So We Are Morons

IT is always interesting when the mask slips from the face of “moderate Unionism” and the real persona comes through.

Such was what happened last week, when the highly regarded Stephen King, a close advisor to David Trimble, launched an incredible attack on Irish Americans in the course of his column in The Belfast Telegraph.

King is the type of “respectable” Unionist who is trotted out all the time by the party. He is a frequent panelist on Irish radio and television and a contributor to The Irish Times, the kind of high rent Unionist who doesn’t scare the natives in Dublin or points south. He is, to paraphrase the immortal words of Trimble about Republicans, “house trained” and therefore acceptable to all. 

What then are we to make of his attack on Irish Americans last week, in the course of a long rant about Gerry Adams and his approach to the peace process?

At one point King writes that Adams last week was “hawking his latest collection of poorly recalled memoirs around moronic Irish American salons.”

Moronic Irish American saloons? Wonder what they are. Perhaps they have names misspelled outside, or are frequented by the bewildered out for a day trip from the local institution.

Or maybe only morons can get in, in which case Mr. King has a fighting chance of gaining admittance, as he clearly possesses some of the necessary traits.

No, it’s hardly likely he meant the saloons themselves. King would not be taking aim at Irish Americans directly here, and implying they are moronic now, would he?

It is completely justified language. After all we have that moron, George Mitchell, who sat in King’s Northern Ireland for four years trying to prod and tease the recalcitrant political parties towards an agreement, despite great personal cost.

Perhaps Mitchell was a moron to sit and listen to endless speeches by such leading luminaries as Ian Paisley and others from the Unionist tradition. After all, there is hardly a handful of people on earth who would have stuck to the task given that awful eventuality.

Then there is the moron U.S. President Bill Clinton, who spent so much time on helping bring peace to Ireland that staffers thought he was overdoing it. He may have been a moron to do so, but we are all still certainly better off as a result.

Those late night phone calls at key moments during the process, bolstering the peace process when it was under great strain – moronic, of course.

Then, of course, there were the moronic members of the Kennedy family, Senator Edward and his sister Jean, who strove might and main to make the peace process a reality. How moronic was that? Those Kennedys should have known better.

There were members of President Clinton’s staff like Nancy Soderberg, Mark Gearan, Susan Brophy, Irish Americans all, who pushed the Irish issue high up on the White House agenda. Morons, weren’t they Steven?

Of course, King’s boss could never ever be accused of such a condition. After all, he got the British and Irish prime ministers to fly to Belfast recently and reneged on an agreement that he had earlier signed up to. Now that was clever, not moronic.

Then there were the times that he literally left world leaders such as President Clinton standing on the stage, such as the day Trimble walked off in Belfast when the president was about to speak – again a very clever ruse, probably one King advised him on. Trimble has done the same thing to his chief sponsor Tony Blair, again a very clever move.

Perhaps it takes a moron to know one, and that may be why such intemperate language was being used about Irish Americans last week. Or perhaps it just proves than when you scratch even a “moderate” Unionist a moron is only waiting to appear. Interesting thought that.