Eagan to Chuck Turner: Keep your trap shut -- and your fly

By Margery Eagan | Tuesday, November 25, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists

The Zipper Address, by City Councilor Chuck Turner. Already, it’s the stuff of legend.

JFK said, “Ask not what your country can do for you.” Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

And Chuck? “I was rushing so fast to get dressed . . . I didn’t zip up my pants.” Really.

Clearly the feds’ investigation of alleged liquor license bribery has entered Phase II.

Now the focus is on the fly.

It has moved south, apparently, from Dianne Wilkerson’s brassiere to Chuck Turner’s underpants. Boxers or briefs? We cannot say.

But we can say this: Had not Chuck went on at some length about his half-staff zipper at yesterday’s press conference, we would not be going on about it today. We might not know.

But he blames all his travails on the media, see. He has been “harassed and oppressed by the press . . . news outlets . . . knocking at my door at every hour.

“I am not being judged by a jury of my peers, I am being judged by the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Fox News, Channel 5 . . .” But most particularly Fox 25. He said he heard the “beep, beep, beep” of their news truck at 4:30 a.m. yesterday as he was trying to exit his home unnoticed. Instead, Fox News’ Doug ‘VB’ Goudy headed him off at the pass.

Those of us who missed the Fox morning news rushed to the Web site, where we found VB’s “Zip It Up Chuck.” And there was the councilor in the pre-dawn hours. And if you really, really looked close, for about a nano-second, you could see a flash of white cotton in the crotchal area.

Question to Fox 25 spokesgal: Were you unfairly focusing in on the councilor’s crotchal area?

“I can confirm that we did run the video,” she said, and she would say no more.

Now Chuck’s many ardent followers yesterday blamed both the press and selective enforcement (just black politicians targeted). Dan the Bagel Man from Cleveland Circle, with a zillion political buttons on his cap, blamed corporate greed and currency being devalued, or something like that.

Had Turner yesterday given one word of explanation as to what he was doing in FBI photos clutching a wad of cash in his hand, we would not be talking about zippers today. Or had he explained why, after what he called 45 years of “speaking truth to power,” the feds had suddenly decided to ruin his career, we’d be having a different discussion, too.

But he didn’t. He said nothing, basically. So here we are, un-zipped, with no place to go.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1134702