Wankers of the Week

Using the least vulgar definition of a wanker that is, “a detestable person,” let us consider three nominees. First there is Barry Bonds. Judged by many to be the greatest baseball player of all times who it is alleged used steroids, had a mistress (in addition to a wife) for nine years and laundered cash to avoid paying income tax. None of these things may be true. Time will tell. But, in the meantime, Bonds is complaining that the media has brought him down.  It’s their fault. They were out to get him and now they’ve done it by, one presumes, reporting the statements of others from court cases and grand jury testimony. Bonds has not denied culpability. He just whines. And this is what qualifies him as a wanker. In his most detestable display he asks a TV cameraman to widen his shot during an interview to show his fifteen year old son so that the public can see the pain the media (not he) has caused his family.
We can quickly move to Mr. Tom DeLay, Republican House Majority Leader, an all-American wanker whose recent pontificating on the Terri Schiavo case brought tears to his own eyes. This week the LA Times reports that when DeLay’s father was on his deathbed, (but still alive), The Hammer, as he is known in Congress, agreed with other family members to pull the plug. “A spokesman for DeLay says this was a different situation. "The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said Dan Allen, DeLay's press aide. There were also these similarities: Both stricken patients were severely brain-damaged. Both were incapable of surviving without medical assistance. Both were said to have expressed a desire to be spared from being kept alive by artificial means. And neither of them had a living will.”
I thought DeLay believed in erring on the side of life. Wanker.
Our final wanker is Maurice Greenberg, for many years perhaps the most powerful and influential executive in the insurance industry. Mr. Greenberg doesn’t know when to quit. He is now 80 and still hanging onto power. Next week he is supposed to be deposed by New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer. Greenberg, who is thought to have manipulated earnings, is apparently considering taking the 5th. His board is suggesting they will fire him if he does. The value of his company, AIG, has declined 45 billion dollars since Spitzer began his probe. See Insurance Fraud. There are too many wankers running round loose.