Governor Deval Patrick defended his use of the state helicopter, apparently somewhat harshly.
Gov. Deval Patrick angrily defended his use of a state police helicopter yesterday, vowing to continue taking the taxpayer-funded sky shuttle whenever he sees fit.“My policy is to use all the resources at my disposal to be the governor of the whole state,” Patrick huffed at the State House.
The Herald reported yesterday that Patrick had the chopper fly him from a North Adams museum Jan. 17 to the Beacon Hill swearing-in of Auditor Joe DeNucci. He also had the State Police Air Wing fly him to a Hyannis soldier’s funeral and back to Boston for meetings last week.
“You should call that family from Hyannis that lost their son in Iraq and see if they have a problem with me using the helicopter,” Patrick snapped. Pressed on why he didn’t just drive to Cape Cod, he responded: “I have a really crowded calendar and a very ambitious agenda so I’m going to use every resource available.”
Wow...he actually suggested calling the mourning family of the fallen soldier. That's not very diplomatic of him, it's just sophomoric and immature. On top of that, what makes his tenure as governor any more "crowded" than say Mitt Romney's? According to yesterday's Boston Herald, Governor Romney used the state police helicopter only once "for a flight over Boston Harbor with public safety officials to view an LNG tanker fuel delivery." If Air Deval (as Howie Carr is referring to him now) has deemed it necessary to use the helicopter on multiple occasions already and has bellowed that he will continue to use it as he sees fit, then I suppose it will be any day now that the Patriot Majority Fund, the 527 group that created ads critical of Lt. Governor Kerry Healey (for turning on the emergency blue lights of the cruiser she was being escorted in after getting stuck in traffic on her way to an event in Newton) should be issuing their ad critical of Deval Patrick any day now. Yeah, probably not, the Patriot Majority Fund was largely funded by Democratic Insiders, and supporters of Deval Patrick.
Of course, once again Deval Patrick's administration has negated any sense of transparency in government.
The governor’s office refused to provide the taxpayer cost of the trips, referring questions to state police. A state police spokesman said the department does not provide individual trip cost breakdowns.
Is this guy ever going to be the governor he said he was going to be?
