Thugs and goons: Howie Carr explains--updated!

Yesterday, the Herald's Howie Carr suggested that the Boston Globe had described Scott Brown's 1.1 million supporters as "thugs" and machete-wielding "goons." Now--after trying and failing to figure out the source of Carr's gripe--I have an explanation from Carr himself:

Alex Beam column referred to goons, postings on message board upped the ante to thugs, then thugs with machetes.

There are a couple problems here. First, as I noted yesterday, Beam's phrase--"afternoon sports goons"--was a jab aimed at these WEEI-AM personalities and their medium, not at Brown's supporters in general.  

What's more, Carr is taking comments from the Globe's message boards--which, like the Herald's message boards, have a tendency to degenerate into verbal sewage--and attributing them to the paper itself. Remember, here's how he framed his accusation yesterday:

It's so heartwarming, to pick up the moonbats' favorite broadsheet and see yourself--and 1.1 million other Brown voters--described as "thugs" and "goons." Goons with machetes, by the way. 

But no one picked up said broadsheet and read anything about Brown voters being "thugs with machetes." Because nothing like that ever appeared in the paper. 

I harp on this because Carr's column bolstered the dubious notion that the Globe, as a paper and an institution, was out to get Brown. I'm sure a few hundred thousand of Carr's listeners/readers take it for granted that his charge yesterday was accurate. But it wasn't.

UPDATE: After getting Carr's explanation, I pointed out that A) Beam's "goons" comment wasn't directed at Brown's supporters as a group and B) despite his suggestion to the contrary, no "thug" or "machete" references appeared in the pages of the Globe. Here's his response:

Same standards for bow-tied bumkissers as for everybody else. A goon is a goon is a goon. As for the message boards, if the NY Times finds the messages offensive, they delete them, right? Were those messages deleted? Besides, I'm a 21st century kind of guy. To me, if it's on boston.com, it's the same thing as being in the paper. Kinda like that "poll" they ran that said Coakley was going to win by 15 points, and the headline that said on election day they were running "neck and neck" and then the election-day map that had a headline saying Coakley won.