six years, though, Joe Biden might be just too honest or too patriotic to continue the plan.
Someone more reliably corrupt must be found to keep Mr. Biden on the path of evil, and there couldn't be a more fitting person to carry forward Mr. Obama's legacy of extorting money from businesses, trashing the economy, and giving tax money to his friends and supporters than Gov. Deval Patrick.
The fact that the Governor is said to be a viable candidate for national office despite his overwhelming failures while in office shows how different newspapers report events based on differing points of view. Such differences in reporting the same events illustrate the necessity of getting information from multiple sources if you have any desire to keep your facts straight.
The City of Boston is the capital of one of the bluest of blue states, the People's Republic of Taxachusetts. Befitting its size, Boston supports two newspapers, the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.
The Globe has been liberal since before Massachusetts introduced its first sales tax, which is to say it's been liberal beyond living memory. It's mostly forgotten now, but in the 1960s and early 1970s, the "Route 128 corridor" around Boston was what Silicon Valley is today, loaded with new tech companies and instant millionaires. The "Massachusetts Miracle" created billion-dollar start-ups like Digital Equipment, Data General and Wang Labs.
As taxes rose in the 1980's, these companies struggled and died, and strangely enough, there weren't any new ones to take their places. The Globe wondered where all those taxable businesses had gone.
Scratching their collective heads, the editors pointed out that every high-tech university graduate who settled in Massachusetts created between five and fifty follow-on jobs depending on how big his company grew. Having noted that tech graduates went to other states instead of starting businesses in Massachusetts as their predecessors had, they took a poll. The results were beyond dispute - STEM graduates left because Massachusetts taxes were too high.
The Globe couldn't bring itself to advocate the proper remedy of lowering the tax and regulatory burden. The fault couldn't possibly lie with a greedy government; the problem had to be blamed on non-government civilians! The editorial ended with an ad hominem slam: "These graduates simply aren't willing to pay enough taxes to provide the services our people need."
Over the years, the Globe has accepted the idea that the purpose of Massachusetts state government is to provide a life of ease, comfort, and generous early retirement for state employees and to give state politicians opportunities to make serious money. The really serious money is being lost through the long-term trend of entrepreneurs and a lot of worker bees decamping for more favorable tax and regulatory climes, but the Globe doesn't talk about that.
The Herald, in contrast, rails against high taxes and inefficient spending. It bemoaned the fact that the public transit system missed more than 30,000 bus trips in one year, mostly because the unionized bus drivers didn't bother to show up.
The Herald expects public employees to do actual work; the Globe seems content with pretty much any outcome provided that spending and taxes go up. The Herald was particularly harsh in their treatment of the recent two-term governor, Deval Patrick, a black Democrat deeply beloved of the Globe.
The next article in this series explains why Mr. Obama regards Deval Patrick as such an outstanding successor.