Good guy, exit right
Matthew J. Amorello's public appearance yesterday said a great deal about why he refuses to do what almost everyone knows he should do, which is quit.
The embattled Turnpike Authority chief was surrounded by aides as he began an absurd press briefing in South Boston in which he declared that he would get to the bottom of the tragedy Monday night that took the life of Milena Del Valle. He spoke of tiebacks and investigations, but had to be prompted to address the issue on everyone's mind.
The inevitable first question -- ``Matt, are you going to quit?" -- brought a terse no. He then proceeded to brush aside the questions about the crisis of confidence in his leadership, as well as those wondering why anyone should trust his word about tunnel safety, especially now.
Amorello's strategy is simple. He will just stand his ground, looking concerned while deflecting any actual responsibility. He clearly will not go quietly, and I'm not convinced that he's going quickly either.
The ride-out-the-storm approach works well in the State House, where Amorello mastered it, but it isn't nearly as effective in the face of a genuine human tragedy.
As Amorello has struggled to hold on to his job over the past three years, his defenders have repeatedly come back to the same basic point: He's a good guy. Even Governor Mitt Romney, in the course of skewering him and demanding his removal Tuesday, found time to mention that Amorello is a fine man, just in over his head at the Turnpike Authority.
Goodness knows the governor is right about the in-over-his-head part. But, after Monday night, it is no longer about whether he's a good guy.
In less than a decade, Amorello has gone from a fairly anonymous state senator to overseeing the Highway Department and, then, the Turnpike Authority. It isn't a normal career trajectory to go from managing nothing to running something of the complexity and troubled history of the Big Dig. But Amorello is popular and a Republican, and that was enough for Governor Paul Cellucci to turn him into a transportation executive.
Even Amorello's supporters in the Legislature are now nervous enough to say little about him publicly. But surely they know they abetted his rise, right up to the point of covering his flank recently by trying to extend the term of board member Jordan Levy to keep Amorello from being fired.
Like all too much in Massachusetts politics, Amorello's career has been all about personality. Cellucci, the Legislature, and the Turnpike Authority board have put politics over performance. It has never mattered that Amorello is far from the best person for this job. His allies have always treated the issue as a personality contest.
The latest spin is to argue that Amorello inherited a bad project, that the fallen panels, like so much else about the project, predates him. True, the Big Dig's problems did not begin with Amorello. But management is about assessing what one has inherited and, if necessary, fixing it. Clearly, Amorello hasn't done that. Instead, he's expended most of his energy clinging to his post, which pays roughly $223,000 a year, one of the highest salaries in state government.
Amorello himself seems too self-absorbed and too invested in the trappings of power to understand that he has to leave. He worked hard yesterday to project the air of a man in charge, even though few people in Massachusetts have any faith left in what he is selling. Projecting a bogus air of confidence won't begin to allay the fears of a public that no longer trusts the tunnels.
There's nothing wrong, really, with succeeding on the strength of being well liked. But you have to know when personality has taken you as far as you can go. Matt Amorello's culpability in Monday's tragedy will be settled by the multiple investigations now underway. But this much is clear: Amorello has gone as far as being a good guy will take him.
Yesterday, he seemed to be the only person in Massachusetts who hasn't figured that out yet.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 