Manny being Manny II
Yet again, we really have a tough time getting things straight in this town.
Some guy from Palookaville breaks his promise to become school superintendent of Boston, four months after he committed to the post, and a bunch of city councilors, parents, and activists act as if the sky has just fallen in.
They lash out at Mayor Thomas M. Menino. They demand that the School Committee chairwoman resign her job. They push the notion that Boston schools are eternally damned without him.
Are you kidding me?
Manuel Rivera, our school superintendent who wasn't, showed himself to be a case study in classlessness by backing out of his commitment to be school superintendent at a salary that approached $300,000 a year. To make matters worse, he was a gutless wonder for the way he did it, which was by
But now comes word of a voice mail message that Rivera left on the machine of a Boston official that shows just how much of a self-obsessed fraud he may be and just how foolish city councilors like John Tobin, Michael Flaherty, Chuck Turner, Charles Yancey, and Felix Arroyo have been to support him.
Last Tuesday, School Committee chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger received a letter from Rivera saying he was backing out. She telephoned Rivera. He didn't call back, which was no surprise, considering he hadn't returned a phone call to her from a week earlier.
On Wednesday, Menino expressed understandable disgust with Rivera. His sentiments were carried on Boston.com that afternoon.
Right after that, Rivera called Reilinger and left a voice mail, a copy of which was made available to me. So let's go right to the audiotape:
"Hi, Liz," Rivera began. "This is Manny. Listen, I just got a call from my chief communications person that the Globe had quoted the mayor as being outraged at me backing out or whatever.
"Um, if you could get to him and convey to him the importance of keeping this positive, that would be good for everybody in the long run. But if he's going to take that position that he's outraged with me doing this, that's, that's not going to be helpful.
"I know he's upset, but publicly it puts me in a bad light. I'm trying to avoid that. Thanks. Bye."
Where to begin with this? How about with that gem, "backing out or whatever." Rivera leaves a big city school system in the lurch months after committing to its most pivotal post, and he describes his actions as "whatever "?
Then there's "keeping this positive." What precisely is positive about Boston having to start its search from scratch?
The most telling part of the message is "that would be good for everybody in the long run." Because most people where I come from would read that as a barely veiled threat.
"Absolutely not," Rivera replied when I asked him yesterday if he was threatening city officials. "That's nonsense to interpret it that way."
Maybe, maybe not. But Menino didn't keep it positive, and by Friday unnamed Rivera associates were quoted in the Globe blaming Reilinger for the split, saying she was a micromanager who had driven Rivera away.
Sure she was, Manny. It took about six seconds for Flaherty, speaking from that backwater known as the Boston City Council, to call for Reilinger's resignation. Others quickly chimed in. Why be thoughtful when you can get a cheap headline?
Here's the reality: Rivera backed out because he got what he thought was a better job offer, from Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York to run a commission on higher education. Good luck and good riddance. Or, as Menino said yesterday, "He might be superintendent of the year, but, after learning all this about him, I don't know if I'd want him here."
Maybe we should just chalk it up to a new variation of Manny being Manny: He gets a new job, and as for Boston, as he might eloquently put it, "whatever."
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com. 
