Thursday, May 26, 2005

CLASSIC MURPHY. Tim Francis-Wright has found the classic Jeremiah Murphy column I referred to the other day. It ran on September 11, 1982. Copyright law prevents me from posting the whole thing, but here's the top:

Hanging on in Somerville

Now the interview was over, and state Sen. Denis L. McKenna sat in his campaign headquarters in Somerville's Davis square the other afternoon and looked tired and bored. He then made one request: "Do me a favor, will 'ya. Don't screw me, OK?"

But Denny McKenna himself had taken care of that melancholy condition many years ago while serving 11 undistinguished terms in the Massachusetts Senate as a political hangover from the old days. His rages and arrogance were memorable, but that is about all that is memorable about McKenna.

It goes downhill (for McKenna, that is) from there - definitely one of Murphy's best. If you want to read the rest, look it up in the Globe archives via your public library. If you're a Globe subscriber, you can supposedly download it from the Globe's site for free, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to do it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Subscribers can sign up at the "Globe Rewards" section of "Subscriber Services", next to where one would buy a copy of a photo. Excellent freebie. Worth doing if only to read a bit more about the late senator. Curiously, while he was seeing the criminal justice system from the other side, the "law and order" senator became a born-again civil libertarian. His interview with Farrell is unintentionally hilarious, where he claims to be a health nut, "except for the smoking", and suddenly embraces alcoholism as a disease 2 months before he gets arrested by State Police on Route 2. (A senator arrested? In those days? I'd pay to see THAT video). They say one shouldn't speak ill of the dead but I suspect Farrell is resting a lot more comfortably than McKenna.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Mr. Farrell, meant Mr. Murphy. The Globe newsroom had an embarrassment of riches in those days.

Anonymous said...

Just to clarify: You don't need to be a Globe subscriber, or physically be at a library to read the Globe (and Herald) archives (among other things). Just take your Mass. public library card (available at any library free by showing an ID), and go here:

http://www.mlin.lib.ma.us/books/magazine/index.php

A Librarian