Dreams From New York

Gov. Deval Patrick said last month that he has no political ambition beyond being governor of the Commonwealth for the foreseeable future, even though he’s one of the most visible surrogates for presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Not that anyone has ever used the governor’s office to try to jump to a national office or anything, but Patrick didn’t do much to quell the skepticism generated by his announcement by heading off to New York to shop his autobiography as House Speaker Sal DiMasi was savagely killing his casino proposal.

He’s like a teenager that does something so incomprehensible you want to shake him and scream “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

His aides repeatedly rebuffed questions on Thursday and Friday about the governor’s specific whereabouts or why he went to New York. . . . They scoffed at suggestions that it was a political misstep to depart Beacon Hill and not see his casino proposal through to the very end.

Imagine if that noble train conductor that stayed in the cabin as a runaway freight car was barreling toward him had jumped out without doing everything he could to prevent the collision. The Herald would have a screaming headline like “COWARDLY CONDUCTOR.”

DiMasi was the runaway lumber car, and Patrick bailed.