Cretin of the week
I’m reminded of an anecdote I heard or read many years ago. Two musicologists were talking one day and the first one brought up the topic of the greatest composers of all time. The other recited a personal list of the usual DWEMS (Dead White European Males) including Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin and so on, when the first one said, “What about Mozart?” The other came back with, “Why, I assumed you meant everyone else besides Mozart.”
I hope, brothers and sisters, that when I give you my idea of this week’s Cretin of the Week that you understand I deliberately did not include our very own Mozart of Cretins for obvious reasons. Who might the Mozart of cretins be? Donald Trump, of course. Were I to include Trump as a candidate then he would top every list every week. He’s that kind of Mozart cretin.
But this week’s non-Trump cretin arrived just in time to serve up a reminder that our corporate media is still working day and night to find a permanent solution to the problem of human decency. Just when you thought Republicans had finally cornered the market in every meaningful way to harass a father because of his son’s struggles with addiction, along came ABC reporter John Parkinson with a jolly cry of, “Hold my beer!”
Last Sunday Mr Parkinson could be found positively hugging himself with joy because he shouted “Mr President, will you pardon your son?” across a cemetery at President Biden. And he shouted across not just any old cemetery, oh no. It was the same cemetery that contained the bodies of President Biden’s first wife Neilia and their two children, Beau and Naomi.
Neilia, whose birth surname is Hunter, was killed in an automobile accident one week before Christmas, 1972. Her one year old daughter Naomi was with her. Naomi died that day too. Neilia’s two sons Beau and Hunter, who were also in the car, survived. Beau tragically died in 2015 of a catastrophic illness. Hunter, as you know, has had a lifelong struggle with addiction that certainly wasn’t helped by the events of that awful pre-Christmas crash some 50 years ago.
The President was paying his respects at the graves of his departed loved ones when this obtuse homunculus named Parkinson from ABC shouted his question. Parkinson was so flush with pride over his journalistic coup that he actually tweeted about it. That’s right, he really thought it was something to be proud of. No doubt he spent the rest of Sunday at home waiting for the Pulitzer committee to call him.
I would love to have the power to put a stop to this relentless persecution of a man whose only crimes are the twin curses of the human foible of addiction and being related by blood to the President of the United States. But I don’t have that power.
But I do have the power to heap shame and curses and disgrace on the heads of the bullies, cowards and pond scum who persist in destroying him. Hunter Biden is a man who is endlessly persecuted by Republicans and members of the vampire press merely because his father stands between them and their rapacious gluttony for power. Their persecution of Hunter Biden is one of the most disgusting political spectacles I’ve ever witnessed.
I can’t stop them. But, of course, I can confer upon one of their members the title of Cretin of the Week. And so, John Parkinson of ABC, with the power vested in me and with all the shame, infamy and ignominy the name confers, I convey to you the title of Cretin of the Week. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.