Maskachusetts passed another “grim milestone” Thursday – 10,000 “confirmed” deaths from the virus.
Yet somehow the news didn’t quite reach the customary “grim milestone” blaring headline status — perhaps because it’s only a grim milestone if it can be used as an attack headline against a Republican politician.
In this case, the grim milestone is all on Gov. Charlie Baker — Charlie Parker, as Joe Biden calls him.
And this lack of grim-milestone headlines, when an actual real grim milestone is being passed, is yet another indication that Charlie Parker is not only not a real Republican, but he doesn’t even rise to the status of RINO (Republican in Name Only).
So the state passes the 10,000-death mark, and the media respond almost as one:
Nothing to see here folks, move along.
(When the unconfirmed death toll passed 10,000 last week, there was apparently a single “grim milestone” headline, on WBUR, but that’s easily explained. It ran the day before the election, when any grim milestone could still be used against Trump.)
Despite the Boston media’s traditional omerta when it comes to bad news involving our bust-out governor, Charlie Parker himself knew he was closing in on the grim milestone. Which was why he’s been tap dancing around the state all week, trying desperately to change the subject.
Ban youth hockey — check!
Stop by the Governor’s Council on the historic occasion of Kimberly Budd’s nomination as chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court — check!
Attack President Trump for, well, everything — check! Check! Double-check!
On Tuesday, Charlie Parker seemed to be all over the alleged transition. But he quickly turned it around to what he’s most concerned with — dodging blame for his own personal grim milestone.
“I can’t think of a worse time to stall a transition than amid a deadly pandemic that the federal government continues to own primary responsibility for responding to.”
Got that? Donald Trump killed those 10,000 people. He “owns” it. Not Charlie Parker.
Let’s see, as of Thursday, 6,538 of the 10,017 Massachusetts victims had perished in nursing homes regulated by (choose one) a) Charlie Baker or b) Donald Trump?
Here’s another question: the owners of the nursing homes in question where two-thirds of the victims have died gave $52,510 to a single politician. Is that politician’s name Charlie Parker or Donald Trump?
Seventy-six elderly veterans died at Holyoke Soldiers’ Home. The politician who is directly responsible for the catastrophe at Holyoke Soldiers’ Home is a) Charlie Baker or b) Donald Trump.
The $120,000-a-year former superintendent of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, who has been indicted for negligent homicide, gave $950 to a local politician who posed with a photo for him when he was hired.
The politician who got that $950 and had his picture snapped with the indicted hack is a) Charlie Baker or b) Donald Trump.
The commonwealth has the second highest nursing-home death rate in the U.S. — second highest out of 50 states. Does Donald Trump “own” that too?
How about the third highest death rate overall — 148 per 100,000?
You don’t get a much grimmer milestone than that.
But if President Trump “owns” the third highest death rate in Massachusetts, does he also “own” the lowest death rate in the U.S. in the neighboring state of Vermont (9 per 100,000).
How does that make any sense? Charlie Parker says he blanked the top of the ballot last week. Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont proudly said he’d voted for Biden. Yet Trump kept that backstabber’s state safe.
(The second lowest rate of death in the U.S., by the way, is in Maine, with 12 per 100,000. Maybe that’s why Trump carried the Second Congressional District up there. Because he owns it.)
How is Donald Trump able to run up the death rates in some New England states, while other are basically unaffected by the Panic?
You understand, Charlie Parker never gets asked about any of this. Whatever he says, the local yokels lap it up with a spoon. Tall Deval gets about as many tough questions as Joe Biden.
And he just goes about his business, as more and more restaurants shut down — goodbye Jevelli’s in East Boston, adios John Harvard Brewing in Framingham. What does Charlie care? He didn’t even care when the state had the highest jobless rate in the country.
When it comes to bad news, Charlie owns nothing.
They’re just not making grim milestones like they used to.