Being labeled as “Billy Bulger’s butler” was by no means a superb profession transfer for any native politician – simply ask Chester Atkins, Gerry D’Amico and even Billy Bulger Jr.
But to me, the last word Billy Bulger’s butler will all the time be Tom Birmingham, handpicked by the Corrupt Midget to succeed him as state Senate president in 1997.
Birmingham died Friday on the age of 73. Survivors embody his grasp, William M. Bulger, who will flip 89 on Feb. 2.
Very little of what I’m about to let you know has been talked about in any of Birmingham’s obituaries, which embody such phrases as “towering intellect” and “erudition.”
Maybe, however Birmingham’s connections to the Bulgers had been much more street-level. Billy’s brother was a gangster. Tom Birmingham was named after a gangster – his ex-con uncle, who was slain gangland-style in Charlestown in 1969 in a “blood-splattered bed.”
One of the obituaries talked about Billy Bulger in passing, saying he was “friends with Mr. Birmingham’s father.”
That’s a technique of placing it, I assume. Actually, Jackie Birmingham was a Boston City Hall hack, and he as soon as organized welfare funds for the household of yet one more native smart man by the memorable identify of “Suitcase” Fidler.
When Birmingham intervened for the Fidler clan, Suitcase was doing a stretch in jail, and his household wasn’t eligible for the dole. So Jackie Birmingham was jammed up, criminally, till he employed a younger lawyer named Bulger. Billy intervened with the Suffolk County district lawyer.
“The result,” Bulger wrote in his memoir, “was that Jackie never had to appear, never had to tell his story, never had to take a hit.”
Fast ahead to 1990. Tom Birmingham was a lawyer and he wished to turn out to be, properly, Billy Bulger’s butler. His senator was Franny “I Am a Veteran” Doris, who had already defeated Birmingham as soon as.
Franny was working for re-election, and everybody within the district knew they couldn’t beat him, in order that they didn’t file papers. Only Tom Birmingham did. And then, simply earlier than the submitting deadline, Doris abruptly determined to not search re-election.
After a nationwide search, Doris acquired a job on the MBTA – Mr. Bulger’s Transportation Authority.
Thanks to Bulger’s machinations, Birmingham was elected with out opposition, and it was off to the races. Soon he was working Ways and Means, and when Bulger fled to take over UMass, Birmingham grew to become Senate president after simply six years of “service” to the household.
The plan gave the impression to be that Birmingham was to be the “regent” – seat-warmer as president throughout an interregnum of kinds till Billy Bulger Jr. was able to succeed his father as the brand new godfather of the Senate.
But Billy Bulger Jr. couldn’t defeat Steve Lynch within the particular election to switch his daddy. In truth, no Bulger has ever been elected to something since Uncle Whitey took it on the lam in late 1994.
So Bulger was at UMass and his liegeman Birmingham was in command of the unique household fiefdom on Beacon Hill. As is customary in such conditions, each padrones took hostages from the opposite’s household. Bulger employed Birmingham’s spouse to some no-heavy-lifting UMass administrator’s job.
Likewise, Birmingham saved each Billy’s sister and niece on his Senate workplace payroll. Seldom was heard a discouraging phrase.
See what I imply about how he was Billy Bulger’s butler?
Anyway, it will get to be 2002 and Birmingham thinks that he may be elected governor. So a lot for his “towering intellect.” I assume he forgot his political historical past, together with how such Senate predecessors as John E. Powers and Maurice Donahue failed so miserably after they tried to “move up.”
Legislative leaders are electoral poison, and Birmingham proved no exception.
He believed he’d get the hacks as a result of he was one himself. But payroll patriots most well-liked Shannon O’Brien, a second-generation hackette married to a former solon-turned-lobbyist.
Birmingham thought the liberals would love him as a result of he’d blocked some invoice that might have put a gay-marriage referendum query on the poll.
But the moonbats most well-liked Robert Reich as a result of he was a blow-in and since he was, let’s say, totally different. It didn’t matter what Birmingham had accomplished for them prior to now, they most well-liked the brand new taste of the month. Think Mike Capuano and Ayana Pressley.
How out of contact was the “erudite” Birmingham in 2002? I nonetheless treasure an artifact of his doomed marketing campaign – a plastic Kelly inexperienced ashtray with “Birmingham Governor” emblazoned on it.
It would have been good… in 1954, for Foster Furcolo’s marketing campaign.
But by 2002, smoking had already turn out to be totally low-rent and verboten among the many chattering lessons that Birmingham fancied himself a member of. Maybe he thought ashtrays remained coveted gadgets as a result of he was nonetheless a series smoker on the time. (Word was that at residence in Chelsea at evening his spouse Selma would make him go outdoors to their automobile to smoke.)
Anyway, Birmingham completed a dismal third within the Democrat major in 2002. His state senators had all walked away from him, identical to with Maurice Donahue in 1970.
There’s an previous saying that no man is a hero to his valet, and I feel that was the case with Billy Bulger’s butler.
Birmingham returned to the personal observe of legislation and just about disappeared. He was each forgotten and gone.
I final noticed him one spring day way back on the commencement of Dana Hall School, which is in my neighborhood in Wellesley. He was strolling and I used to be driving. I honked my horn and waved at him however didn’t cease. I feel that was the best way loads of the previous crowd handled him.
When you’re out you’re out.
In the hackerama, the success of the grift is finally judged by the dimensions of your pension, not less than in comparison with others in your personal weight class.
For the document, when he died, Tom Birmingham’s state pension was $22,648 a yr. David Bartley, the previous House speaker who’s neither erudite nor a towering mind, grabs $158,316.
As for Billy Bulger – 20 years after his “retirement,” he’s nonetheless pocketing $273,369 a yr.
Bottom line: it was, and nonetheless is, quite a bit higher to be Billy Bulger than Billy Bulger’s butler.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”