Keller @ Large: Patrick 'Tone-Deaf And Arrogant'

BOSTON (CBS) - When you cover politics for a living, you wind up sitting through a lot of press conferences where politicians go out of their way to say nothing that could possibly offend anyone.

And after 30 years of being fed this kind of gruel, you get to the point where it's refreshing to hear a pol say what they really think, regardless of how offensive it may be.

So in that respect, I guess I have to commend Gov. Deval Patrick for letting his true feelings hang out about the public reaction to the murder of a Woburn police officer by a violent career criminal who had been granted parole from the life sentence he was serving.

What complicates things is that what the governor said was truly ridiculous and offensive.

Asked for comment on the case, he said he would wait for the conclusion of his administration's investigation of the killer's parole before weighing in, a perfectly reasonable position to take.

But then, unprompted, the governor felt compelled to offer this: "I think the thing that for me gets lost in this - and I was thinking about this at the funeral - is that we jump immediately to the recriminations and we forget that there's a human tragedy here and a family that's been upended."

Excuse me?

Who is the "we" the governor is referring to?

I know that I have heard outrage over this case expressed by a wide range of people over the past week, every last one of them deeply moved by the tragedy of Officer Maguire's murder and the loss sustained by his family and community.

For those who've watched the video of the killer's unimpressive appearance before the parole board, which the governor admitted he has not done, anger at that board's eventual decision to release him is an entirely reasonable emotion.

For the governor to wag his finger and suggest those of us incensed about what happened have forgotten the human tragedy is as tone-deaf and arrogant as anything I've ever heard a politician say.

Maybe I've got to rethink my aversion to pols hiding the truth about what they think.

Maybe that's a policy that spares us all a whole lot of heartburn.

Listen to Jon Keller's commentary here:

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.