Liberals attack

‘Crude’ response follows Obama criticism, Mitt support

The vile, hate-filled messages started showing up soon after Mitt Romney and the national press corps left Brian Maloney’s truck repair shop in Roxbury.

“It was incredible,” Maloney tells the Herald. “It was crude, abusive, mindless garbage.”

Maloney hadn’t committed a crime, but to some Democrats and liberals he had done something far more heinous: He had dared to criticize President Obama.


“It was pretty sick,” the 69-year-old Maloney says of the flurry of more than a dozen voice messages and emails, some of them too repulsive to repeat. All of them were anonymous, of course, but many parroted the Obama campaign claim that Romney shipped jobs overseas. One emailer wrote to Maloney: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

No, what’s really shameful is the vicious assault on Maloney, who had the audacity to say that he built his business on his own, without government help.

Liberal attackers like Rachel Maddow pointed out that Maloney got a government industrial bond that helped him get a low-interest loan to start his business. What Maddow and others don’t mention is that Maloney got the help because he was moving into a desolate, dangerous part of Boston that city officials were desperate to develop.

“It was like war zone,” Maloney recalled. “You could hear gunfire at night.”

Maloney helped start a business association that met with area residents in a church basement in an effort to clean up the neighborhood. Today the Newmarket district is not exactly upscale, but it’s home to a number of thriving industrial businesses. Even City Councilor Tito Jackson, one of the protestors at Romney’s event, said that Maloney has been a good neighbor who runs a good business.

“The feedback I get from the people I do business with is pretty good,” Maloney says.

But that doesn’t matter to the Obama attack machine.

Within minutes after Romney’s visit, Democrats were getting out word that Maloney lives in a Brookline home worth $1.3 million. The only problem with that shocking scandal is that Maloney bought his house for $60,000 in 1972.

Maloney is just the most recent Romney supporter to find himself in the crosshairs of Democrats. Police in New Hampshire are now investigating alleged threatening phone calls and emails received by a businessman who appeared in a Romney campaign ad.

The attacks came after the Obama campaign touted the fact that the businessman, Jack Gilchrist, also got government assistance in the form of a loan.

The message is pretty clear: If you want to back Romney and publicly criticize the president, prepare to get slimed yourself. It’s a message that Brian Maloney has received loud and clear.

“It’s pretty sad,” he says.