A blow to Bulger. UMass president Bill Bulger's ace-in-the-hole has been that he's resented not for anything he's done personally but, rather, for the fact that his brother is a vicious killer. Nearly everyone has given Bulger high marks for the way he's run UMass, if not for the $309,000 salary that he pays himself.

Thus Governor Mitt Romney's bid to do away with Bulger's job got a big boost this morning when Boston Herald columnist Cosmo Macero reported on a conflict of interest involving an energy company on whose board Bulger sits that is "competing" for a big-bucks contract at UMass Lowell. Good stuff.