I picked the wrong week to stop calling people dumb-as-bricks
By Yvonne Abraham
Globe Columnist, November 6
I’m going to try to get through this whole column without typing the words stupid, idiot, or dumb-as-bricks.
Such terms are beneath me, according to my mother. They are unhelpful to the reader, according to my editor. They reflect poorly on me, according to my critics.
Fair enough. But this is going to be tough! For, today, we’re taking a little tour of folks whose recent words and deeds are almost impossible to describe any other way.
Let’s start in Everett, where mayor Carlo DeMaria was re-elected on Tuesday, with 3,735 of the city’s 22,000 or so registered voters giving him the nod. His 210-vote victory margin was not exactly a resounding mandate, but it is remarkable considering the many unseemly allegations that have piled up against him over the years.
Four women have alleged he sexually harassed them. He’s been accused of being too cozy with underworld types; and most recently, his city clerk and former buddy Sergio Cornelio has accused DeMaria of shaking him down for $97,000 from a real estate deal in which the mayor had no stake. The FBI is looking into it, as the Globe’s Andrea Estes reported.
DeMaria has denied all of the allegations, none of which have led to charges. Still, one has to wonder what would possess him to publicly threaten Cornelio during his victory speech on Tuesday night, even as the feds are sniffing around.
“There were [people] who… we considered friends who tried to sandbag us…It hurt us, but in the long run it’s going to hurt them,” DeMaria told supporters. “I’m going to go after a lot of people.”
Nothing like threatening your accuser to make you seem totally innocent! Really, really a-word-we-won’t-use move.