The Globe vs. Ray Flynn

Part 4

by Dan Kennedy

Since last Friday, Flynn has been fighting back hard. On WRKO's Jerry Williams Show, on Saturday, two of the Rome-based priests quoted in the Globe article phoned in to say their words had been taken out of context. (Pretty thin gruel, considering that, in the Globe article, both priests had nothing but nice things to say about Flynn.) Later that day, on New England Cable News's Talk of New England, Flynn blasted the story as "ridiculous nonsense," dismissing as false any suggestion that, as ambassador, he had been a slacker who drank to excess.

"They don't understand working-class people going into a barroom, having a beer, talking to working-class people," Flynn told host Jim Braude. "We are going through a period of time when the media literally is out of control as it relates to public officials. Look what they did to Joe Kennedy."

Then, for someone so concerned about class, he let slip an ugly little remark. "I was hired by the president of the United States. I wasn't hired by some $40,000 clerk at the State Department," Flynn said, attributing criticism of his record to anonymous embassy bureaucrats. Sure, Flynn was angry. Tired, too, probably. But it was telling nevertheless. The working-class hero doesn't necessarily consider himself part of the working class -- or even the middle class.

Even so, there's a painfully earnest quality to Flynn that's endearing, and that makes you hope he can somehow overcome his present difficulties and return to public life as something other than a disappointment. At times, he shows flashes of the old Ray Flynn, such as when he knowledgeably discussed Pope Leo XIII's encyclical on social and economic justice, Rerum novarum, on Clapprood & Company, surely a first for that show.

It's past 10 p.m. now, more than 11 hours since Julie was torturing Flynn over his Palm Sunday festivities. In a telephone interview that lasts an hour, a subdued Flynn politely but firmly dismisses any suggestion that he was a bad ambassador, that he shirked his duties, that he drinks too much. He makes a point of saying that he just got in from a 10-mile run.

He provides endless details and testimonials about his good works, and says Rome sources interviewed by Zernike have complained to him about her aggressive manner. He says he may release his medical records to show that alcohol hasn't impaired him, and that he's thinking of having friends who saw him in the North End on August 6 step forward to refute Robinson's account. It's a spiel that's long on sincerity but short on the kinds of details that would exonerate him.

"What is the motivation?" he asks softly, then attempts to answer his own question. "I don't know. Is it religion? Is it race? Is it class? Is there another candidate they'd prefer? I thought it was very unfair. I really have to say it's a hatchet job. I've never gone through anything like this in my life.

"Excessive drinking has never retarded my potential to achieve the best that I can achieve. I'm not going to allow it to stand in the way of me achieving the highest I can achieve. Do I like to go into a neighborhood pub and identify and socialize with working-class people? I do. I really do. But it has never affected my health, and it has never affected my family."

For the moment, Flynn is likely to benefit from a backlash. Globe ombudsman Jack Thomas says he'd received about 200 calls by the end of Tuesday, 90 percent of which were pro-Flynn. But when the controversy has died down, the image of a drunken Ray Flynn will linger.

Flynn can't say so, but no doubt he's wondering when the rules changed, and why. What he seems not to realize is that the culture has changed. For more than a decade, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other anti-alcohol activists have been hammering away at public perceptions. As a result, hard-drinking politicians are no longer seen as lovable rogues, but rather as bad role models, even -- fair or not -- as bad people.

Some have adjusted to the new era: witness Ted Kennedy, who finally, in his 60s, seems to have settled down. Some have yet to deal with it: witness Bill Weld, who's been drunk in public on several occasions, and who may well end up becoming a journalistic target if he returns to public life.

Now Ray Flynn needs to make a decision about his conduct.

His defensiveness suggests he already has, and that it's the wrong one.

Back to part 3

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com.