Turner loyalists just fooling themselves

Turner loyalists just fooling themselves
By Joe Fitzgerald | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists

Photo by Matthew Healey (file)

Chuck Turner says he’s “surprised” Tom Menino would call for his resignation from the City Council, as if it’s odd that a mayor would distance himself from the odious presence of a sticky-fingered pol.

The only thing “odd” about Menino’s ultimatum is his willingness to lock horns with this disgraced Roxbury felon, given the shameful silence of other office-holders who appear to be terrorized by Turner’s ruthless demagoguery.

Likening himself to slaves “who were whipped and lashed and hung,” the convicted councilor has the repulsive gall to cast himself as a martyr, wrapping himself in the robes of those who suffered for human dignity, for basic justice, as if he, too, had lost his liberty in the pursuit of something noble.

But where’s the nobility in being identified as a crook by a jury of your peers? Where’s the nobility in accepting a bribe? Where’s the nobility in being exposed as a two-bit hustler willing to sell his soul for a measly grand?

Contrition? Please. Try defiance.

Little wonder Chuck’s “surprised” that Menino would take the high road, since it’s clearly “the road less traveled” by the political lemmings who masquerade as public servants in this town.

Now Chuck’s producing a batch of letters from diehard loyalists who profess to love him despite his shortcomings, which says more about them than it does about him; it’s not unlike those bizarre marriage proposals sent by sentimental dolts to incarcerated barbarians.

Who can explain such wayward affections, other than surmising they have simply allowed their hearts to overrule their heads.

As for black history, which he soils with his self-serving exploitation, Chuck brings to mind the words of Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist, talking about confronting power: “Find out what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”

Indeed, most of his constituents know that Chuck Turner’s corruption is not reflective of them. So why submit to him?

A few years ago a Mattapan reader named Sheila Gunn called to lament what she felt was an unfair image.

“If all you know of Mattapan is what you see on TV or read in the papers, you end up judging all of us by just a little bit of truth. Well, I’m sorry, that’s not fair.”

She was right, and it’s no less unfair for residents of Turner’s district to be besmirched by a continuing identity with him.

Menino was right. The sooner this fraud is gone, the better.

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