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Albano Emerges from Exile

by Bill Dusty

[PARDON THE INTERRUPTION]

In the Sunday Republican this past weekend, former Springfield honcho Mike Albano got himself a nifty a write up, courtesy of Republican writer Stephanie Barry. In the story, Albano continued to insist the FBI criminal probe of the City was motivated by the agency’s dislike of Albano himself. He seemed to imply that the FBI’s investigation was a waste of time, with his friends and colleagues receiving undue scrutiny. This would be a tough sell to those of us who have watched the past few years as the Bureau got several convictions of corrupt officials….

The story also hinted at the possibility of Albano filing a lawsuit against the Feds. This would be a slight change from the Morning Show’s Bo Sullivan angling towards Albano stepping out because of an upcoming new book (click here, or scroll “previous entries” on the linked page to reach the audio interview). So which might it be? Or… is it both or neither?

Regardless, something appears to be brewing in the Albano camp.

State Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera – whose current rocky relationship with the Ryan regime is no secret – got a little face time in the article, as well, marveling at Albano’s charismatic aura: “One thing about Mike Albano,” she says in the article, “…he was a great inspirer of the people..” [Ohh, swoon] “..he talked to people, and honestly, a lot of people miss him.”

And there’s this disturbing observation from local political consultant Anthony Cignoli, a man who has many fingers in Springfield’s affairs: “He seemed to very much connect with people across a very, very diverse city – almost in a Camelot-like way… You wanted to believe him. You wanted to follow him.” (Apparently true, since Albano was re-elected multiple times, almost as easily as the wind blew down Main Street.)

What a setup job. The past two weeks have been fed to us as something like the Lost Knight coming back from exile. Albano’s emergence seems choreographed – with a friendly Morning Show interview (which I believe was well rehearsed, with any tough questions gone over ahead of time) and now a Republican interview that whisked right over even his yucky divorce: “[Albano is] in the midst of a divorce from his wife of 20 years – which he attributes, in part, to the stress of the investigation.” Oh really? And what would the “other part” of the cause of his divorce be?

The story also included some photos of Albano in earlier stages of his life. His 1978 photo looked just plain groovy, man. And a later photo of him while serving on the City Council showed off those slick, round eye glasses that apparently were all the rage in the early Nineties. (Did I miss that era?)

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Posted by Bill Dusty on Aug 27th, 2007 and filed under Cities & Towns, Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.