'A book deal?'
Imagine the captain of a sinking ship exhorting his doomed crew and passengers to remain calm while he hopped into a life boat exclaiming, 'Well, nice knowing you. I'm off to sign a book deal!' ... Of course Deval's casino bill was doomed before it sank below the House surface last week. But the timing of Deval's trip to New York to sign a book deal just doesn't look right. ...

... Howie has listed all the reasons why Sal's casino victory was Pyrrhic in nature -- before news of Deval's book deal broke last night. Sal must be feeling much better this morning. ... Random thoughts pinging around the Hub Blog mind: File away Book-gate with Caddy-gate, Drape-gate, etc. They're all minor issues. But they add up to form a 'personal' pattern. ... Before going with the sinking-ship metaphor above, the Hub Blog mind raced from Davy Crockett at the Alamo to George Custer at the Little Big Horn. I even thought of the Charge of the Light Brigade. But I couldn't remember the commander's name. ...

Update -- More at BMG. ...

Update II -- My apologies for not crediting Jon for breaking the book-deal story. From Jon's most recent post:

Now Patrick has to mend fences with every last legislator, union member, and pro-casino citizen who busted their humps in the State House last Thursday to try to make a decent showing.

Update III -- Kevin writes in:

I get the feeling that we have yet another governor with one foot out the door halfway through his term.

Jon was saying the same thing.  ¶ 6:56 AM