On one level, Mr. Bulger may have a point. Massachusetts' governor, Mitt Romney, a Republican, has vowed since he won the Statehouse that he would oust Mr. Bulger from the university. Mr. Bulger, for years president of the Massachusetts Senate, counts among his ardent supporters Senator Edward Kennedy, former Gov. Michael Dukakis and other powerful state Democrats.
From Mr. Bulger's perspective, his resignation is a dutiful sacrificing of his career to what he calls the governor's "calculated political assault." But it also gives the university he is leaving a welcome respite from controversy. As the new school year begins, the University of Massachusetts can finally stop agonizing about the Bulger family and focus on more academic forms of political science. Mr. Bulger's resignation should move this family saga from the university boardroom to the courts — and perhaps, someday, to the stage where it belongs.
The telling side is the hint that the congressional hearings may have been part of Romney's plan to oust Bulger. More troubling is indications that this is not an isolated incident.
