It would be hard to imagine a more perverse celebration of the Dear Saint Of Our Isle than what we saw last week from the White House. In addition to the welcome given by President Trump to Conor McGregor, a man whom a civil jury had found guilty of rape, there was also an implied and unacceptable intrusion of a foreign head of state into our legal affairs. Except such intrusions are clearly not remotely unacceptable whenever the President of Ireland offers his many observations about Cuba, Gaza, France, Lithuania and Latvia, all of which have been subjected to his many ultra vires, ex-cathedra opinions.
Admittedly, it was hard to watch Conor McGregor’s triumphalist tour of Washington, all tightly-suited bicep and swaggering braggadocio, without a heaving stomach. But being conspicuously himself is a conscious act for McGregor, as it is with Trump. Both have shaped their innermost egos on their own carefully-crafted outer images. Neither man is in any way “nice” – but then what world champion fighter or president ever genuinely is? Not Muhammed Ali, a braggart and a bully, or Mike Tyson, a thug and a rapist. Not Bill Clinton, who as Governor of Arkansas chose to be a witness at the execution of a brain-damaged man whom he had refused to pardon because he wished to burnish his credentials as a supporter of capital punishment, or Barack Obama, who authorised more assassinations than any other US President ever.
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