The Boston Phoenix
September 21 - 28, 2000

[This Just In]

Media

Silber's attempted coup; plus, map flap

by Dan Kennedy

For years, the debate has raged over whether John Silber, the 1990 Democratic gubernatorial candidate and Boston University's chancellor and president emeritus, is a closet liberal or a closet fascist. Now we know the answer, thanks to an op-ed piece he wrote for last Saturday's Boston Globe: he's a liberal fascist.

In a column remarkable for its mixture of progressive and authoritarian impulses, Silber wrote that Senator Ted Kennedy "has served the people of Massachusetts ably, indeed superbly, for the past 37 years" -- and therefore deserves to run unopposed in this year's election. Silber even went so far as to recount, approvingly, a story about House Speaker Sam Rayburn at his most undemocratic. After winning re-election in his Texas district in 1946 with nearly 94 percent of the vote, Rayburn reportedly told his opponent's supporters that if they ever so much as dared to run someone against him again, he would resign.

Like Rayburn, Silber suggested, the Massachusetts senator could be more effective if he didn't have to worry about details like the ballot box: "Kennedy can be of greater help to the people of Massachusetts by devoting his attention to national issues in Congress and on the campaign trail than by spending time showing the people of Massachusetts that he cares about them by engaging in a time-consuming re-election campaign."

Of course, Kennedy is virtually unchallenged this year. His inexperienced Republican opponent, Jack E. Robinson, has lurched from one bit of buffoonery to another -- from allegedly sticking an unwelcome tongue in an ex-girlfriend's mouth to getting chewed out by a judge in bankruptcy court (at least he wasn't the one who was bankrupt). And third-party candidates, such as Carla Howell, Phil Lawler, and Phil Hyde, are being dutifully ignored by the media.

In the past, though, Republicans have not just held Kennedy accountable; they've helped him get into fighting trim. That was especially true in 1994, when Kennedy slimmed down and stunned his detractors by debating Mitt Romney -- who at one point was actually ahead of Kennedy in the polls -- coherently and effectively.

In a world where even thuggish Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori has announced his intention to step down and allow fair and open elections, you'd think Silber wouldn't find democracy so objectionable.


With apologies to Dave Barry, an alert Globe reader writes: "Was I reading the map wrong, or did the spiffy graphic on the redesigned Metro front the other day place Central Square squarely in the middle of Somerville?"

Metro front? What Metro front? It's now the City & Region front, pal, and don't you forget it.

As for the matter he raises: yes, someone in the Globe graphics department should definitely avoid the geography questions when playing Trivial Pursuit. The mistake ran last Thursday, in a story by Richard Higgins on local architect H. Morse Payne's theory that the early Boston-area town boundaries all radiated outward from what is now Central Square in Cambridge.

Trouble is, an accompanying map places Central Square clearly within Somerville's town lines, not far from City Hall.