Lose-lose

by Andy Hiller

What makes Boston special? Might it be the city's knack for savaging itself -- by creating no-win situations when there's no need to?

Take the Reggie Lewis trial, which may go on for weeks but is really already over. The verdicts are in: everyone's guilty, therefore everyone loses. How perfectly Boston.

Donna Harris-Lewis insists that her only motivation in bringing the case was to protect Reggie (posthumously) from being trashed as a cocaine abuser. But by reviving questions about his drug use, the trial cements a link between coke and the former Celtics star, making it more likely that Reggie -- whatever the truth may be -- will be remembered for "having something to do with cocaine."

Donna's reputation is going down, too. She may believe she's an avenging angel, but whisperers call her "greedy," and worse. In court, she seems to break down on cue and cast herself as a helpless victim of Mad Medicine, quite the contrast to her role in Reggie's precipitate nighttime move from New England Baptist Hospital to Brigham and Women's in 1993.

Which is where "Punky" came in. That's Gilbert H. Mudge Jr., until now a respected cardiologist, who comes across in this trial as an addle-brained jock-sniffer. Mudge ignored a "dream team" of other Boston heart doctors who told Reggie he needed a defibrillator, and decided that all he really needed were salt tablets! Mudge will pay for his arrogance. Would you trust him with your heart, or would you worry he might "mudge the truth" again? Forget malpractice -- try no practice.

And virtually no life. Mudge will be marginalized, then vaporized. "His" hospital will also be guilty by association -- and ridiculed -- no matter what the jury does.

It's Boston's brand of justice . . . and, if you missed the Lewis game, another one just got started on Massport's new runway.

The players there include enough politicians and "concerned" citizens to fill a hangar, all expert in our local version of "lose-lose." Each shouts, "It's my way or `No way,' " making compromise more difficult and paralysis more probable.

Though it's early in the game, the race and wealth cards have already been played; politicians are already threatening one another as they stake out turf to defend till death.

Fast-forward: no one is going to "win" the runway battle. If it's built, Massport will be attacked as a neighborhood rapist, a tool of rich white suburban businessmen; if it's not, the governor will be portrayed as a political weakling and the mayor's name will be on every empty seat in the convention center.

Inspiring, isn't it? And Fenway Park's in the on-deck circle.

WHDH-TV Channel 7 reporter Andy Hiller can be reached at ahiller@whdh.com. His reflections in a flinty eye appear weekly in the Phoenix.