No one has ever described Sen. Ed Markey higher than Billy Bulger did at these St. Patrick’s Day breakfasts in South Boston so a few years in the past:
“To a battle of wits he comes unarmed.”
In reality, it’s in all probability more true in the present day than it was again within the day at Halitosis Hall.
At age 76, the senator whose final actual job was driving an ice-cream truck in Malden – therefore his nickname “Mr. Frosty” – has been be-clowning himself in public for greater than a half-century now.
But give Mr. Frosty credit score for one factor. He at all times been in a position to ID the newest headline-generating pattern, or controversy, and to one way or the other use no matter it’s to make a idiot of himself.
Now he’s going at it with Elon Musk, and as common, it’s not going properly for Markey as a result of to a battle of wits… properly, you recognize.
On a neighborhood Democrat chat present final weekend, Mr. Frosty mentioned that Twitter might develop into a risk to public well being due to the adjustments in the way in which blue examine marks are handed out.
“So um so someone could impersonate the CDC for eight dollars, pay for it, not be authenticated and then on that site say ‘CDC says vaccinations are not good for you.’ That’s a public health and safety problem.”
Forget the truth that after the Fauci fiasco, if the CDC did declare that vaccinations have been a public well being hazard, greater than half the inhabitants could be extra inclined to consider that the photographs have been good for them.
As the Wall Street Journal identified in an editorial yesterday:
“Public Distrust of Health Officials Is Anthony Fauci’s Legacy.”
Exactly. Which explains why no person is getting boosted anymore, not even in credulous blue states like Massachusetts. Even these $75 reward playing cards to Market Basket aren’t the job finished.
But Mr. Frosty thinks he’s obtained the road cred to tackle Musk. See, just a few weeks again, he let some Democrat operative with a press cross from the Washington Post get a faux blue-check mark in his title.
As the world yawned, the senator denounced Twitter and mentioned that Musk was “putting profits over people and debt over stopping disinformation.”
Musk tweeted an ideal response to Mr. Frosty in explaining why somebody had been in a position to hijack his title.
“Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody.”
Perfect. I haven’t seen Mr. Frosty slapped round like this since his outdated girlfriend threw him out of the automotive on the Oak Grove T station again in 1984. That late-night lovers’ spat unfolded as his first US Senate marketing campaign imploded after he was stumped on native TV by some actually robust questions like: Which facet is the US on in Nicaragua? (Remember the Sandinistas? Mr. Frosty didn’t.)
As at all times, Markey is the flawed place on the flawed time. He was once pro-life, now he’s pro-abortion. I assume he was once a fan of the Bill of Rights, however now not. Now he fears the First Amendment greater than a main problem in 2026 from Michelle Wu or Ayanna Pressley.
Here’s how Musk summed up the battle he’s in with maintaining Twitter free:
“This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”
Markey’s newest dust-up with Musk, and his utter cluelessness concerning the points he’s declaiming on, jogs my memory of one among his first crusades. It was again within the late 1970’s, after his landslide victory for Congress with 22 % of the vote in a particular election.
The subsequent large factor again then was not Twitter, however cable TV. And Fast Eddie got here up with a difficulty, full with a prop. The drawback was that the cable firms have been charging I believe a buck per 30 days to be used of a distant management.
Markey began carrying a kind of cumbersome early distant controls in his coat pocket. It served a double goal for the light-weight’s light-weight – first, it offered sufficient ballast to maintain him from being blown away in a stiff wind.
And at public appearances, he would pull it out of his pocket, maintain it up, wave it round and inform the gang, I’m the one who made positive these evil cable firms can’t cost you a buck a month anymore in your distant management.
The voters in his not-terribly-bright district (they’re now represented by Colorado blow-in Katherine Clark) would cheer… a minimum of for a short time, till they realized that the cable firms had simply eradicated the $1 line merchandise for the distant after which upped the costs for 3 or 5 bucks elsewhere on the invoice.
That was Eddie Markey then. In these days, we referred to as him a Ok-Mart Kennedy – along with his RFK-coiffed hair and his faux-JFK accent, it was fairly clear the lame sport he was enjoying. There was a variety of it going round in Massachusetts.
Markey even tried the last word Kennedy stunt, attempting to get his novice brother elected to the US House seat subsequent to his. Lightning didn’t strike twice.
There have been so many magic moments in Markey’s profession. His first vote within the Senate – “Present!” on a Mideast struggle decision. Or his paean on the Senate flooring to the 2017 Super Bowl champions – “the Boston Patriots,” a mere 47 years after they modified their title to New England.
He lives in Maryland now. Most of his long-ago neighbors in Malden couldn’t decide him out of a lineup, nor would they wish to. But he did do one factor for Massachusetts – the Ok-Mart Kennedy ended the Curse of the Real Kennedys by defeating JoJoJo Kennedy in 2020.
Of course he did have a bit of assist from The Squad, particularly AOC. What the distant management was him to 1979, what Twitter is to 2022, AOC was to 2020. A prop, the following large factor.
In addition to Mr. Frosty, Ed Markey is also called The Man That Time Forgot. If solely the remainder of might overlook him.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”