Oh, Those Funny Pols

I dunno, I found it a little uncomfortable watching Lil' Timmy Murray joking up a storm about how he drove so recklessly and with such disregard for public safety that he left his car a crumpled mess in a ditch.

But, hey, I've been known to apply humor to almost any political foibles, and everyone knows that the South Boston St. Patrick's Day breakfast is the one time when everything is fair game for the zingers. 

Except that everything was not fair game, clearly. Because nobody in the room thought it might be appropriate to find humor in the former Speaker of the House, currently serving federal time for corruption, testifying to a grand jury in Worcester that is expected to indict several current and former legislators in the probation patronage scandal.

Well, one person dared to go there: Republican US Senator Scott Brown, for whom Beacon Hill troubles are a re-election boon. But even he was pretty tame about it, joking that DiMasi has spent more time in Rhode Island than John Kerry's yacht. That's about as safe a one-liner as you can possibly make about the situation.

I mean, if I had been invited to speak, I might have started by asking state senator Jack Hart to autograph my copy of the Ware report. And then pass it around, for the Speaker and Senate President. Everyone just sign next to where your name appears.

Or I might have said that the Boston Globe story the other day, reporting that DiMasi claims to have given prosecutors no new information, earned him another standing ovation in the state house.

Or I might have reported Mayor Tom Menino's one-word review of the Ware report on systemic State House patronage: "amateurs."

And if I decided to bring up Murray's 100mph dash northward, I might have said that he's not the only one in the room trying to distance himself as fast as possible from what's happening in that Worcester courthouse.

This may be why I don't get invited to speak at these things.

Clearly, nobody wanted to make sport of the DiMasi/probation story out in public, especially in front of Bob & Terri. That stuff is too serious, I suppose. Better to make jokes about driving off the road at 100 miles per hour.

That's funny.