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The local newspaper regularly prints a column by Peter Lucas, a retired press spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Lucas supplements his government pension by writing columns condemning government. His headlines are so repulsive that I never make it to the content, but one of our readers, Mike Luciano, monitors Lucas closely and calls him out whenever his ramblings go off the outrageousness scale. Here are Mike’s thoughts on a recent column by Lucas:

Peter Lucas should resign

The most recent column by Peter Lucas in the Lowell Sun is the most disgraceful piece I have read in that publication in quite some time. Given the kinds of nonsense that regularly appear in The Sun, this is saying a great deal.

Lucas’s latest effort is an attack on Governor Deval Patrick that takes the form of an Orwellian hit piece, the plausibility of which is entirely dependent on revisionist history and a forgetful readership. Its title announces, “Patrick looks like he may play the race card again” in the gubernatorial campaign. The cantankerous Sun columnist (Is there another kind?) proceeds to inform us that in the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Patrick and his advisors used the race card and “skillfully played on liberal white guilt to get the media to go easy on [him].” Additionally, Lucas tells us that “Patrick’s primary opponents were forced to pull their punches in order to avoid being called racists. Nobody, after all, wants to be branded a racist, even if the charge is untrue.”

Not surprisingly, Lucas provides no actual examples of Patrick or his campaign using race to his advantage. Instead he simply says, “As soon as Healey ran a television ad that accused Patrick of being soft on crime, the Patrick people attacked her for ‘fear-mongering’ and ‘race-baiting.’” read more »

Today’s Lowell Sun reports that former city manager Joe Tully and local real estate owner/WCAP Saturday morning show regular Tom Byrne have both received “target letters” from the US Attorney’s office as part of an ongoing Federal probe. The Sun story also reports that state representatives Dave Nangle and Kevin Murphy have recently been interviewed by the FBI and that state senator Steve Panagiotakos and city councilor Bud Caulfield have both received “interceptor letters” indicating that telephone conversations they had with Byrne were recorded by a Federal wiretap.

The Registry of Motor Vehicles was formerly located in a building owned by Irving Paley on Manufacturers Street in Lowell. Paley has been represented by Tully in the past in a number of real estate matters. As part of the FY2010 budget, the Registry of Motor Vehicles announced that it would close the Lowell (and several other) branches around the state. Local opposition to the closure was intense and, as a result of efforts to retain a RMV presence in the city, the agency opted to enter into a new lease for space at the city-owned Edward Early parking garage on Middlesex Street where it is now located.

The last and perhaps only phone conversation I had with Byrne occurred several years ago but any time I drove by his Parker Street parking lot, he was usually sitting in his pickup truck talking on his cell phone. I suspect the folks who were at the other end of that phone through the past year or so are anxiously recalling what was talked about. The transcripts of all those conversations would make for fascinating reading, I’m sure.

By the way, the Sun story is in the electronic edition but does not yet appear on the paper’s website so I can’t provide a link.