Finneran: The Emperor Has No Clothes

Friday, October 13, 2017

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Harvey Weinstein

The Emperor has no clothes. In fact, he’s buck naked.

And he’s a fat oafish pig.

He should be boiled in oil.

Word is that he’s a bully. Raise your hand if you’d like to do three rounds of mixed martial arts with the man. News reports state that he threatened many people, including the men who were the occasional companions of the women he targeted. As with most bullies, he must have had a keen sixth sense of weakness or timidity. I know a thousand guys who would have dropped him with a straight right hand to his bloated jaw. He’s a lucky pig. There’d be no need for three rounds with this jerk. Thirty seconds would be time enough to make him cry like a blubbering baby.

His name is Harvey Weinstein and he reeks of Hollywood hypocrisy.

If ever there was an example of political collusion here it is. The story implicates the New York Times, Matt Damon, the Clintons, the Obamas, and sundry Democrats who hungered for his attention and his money. Meryl Streep who once referred to him as “God” is offering parsed and calculated written statements worthy of a shady Wall Street lawyer. For shame.

Shame on the whole lousy lot of them.

Weinstein is the pig in the center of it all. But the Times killed the initial story. I wonder why? Not!

There’s really no wonder here at all. Harvey the pig supported all the right candidates and all the right causes. Therefore he was to be protected at all costs. The Clintons and the Obamas basked in his glow......wasn’t Harvey wonderful? So perfectly progressive........plus he had all that money to shower upon them. Their all-seeing eyes, so quick to spot and criticize the various quirks of church-going middle Americans, somehow failed to see his gross and rapacious behavior.

The story fits President Trump’s purposes perfectly. Remember all the tut-tutting from the media when Trump talked about “fake news” and “very fake news”? Late night comics swooned in feigned concern about Trump’s assault on the oh-so-precious media. Senators furrowed their busy brows with fevered anxiety about Trump’s attack on the First Amendment and the fourth estate. Hollywood moguls---think Harvey here---promised a day of reckoning.

But the story---the real story of the Times covering up Weinstein’s predations ---reveals indeed the fake news and hostile bias that many Americans have sensed for a long time. The story offers a perfect explanation for the success of Fox News.

Fox figured out the game within the game at the Times and their copycat devotees. Favored candidates got and get favored treatment. Favorite causes got and get favored coverage. Less favored candidates and causes received editorial scorn. No wonder the public thinks the system is “rigged”. It certainly was for Harvey.

As for Harvey’s victims---the women he threatened and abused and assaulted---they were left with the scars of his behavior, invisible victims unable to call the reporters and editors at the Times who so craved Harvey’s approval. After all, Harvey threw great parties and they certainly hoped to be invited.

Fox figured out that middle America sensed something rotten about the “heroes” of Hollywood and Washington D.C. Fox tapped into that middle American perception of being lectured and hustled by the Times and its media satellites, by Hollywood “stars” and their phony publicists, and by the major television networks. Fox offered an alternative and quickly gained half the market.

Trump saw all of this and even participated in it via his “celebrity” status. It’s little wonder that he sensed the rotten core of it all. He won the White House not by his policy pronouncements nor by his vast experience. He won the White House by confirming half of America’s suspicions that they had been hosed by the likes of Harvey.

My daughters are lucky enough to have never been in the company of Harvey or his ilk. He’s lucky too. I’d kill the fat slob.

He’s buck naked now and he’s an oafish pig. Good riddance.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.