Keller @ Large: Will Brown Remember His Own Advice?

BOSTON (CBS) - Senator Scott Brown was the speaker at the Lasell College commencement over the weekend, and he made some news by taking a swipe at Beacon Hill.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

The senator said the alleged corruption being testified to in the DiMasi trial right now is enabled by a "'go along to get along' attitude that deeply saturates the one-party control of government in this state."

Tell us something we didn't know already.

And as bad as one-party rule is proving to be, I can't say it'd be any better with Republicans in charge either. Weren't those Republican governors presiding over the Big Dig fiasco?

But to me, those comments were a sidebar to other parts of Senator Brown's address, which included some interesting life advice to the newly-minted graduates.

For instance, Brown said: "There's a lot to be said for being an underdog, and I'd prefer that any day of the week to being overrated."

That's an interesting choice of words there.

I wonder if Brown is finding the big names in Washington to be every bit as impressive as the big names on Beacon Hill.

But while Brown is right to want to be perceived as an underdog fighting the good fight after what the overdogs have done to our country in recent years, it might be hard to sell the notion of a U.S. senator with close to ten million bucks in the bank as David fighting off Goliath.

In his speech, Brown also repeated an old saying: that "when you win, you hear from everybody … and when you lose, you hear from your friends."

His conclusion: "When life is going your way, always remember who would be there for you if it weren't."

That may be a good life lesson, but if Senator Brown only responds to the friends who will always be with him, he'll wind up representing only narrow self-interests, the same sort of thing that got Sal DiMasi in trouble.

We'll be watching to see if Brown remembers his own advice about going along to get along, and reminds all the underdogs out here next year why they liked him so much last year.

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.