Scott Brown's final victory Lap

This editorial from the Boston Herald is just too good not to run in its entirety.
Finally, Mr. Brown goes to Washington
by Howie Carr

Don‘t worry, Paul Kirk, for the rest of your life, everyone will still be calling you “Senator.” Don’t ask me why - it’s tradition or something.

But now the rest of us can start our celebration - Sen. Scott Brown, (R-Mass). About damn time.

I don’t know what finally made Scott get on the stick. Was it the grumbling from his voters, or the column someone wrote in this paper yesterday? (Hint: the writers initials are HC.) Or was it that last tavern photo-op in Southie Tuesday night?

I suspect it was the fatal glass of beer in Ward 6. During the campaign, when Scott was asked about bringing back “the draft,” this wasn’t what people meant. A three-week victory lap is one thing, lapping up Bud Light is another altogether.

There were also reports yesterday that Scott had wanted to hang around long enough to make a farewell address today on the floor of the state Senate. That would have been the start of yet another new tradition.

Around here a solon’s farewell address is usually delivered by his attorney, outside the courthouse, after the solon himself has already been handcuffed and taken into custody following the guilty verdict. According to custom, the senator’s farewell address must include at least one vow to appeal, as well as a reference to the traditional miscarriage of justice.

But now it’s done. Scott will be sworn in today. Whether he wants to or not, Captain Kirk now must say, “Beam me up, Scottie.”

Whoever’s fault this delay in seating the new senator was, can you imagine Martha Coakley having to wait two-plus weeks to be sworn in? Of course not. And what would have happened to an unelected Republican senator desperately hanging on for one bad vote after another, doing everything but taking hostages in his office?

Something else happens today that’s as significant as Scott Brown’s swearing in. Today is the end of Camelot, as in the old show tune, “for one brief shining moment....”

Brief? The Kennedys (and their placeholders, Ben Smith and now Paul Kirk) owned this seat for 57 years - one for each state in Barack Obama’s union. In that last debate, Scott Brown was wrong. The Kennedys really did own this seat.

Joe Kennedy purchased it for his boy Jack, back in 1952. Bought off the owner of the old Boston Post and drenched the state in bootlegger cash and - strike up the band - “dont let it be forgot/ for one brief shining moment/ that once there was a spot/ that was known as Camelot.”

Until Ted Kennedy ordered the Legislature to change the law on Senate succession in 2004. And then demanded last year that it be changed again. If Ted Kennedy hadn’t pulled that one final “Do-you-know-who-I-am?” his family would still own the seat.

Boy, karma really is a bummer, isn’t it? And what can you say about Scott Brown except, he’s the straw who broke the Camelot’s back.