Badboys
The boys are not playing nice over at Herald Square.
Last week Mike Barnicle, the tabloid's new marquee columnist, wrote a piece sticking up for House Speaker Tom Finneran, a ''hard-working guy with strong beliefs" who also happens to be facing a pretty pointless grand jury investigation. On Wednesday, Howie Carr had his own less flattering take on Finneran and his supporters. Wrote Carr: ''It's astounding that with friends like these, Tommy Taxes could be teetering on the edge of indictment. He's even had press vermin penning fiction about what a swell guy he is, and guess what -- the pipe artist's wife maxed out to Tommy Taxes with a $500 contribution. Odd that the hack forgot to mention his wife's largesse in his piece."
In print and on the radio, Carr has spent years going after Barnicle, both during Barnicle's years at the Globe and the New York Daily News. Carr once gave out Barnicle's home number. When Barnicle was hired at the Herald, Carr told his WRKO listeners that he wanted to be known as ''the nonfiction columnist" at the Herald, a reference to the problems that led to Barnicle's resignation from the Globe. Now he goes after Barnicle by going after his wife, Anne Finucane, Northeast president for Bank of America.
''What a pathetic figure," Barnicle said yesterday. ''Can you imagine being as consumed with envy and jealousy toward me for as long as it has consumed him?"
''Is he addressing the issue of whether he should have told readers about his wife's connections here?" responded Carr. ''It is another embarrassment."
Said Finucane, long her husband's most ardent defender: ''Mike's career is stronger than it has ever been -- MSNBC, the New York Daily News, WTKK, Chronicle, and the Boston Herald. I don't follow Howie Carr's commentaries."
Going after Barnicle at the Globe and the Daily News is one thing. Going after Barnicle at the Herald, where publisher Pat Purcell just paid top-dollar to sign him up, is something else. ''I am not going to tolerate people on the Herald payroll sniping at each other in print," says Herald editorial director Ken Chandler.
By the way, I wonder if Carr noticed that was a half-page Bank of America ad just below his column. You can bet Finucane did.
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Hats off to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care chief executive Charlie Baker.
Baker runs a $2 billion health insurance company with 800,000 members. He ran the budget for Bill Weld and has been touted (including in this space) as a Republican candidate for governor. On Tuesday he was sworn in for public office -- as a Swampscott selectman.
Baker, who has lived in Swampscott for 12 years and won in a landslide with 1,840 votes, says he ran because he has three children in the schools, and the town has big financial challenges ahead. ''I had a lot of people tell me I was crazy. 'What if you lost?' . . . I did it because I think community service is something everyone should do. The fact is not enough people do think that way."
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Neighborhood news. Legacy Financial Advisors, a financial planning firm in Milford, was having trouble attracting clients with the standard pitch in a hotel ballroom. Legacy's new approach: free bus rides to Foxwoods casino, with a guest speaker giving a talk on financial planning for seniors on the way down and a question-and-answer session on the way back. Legacy throws in a $10 food voucher and $15 for Keno.
''We don't advocate gambling. Not at all," says Legacy's Edward Kiernan. ''It is a destination that people are looking forward to. And we can take their time to inform them that there are other options to gambling." And other options for financial planning firms, I say.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.
