Boston Herald

Sometimes you just have to shake your head

- Joe FITZGERALD

Does this happen to you, too?

You sit down with a cup of coffee and the morning papers, and by your second sip your head is spinning because the news is so dispiritin­g. Thursday was like that. Bad enough that airheads agree with Liz Warren’s pathetic boycott of a Fox News event, ostensibly because of that network’s right-wing leanings.

Let’s see if we get this straight: She would be much more comfortabl­e with CNN, which had to sever ties with its thoroughly discredite­d Democratic strategist, Donna Brazile, when it was discovered she had surreptiti­ously provided Hillary Clinton’s team with questions the latter would be asked in a presidenti­al debate?

Liz is OK with that? Please.

Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence gets hammered because he’s a selfavowed evangelica­l Christian, making abortion anathema to him. The man not only knows what he believes and why, but obviously has the courage of his conviction­s.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson would have put it, Pence is comfortabl­e being himself in a political culture that’s trying to make him like everyone else.

There was a time that would have been seen as admirable in America, but times are changing.

The item that rattled this reader most, however, was a quote in colleague Sean Philip Cotter’s piece regarding the state Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling that longtime child rapist Wayne Chapman, who admits assaulting as many as 100 boys, must be considered eligible for freedom.

“I completely understand how his victims feel about this,” Chapman’s lawyer, Eric Tennen, said. “I understand why they don’t want him to be released. But we don’t make policy on emotions. The law says he doesn’t need to be held. He’s not a public safety risk.”

Hey, counselor, do yourself a favor: Pocket your fee and keep quiet because the more you talk, the more your client stinks.

The court claims to have relied on the advice of two “qualified examiners” who determined Chapman was no longer a danger to anyone.

Really?

Back in June, even as Tennen and a psychologi­st named Joe Plaud were strategizi­ng ways to spring Chapman, the 70-year-old degenerate was caught exposing himself and masturbati­ng in full view of a prison nurse.

You’d think such depravity might cause a conscienti­ous attorney to now view his client differentl­y, indeed the way the rest of us view him.

But you’d be wrong because there was Tennen three days ago, still spewing his insistence Chapman is now deserving of liberty.

Reading it just makes you shake your head.

What a way to start the day.

 ?? FAITH NINIVAGGI / HERALD STAFF FILE ?? JUDGMENT CALL: Eric Tennen, the attorney for convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman, below, said last week that Chapman is ‘not a public safety risk.’
FAITH NINIVAGGI / HERALD STAFF FILE JUDGMENT CALL: Eric Tennen, the attorney for convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman, below, said last week that Chapman is ‘not a public safety risk.’
 ?? CHRIS CHRISTO / HERALD STAFF FILE ??
CHRIS CHRISTO / HERALD STAFF FILE
 ??  ??

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