Clap Your Hands and Say Mitt

Globe Columnist Brian McGrory is often critical of Romney and his administration. That is, critical when he’s not waxing poetic about his childhood summer cottage or praising to Francona. Today’s column by McGrory applauds Mitt for cutting through the red tape and offering to host 2,500 Katrina-displaced persons. Romney acted much quicker than Menino who was still drafting plans to host evacuees at the Boston Convention Center. Today’s column had an obligatory dig on Romney pointing out his sometimes awkward chuckling.

''We didn't know exactly how many we could handle, but we said we'd take that many," Romney was recalling yesterday, laughing as he did. ''She told them, 'You want us to take more, we'll take more.' We didn't know how many we could handle. But the nation needs us. We needed to do this."

It’s good to know that Brian McGrory is still on his game. Bostonist felt that the opinion piece fell a bit short of due political criticism. Not to imply that it isn’t a great thing for Massachusetts to host the few hundred people at Camp Edwards, it is, nor suggest that Romney shouldn't have done it, he could and should, rather posit that something political was Mitt's motivation.

Otis Air National Guard Base is slated for closure, Romney and State Atty. Gen. Reilly filed and unsuccessful suit this week to keep the base open under a militia clause of the U.S. Constitution*. Romney welcomes evacuees to a base that the Federal Government deemed unnecessary, could this demonstrate the value of Otis to the Feds? The Herald thinks so. Bostonist wouldn’t be surprised to hear Romney talking to residents of New Hampshire in a year or so explaining to them how he’s such a “compassionate conservative” and using the opening of Camp Edwards as an example. Mitt does deserve a pat on the back for reacting so quickly in a time of national tragedy; in fact Bostonist would like to see more of it, preferably without a Romney ‘08 banner in the background.

Bostonist is not a Constitutional Scholar but we think this is found in Article I, Section 8