Storm vs. Herald: Herald loses

Love it! Howie-Libs! Start printing those things up and you'll make a god-damned fortune, I tellsya! You can sell 'em here on UHub next to the T-map showuh curtains!

Dan, nice to hear from you. Your defense of Barnicle's handling of Whitey Bulger relies on readers joining you in interpreting Barnicle's fawning 1991 column as bad "satire". Seems that many of your own commenters at Media Nation disagree. As do I.

Even if that particular piece was satire as you insist, your commenter L.K. Collins makes the very cogent point that the careers of both Bulgers were so closely intertwined, it makes "Barnicle’s fawning that much more unacceptable." I would add Connolly (John, not James) to the same intertwined mess. Then there is this from your very own 1998 Phoenix column:

And when it comes to the other Bulger, Whitey, Barnicle crosses the line from irresponsibility into journalistic corruption. Barnicle has consistently, and against all reason, defended the deal FBI agent John Connolly made with Whitey Bulger and Stephen Flemmi, letting them sell drugs, terrorize their enemies, and even kill in return for intelligence on La Cosa Nostra.

Barnicle's August 4 effort -- coming just two days after the Carlin column -- was quintessential Barnicle. He went after John Martorano, a killer who's decided to cooperate with the FBI in its quest to track down the elusive Bulger. Barnicle quoted Eddie Walsh, "an honest cop," as saying Martorano "killed an awful lot of black people," including three women at a Roxbury club in the 1960s. "If he gets immunity," Walsh, who's now retired, told Barnicle, "they ought to put the judge in jail."

The column caused an immediate uproar, because sources inside the Globe -- not to mention Herald columnist Peter Gelzinis -- questioned how there could have been an unsolved triple murder that no one could remember. As it turned out, the murder had occurred, though Barnicle had some of the genders wrong (it was two men and one woman). But as Gelzinis reported in a devastating column on August 6, Barnicle failed to mention that "honest cop" Walsh is one of Connolly's closest friends. And that Connolly had shared with Walsh information that could have saved the life of a bookie who was prepared to rat out Bulger, had Walsh chosen to do anything with said information. Leaving out such facts is not just bias on Barnicle's part; it's gross malpractice, and it's inexplicable that the same Globe that could produce a Pulitzer-caliber Spotlight series on the FBI's Bulger connection could at the same time tolerate such sleaze."

Dan, it's hard to square that with your current claim that Barnicle wasn't a "defender of Whitey Bulger." As for Howie Carr's material, it's among the best in the city right now, which, granted isn't saying much. It's nice to learn of things like the probation scandal and the OUI jury waived trial scandal, days, sometimes weeks before the Globe gets to them. Unfortunately, Carr's Friday column on the OUI stuff was apparently cut by skittish Herald lawyers, but he had it on his radio show days before it "broke".

Nothing wrong with being an apologist for James Connolly!

(John Connolly is a different story, though.)