The Globe Goes After Sal. Again


1209649117Whenever House Speaker Sal DiMasi’s phone rings, he probably checks the caller ID to make sure the Globe’s number doesn’t show up. These days, 929-2000 must make the Speaker cringe, since the paper seems hell-bent on publishing damaging stories about DiMasi as frequently as they do pieces on bee-keeping.

Today’s potential conflict of interest involves powerful contractor Jay Cashman. The paper points out that DiMasi’s friend may have profited from an LNG tanker bill that the Speaker killed back in 2006.

Just months after House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi killed a bill that was designed to block a controversial liquefied natural gas project from being built on 73 acres in Fall River. . . Jay Cashman, sold the property to the terminal developers and made a $14.2 million profit[.]

DiMasi maintains he killed the bill because former Gov. Mitt Romney refused to allow an amendment that would have closed the LNG facility in Everett, not because his friend could have benefited.

Then there’s the relationship between the two men’s wives, who are starting their own book review show on NECN this weekend. The show will be produced by a Cashman-owned production company, and nobody will say how much Debbie DiMasi stands to make from her new gig.

The Globe’s Joan Vennochi advises DiMasi to shape up and fly right.

A golf game is easy for DiMasi to rationalize. He may also duck accountability for the software contract, since the Patrick administration, not DiMasi, awarded it.

But a direct connection between a piece of legislation and a DiMasi friend is dangerous to the speaker’s political health.

Arrogance is no armor against the truth. DiMasi risks losing the speaker’s office and the power that comes with it.