Apparently, you can take the boy out of Hingham, but you can't take the Hingham out of the boy. See today's front-page investigative report in which FOUR Globe reporters team up to determine whether the new Greenbush commuter-rail line is the fastest way into Boston from Cohasset. The Outraged Liberal wants his 50 cents back:

... I can't wait for the Globe to commit this kind of personnel to riding the entire MBTA system, particularly taking a regular turn on Green Line (and the Boston College route) and see if the Breda car problems are solved as the T professes. But then again, Brian McGrory doesn't have a thing for the Green Line.

Note: The Globe does have a short story (on page B2) today about the MBTA getting 10 more Breda cars. Stephen Laniel wonders why the reporter was so unskeptical about the T's assertion this will actually mean better service for Green Line riders.

Michael Pahre gets to the heart of the matter: City Editor Brian McGrory finds the City Council boring. He makes the case by digging up McGrory's old columns on Boston politics, one of which, in 2003, summed up what we can expect from a McGrory-led city desk:

Exactly one decade ago, after covering Thomas M. Menino's first election as mayor, I set a lofty journalistic goal. My goal was to never spill a drop of ink writing about the Boston City Council, because no reader with even the hint of a normal life could possibly care about the collection of political miscreants and misfits who make up that perennially underachieving group.

Earlier:
boston.com couldn't even be bothered to post results on election night.

Brian McGrory, who had elevated the bad metro column to an art form, is the Globe's new metro editor, Jesse Noyes reports. Noyes also posts the memo from Globe Editor Marty Baron:

[H]is mastery with words and narrative has made him one of the best metro columnists in the country.

Oh, gack.

In any case, I'm sure McGrory will do just fine. He always seemed to do a much better job as a reporter than as a columnist. But, still, let's try to limit the coverage of Hingham zoning issues, 'kay?

Baron's memo says the Globe will immediately being looking for another metro columnist, which is good, because the paper's last holdover from the metro troika days now seems to be on a monthly schedule.

There. I said it, and after his column on Easton today, I feel better.

Now, one could make the argument that Easton's objections to a proposed commuter-rail line through a swamp are completely bogus, especially since - as, yes, Bri points out - there's already a rail bed through the swamp.

But is it through the same location as the proposed train tracks? The divine Mr. M. doesn't say; that would require using some of the space he put aside for his Shaughnessy-like eternal grudge against the entire town of Hingham.

No matter. What got me was this bit of harrumphery:

John, it's a swamp. Aren't swamps supposed to be filled in? If it were a nice place, worthy of protection, wouldn't it at least be called a marsh?

So, dear Mr. McGrory: You're an idiot.

The Globe features department is following up its 9,000-part series on Women: Is there nothing they can't do? with a new series on "Gays: Is there nothing they can't touch?" Latest to discover the Gay is Alex Beam, who today asked:

... Is there any element of contemporary culture that hasn't been appropriated by gays? Or, phrased another way: Hey, gay people! Give me my stuff back, OK? ...

Apparently, Beam can't have sex anymore now that he knows that lesbians buy Subarus and Toyota hybrids, just like him.

Lissa Harris says Beam can bite her:

... We're all anxiously awaiting next Wednesday's column. What will you do? Blame your lousy salary on women journalists dragging down your profession? Scold black people for eating your fried chicken? Nyuk nyuk! You Globe guys are so FUNNY. ...

Speaking of Globe columnists, today marked Brian McGrory's annual spring ritual: Writing a column on Why Boston sucks more than anyplace else in the galaxy. And he always writes it during a rainy week. Hey, Bri, you have cabin fever or something?

The past couple of weeks show that Brian McGrory can be a really good reporter - just as long as he tries to keep his opinions out of the way. A shame, really, since you'd expect the Rising Star of Metro Columnists to express opinions. But his column today highlights his problem: With one fewer column per week, he tries to combine two thoughts (Deval Patrick is a cheap bastard and George Bush is a spendthrift bastard) and somehow winds up blaming Deval Patrick for the war in Iraq. Or something. Hard to tell. But at least he's on talking terms with Tom Menino again.

David Guarino has been writing a fair amount of late about our boy Brian McGrory - praising him as the best columnist in the city (Ed. note: What was that sound Bill the Cat used to make?) and speculating on whether Brian McGrory is now The Man among Globe metro columnists (both of them).

Now, Guarino used to write for the Herald, so he knows Boston media. But he also used to be the p.r. person for Tom Reilly, whom McGrory composed hagiographies of while others were ripping into him for, oh, pretty much everything. And now Guarino reps for state House Speaker Sal DiMasi. All of which leads to Adam Reilly's question: Should the p.r. person for one of the most powerful politicians in the state be commenting on media happenings?

... [W]as Guarino praising McGrory as a private citizen, or as DiMasi's top flack? ...

Somebody might find this funny, I suppose.

OK, so I blew it when I predicted the Herald's Laurel Sweet would write another story about the Finneran/Carr "feud" yesterday. She didn't.

Thank goodness for Brian McGrory. Just as I predicted, his column today is all about his grave, grave disappointment in Deval Patrick. Our Boy Bri is angry with the governor over the New Bedford case.

Why is he so hopping mad over New Bedford? Not a clue. As soon as he's done telling us how he was so angry at Patrick he had to restrain himself from punching out a legislative aide at the State House, Bri decides to use the rest of his column for some predictable, repetitive agita about all the other Patrick stuff that just about every other columnist inside 128 has already written about (Bri, let me introduce you to Steve Bailey). Bri, you really need to work more on your transitional paragraphs. He asks:

How many idiotic decisions can you make before you're certified an idiot?

I dunno. How many predictable columns can you write before you're certified a hack?

The Herald's Laurel Sweet will get Tom Finneran to insult today's insult-o-matic column by Howie Carr, thus letting her extend the Herald's Finneran/Carr streak to four days with a story that consists of one paragraph of new material and twelve paragraphs of background (or maybe two paragraphs of new material if she gets Carr to make a crack about Ron Borges over this boston.com poll).

Despite the Globe's wall-to-wall punditry today on Deval Patrick's telephone habits, Brian McGrory will get to leave work early this afternoon after he files a tut-tut-filled open letter to his friend Deval about how disappointed he is in him (bonus points if he recycles any of his quips from this column).