"You don't know what you're talking about, thanks to me!"

This article has been updated to reflect fresh outrages.

By Larry Lowell
State House Bureau Chief

BOSTON, Mass. – Those who feed at the state trough are rarely known for a well-developed sense of shame, but even by their standards, you have to admire the great clanging set of brass balls on resigning MBTA Pension Fund President for Life Michael Mulhern.

Mulhern, the Globe will be happy to recall for you, has been fighting the efforts of the public to learn a few basic details about the crony-ridden and poor-performing pension fund that is supposed to pay for the lush pensions owed to T employees who can retire in their forties on full benefits.  In defiance of the Governor and indeed the MBTA's own CEO, Mulhern, quietly backed by legislative and union hacks, has claimed that the goings-on at the T pension are none of the public's business, except for the part about picking up the tab, which is the public's business.

Secretive T pension supremo Michael Mulhern: "Audit this!"

Today in his resignation statement he took the opportunity to condemn the nerve of those who challenged his absolute rule over billions of poorly-invested dollars.  He decried the pain suffered by his staff, who “patiently and professionally endured unprecedented internal scrutiny and ill-informed public criticism.”

Ill-informed?

The only reason any criticism was ill-informed was because Mulhern and his fellow wardheelers were covering up the financial statements and investment reports that would fully answer the public's key question about the T pension fund, which was what the f*** was going on.

Mulhern said he was resigning to “pursue other opportunities.”  Our guess is that he'll seize the opportunity to claim a tax-free disability pension on the grounds of all the mental anguish he endured as a result of that “ill-informed” criticism.

Update, June 7:  Today's Globe reports that in fact Mulhern is already collecting a $149,302 annual pension for his earlier, uh, service to the MBTA, in addition to the $282,000 he trousered for running the pension plan into the ground.  No word yet on how much bigger his pension check will be when he leaves his current sinecure.