Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sue Prent, an artist/writer living in St. Albans who routinely blogs on Green Mountain Daily. She is self-employed by Pink House Studios, and works for Fairewinds Energy Education. She also serves on the board of Vermont Conservation Voters.
[M]y mother used to tell me, “When you’re mad as hell, hold your breath and count to 10 before you say anything.”
I did better than that; I waited overnight before expressing my thoughts about the comments by disgraced senator Norm McAllister on the preliminary vote to suspend him from office.
My first reaction was, “Weak tea. Too little, too late.”
I was profoundly disappointed that only three of the five committee members voted to suspend; a status that still allows Mr. McAllister to collect his salary and represent himself as a senator.
That was before I read Mr. McAllister’s braying response to the charges, in which he represents himself as the victim and threatens lawsuits:
“… McAllister said the charges had ‘sullied everything that I have ever done in my adult life’ ”
No, Mr. McAllister, it is you and you alone who have sullied everything you’ve done.
It is ironic that he has chosen the language of abuse to characterize his own situation:
”‘I see it as, when you got somebody down on their knees, go kick ‘em in the head,’ McAllister said. ‘And that’s the way I look at this proceeding.’”
Mr. McAllister says he thinks his constituents will sue the Senate on his behalf, for being deprived of representation.
I sincerely hope the trial will be held right here in St. Albans so that his constituents can freely attend, as should be their right.
Is he kidding us? Any and all of his constituents with whom I am familiar (of every political stripe) wanted him gone as soon as the content of his confessional conversations with the victims became known.
A more likely scenario is that some of those same constituents, fed up with Mr. McAllister’s refusal to accept responsibility for his appetites and voluntarily step down from the Senate, will be motivated to sue Mr. McAllister for depriving them of legitimate representation in the face of conclusive evidence that he, at the very least, has grossly violated community standards.
Mr. McAllister’s remarkable selfishness, both before and after the fact, cannot be disputed.
Perhaps he is hoping to mount an insanity defense in his trial, and all of his pompous bloviating is a deliberate effort to reinforce the argument that his aberrant behaviors stem from delusional issues.
Somehow, I doubt that defense will prove effective. Everyone accepts that these are not the sexual practices associated with a healthy mind; but to allow that as a mitigating argument would leave the community undefended.
I sincerely hope the trial will be held right here in St. Albans so that his constituents can freely attend, as should be their right.
It will no doubt be most instructive to learn what else the state’s attorney has learned about Mr. McAllister’s habits.
