Doubting Thomas on the bottle bill

King's veto, he declared, proved that the governor "won't make tough decisions that are opposed by big business."

And not just that.

"It is obvious that good public policy has taken a back seat to special interest politics in this administration," said the outspoken lieutenant governor.

Now let's fast forward through the years. Sadly, Thomas's political career crashed back on its landing pad when a gubernatorial run in 1982 fell victim to the party's misguided 15 percent rule. But the bottle bill, which the Legislature passed over King's veto, quickly proved a success. So much so that, in 1982, voters resoundingly rejected a ballot question to repeal the law.

Then, in 1991, the son of the former House speaker started a one-stop lobbying and communications firm, O'Neill and Associates, which has made him a wealthy man.

And today, Thomas and associates are merrily working for the very special interests that are spending heavily — and, frankly, wandering well off accuracy's path — to defeat a ballot question that would expand the law to bottled water, sports drinks, and other noncarbonated beverages.

So my conversation-ending query was this: Given that the young, idealistic O'Neill was so strongly in support of the bottle bill, why has today's O'Neill become a doubting Thomas?

"I think that was the right decision to make at the time," he told me. "I also happen to think the world has changed pretty dramatically."

Here's one way the world has changed: There's been an explosion in the aforementioned bottled water and sports drinks, whose empty vessels now litter our beaches, parks, and landscapes.

Which is why MassPIRG and an array of environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the Massachusetts Audubon Society want to update the bottle law to include those containers.

Makes sense, right?

Enter the No on Question 2 Committee. Funded by the deep-pocketed beverage and supermarket industries, it has spent millions on TV ads full of misleading claims. One of them is the assertion that there's no need to update the law since 90 percent of state residents now have curbside recycling.

Problem 1: Curbside recycling obviously isn't a solution for on-the-go purchases.

Problem 2: As the Globe's David Abel has written, the 90 percent figure isn't right. Only about half of Massachusetts communities, accounting for about 64 percent of state residents, have curbside recycling. When confronted with the, um, factual facts, the wily opposition simply changed its ads to leave the impression, rather than outright assert, that most everyone has curbside recycling.

O'Neill's firm didn't make the ads, but they do traffic in the same information. And defend its use. When I mentioned to him that his side's "facts" haven't withstood scrutiny, he had this to say: "You can make any story you want based on any kinds of facts you want."

Zounds! Was Thomas, in a sudden burst of candor, coming clean about the approach the No on Question 2 folks have taken? That is, had the spirit of the young, idealistic Thomas suddenly seized control of his faculties?

Then I realized he was actually leveling that accusation at me because I, as a journalist, favor truth over, well, truthiness.

"I happen to buy the new data," he said. "Otherwise we wouldn't have picked it up."

Whereupon he put it down. The receiver, that is.

Now, I'm obviously twitting Thomas a little here. He's in a different role now, and if he wants to make $20,000 a month (according to campaign-finance records) working for the special interests he once decried, that's his business, figuratively and literally.

But don't be fooled by the smoke and fog being generated on Question 2. There's a simple way to make your decision here. If you think the bottle law has worked, vote to expand it.

Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.