You win, you're fired - CommonWealth magazine

In mid-June last year, Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders seemed to be tripping over each other to heap praise on a pension reform bill that the governor had just signed. “Welcome to a day we’ve been waiting for for a decade or more,” Patrick told a roomful of lawmakers, aides, and reporters, according to the Boston Globe. “Today we answer the public’s call for real reform to our pension system,” said Senate President Therese Murray. House Speaker Robert DeLeo chimed in, calling the bill “a giant step.”

But all the self-congratulation may have been a little over the top.