Mobster considered killing columnist
 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...ill_columnist/

This is a big story here in Boston, and I thought it was a pretty interesting one. For those who don't know, Howie Carr is a radio host and newspaper columnist in Boston. He is probably one of the most hated men in town, in that he's Conservative and pretty outspoken about it. That, and he tends to get kind of nasty in his columns and on his radio show.

He also happens to be a long-time antagonist of Whitey Bulger, a Boston mobster who is on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Bulger's brother was the president of the UMass system, and previously the Massachusetts Senate President. Carr has recently written a book on the brothers.

In a "60 Minutes" interview to air this weekend, one of Whitey's men tells the reporter that Whitey wanted to murder Carr, and that it nearly happened.

All in all, a pretty insane story, especially considering all those involved.

You might recall that we had an outspoken radio talk host, Alan Berg, executed by the Aryan Nations (I think that was/is their name) several years ago.

That was a real shock.

At that time, his radio station was in the same building as the TV station for which I worked.

I used to chat with him a lot. Nice guy off the air.

Being outspoken and controversial can be dangerous sometimes.

I'm not sure people would say Carr is a nice guy off the air, but he does have a family. In fact, one of the excuses they gave for not killing him is that he was walking with his daughter during one of the near-attempts.

Carr wrote a column this morning in the "Herald," mocking the would-be assassin for not going through with it. He also got in a couple of plugs for his new book.

Oh man, my mom always listened to Carr and my father and I would run and hide because we hated him so much. We put restrictions on my mom for when she was allowed to listen to him.

I opened this thread thinking, "Please be Dan Shaughnessey . . . "

Nah, CHB always travels with his bodyguard G. Edes.

I'm watching this story on 60 Minutes right now.

How was the piece? I was travelling and wasn't able to catch it. I heard they interviewed Carr as well.

Ed Bradley interviewed Kevin Weeks who was the right hand man to Whitey Bulger, the head of the Irish mob in Boston. Weeks said that he waited across the street in a graveyard with a rifle, but Carr walked out of his house with his daughter. I guess Weeks has one cell of decency in his otherwise vicious body because he didn't want to murder Carr in front of his daughter. Carr doubted the story because he didn't think that Weeks had the "stones" to kill him. Carr believed that if Bulger were there, he would have been killed.

Here is a link to the 60 minutes story. They also have a video if you are interested.