Massachusetts' New Governor Should Be Ashamed

Deval Patrick surely knows better. He was elected governor of Massachusetts, not emperor. But he has begun his term rather imperiously. There are the $12,000 draperies for his office. There’s a Cadillac being leased for nearly $1,200 per month. And, rather than assigning a staffer to help his wife with her public schedule as is typically done, he hired someone for a salary of $72,000. All on the state taxpayers’ dime at a time they are being told to face a shrunken government to address a budget deficit.

If he needed to transform his office decor, he could have raised tens of thousands of dollars privately. Wealthy man that he is, I’m sure he knows others with money.

Boston media have pounced upon this, but he should have expected each and every step he makes to be under a microscope. After all, he is the first Black man to hold that office. Now, the media have nicknamed him Governor Deluxe and Cadillac Deval.

For days he ignored the media uproar before finally acknowledging, “Oh, yeah, we screwed up.”

His experience reminds me of what happened in New York City in the early 1990s when a Black woman was put in charge of public housing – you know, housing for the poor? – and promptly spent $345,000 re-doing the executive offices, including $115,000 for her private office. The symbol of her out-of-whack priorities was a $3,000 pink leather sofa. She was forced to resign.

Commentators are saying that since this is so early in his term, Patrick has time to redeem himself. That begins with ending the lavish spending while asking others, less fortunate, less privileged, to make sacrifices.

Symbolism is sometimes as important as substance, Mr. Patrick.

Caught Between Heat and a Cold Place

Granted, hundreds of thousands of US citizens are now pawns in a geopolitical competition between the US and Venezuela, as the latter's president does all he can to castigate and embarrass the Bush Administration.

It’s too easy to berate Joe Kennedy – mainly for his name than his actions – than to DO SOMETHING. If the US provided ways and means for the less fortunate among US to afford heating oil to stay warm this winter, Americans wouldn’t need to call 1-877-Joe-4-OIL.

“I’m Joe Kennedy. Help is on the way,” he assures in his ubiquitous television commercials. What galls people who themselves are benefiting from fuel from questionable places – including Venezuela, which sends oil to Kennedy’s nonprofit Citizens Energy Corporation at a discount -- is that Kennedy gives credit to “our friends in Venezuela.” That country’s president, Hugo Chavez, is clearly no friend of President Bush, whom he has denounced at the United Nations as an incarnation of “the devil.”

Having unsuccessfully sought commitments from the major US oil companies and from oil-rich countries in the Middle East, this is what Kennedy has said about going with Venezuela and Citgo, which is a Venezuelan-owned company:

"Every single company said no. Every single one except one, and that was Citgo. So it is important that when a major company reaches out and does something like this, that we should acknowledge and celebrate the kind of action they are taking.

"Exxon made $10 billion in a quarter - in three months out of the year they made $10 billion. And they say, when it comes to helping the poor, 'Sorry, there is no money in the till'."

A Florida congressman whose tush is well-warmed has taken Kennedy to task, practically accusing him of being unpatriotic. To work with Chavez is to deal with a real devil, but if 400,000 American households are warm this winter…….???

As Kennedy says at the end of his ads: “No one should be left out in the cold.” Clearly the US government and its good friends don't give a heck while ignoring the fact that so much of corporate America – from Vice President Cheney’s good friends at Haliburton to airlines – is racking up billions in profits by doing business with Venezuela.

Florida Last Week; New Orleans So Many Months Ago

Am I the only one who noticed that within hours – hours! – survivors of that string of tornadoes that brought death and destruction in their wake in Central Florida saw the US government swing into action? People may be receiving relief checks as soon as Tuesday.

And back in New Orleans…..

On television and in newspapers the faces of Central Florida have been White, except for some of the prisoners (we used to call them “chain gang”) out there working on debris clearance. The faces of New Orleans have been Black. Even now, Black people are asking for help in rebuilding their lives and their New Orleans, as they did last week when US senators toured the Lower 9th Ward to see for themselves how destructive Hurricane Katrina was and how inadequate government response has been. Duh! What’s taken so long?

“Whatever response is needed, we will make it quick and sure,” President Bush said in a speech over the weekend, even as relief was already on the ground in Florida, where his brother Jeb, the most recent former governor, is still a wielder of clout.

Granted, New Orleanians may be too much dependent upon government to jump start their hearts while the attitude expressed after the tornadoes in Central Florida was, according to CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, “We don’t need FEMA; we have Floridians.”

But if one can say that the response to the tornadoes reflects lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, then those lessons should be applied forthwith to -- and within -- New Orleans.