So Much For Deval Patrick

That sound Deval Patrick hears is probably the last nail being pounded in his political coffin. Last Sunday, the Globe published what I think is the most embarrassing one I've read in weeks: The transportation reform his administration has been touting since the summer for, among many reasons, saving money by curtailing bureaucratic waste, is actually only saving Patrick's staff from itself because all the waste comes from within.

Patrick's administration, writes Andrea Estes , has "presided over much of the growth in spending he must now rein in," as six-figure salaries have doubled, transportation secretaries, of which there have been three, earn 25 percent more than previous governors' predecessors, and "new appointees have been simply layered over old ones, with the displaced workers given new titles." Overall, the payroll has increased by 20 percent under Patrick.

All politicians place their own ills on the broken system their predecessor of the opposite political party left them. Patrick's administration has been particularly fond of laying blame at the feet of the 16 years of Republican governors that came before him. To do that now, though, considering this report, would be offensively disingenuous. The state's transportation system needs to be changed for many reasons, but one large one is Patrick's staff doesn't know to run the system. The story essentially says, Patrick has no ability to direct a government and lead, and it might be correct.

The Globe has caught the Patrick administration lying before, particularly with how it sought to promote a hack senator to a plum, overpaid job. And voters next year will care much more about his ability to improve what they perceive to be the economy than anything else when they decide whether to re-elect him. But I find this revelation much more crushing because it strikes at the philosophical core of who Patrick actually is as a person. He says he believes in reform, when, really, he fits the Republican caricature of a caricatured liberal: A tax-and-spender who loves adding to the payroll and size of government.