If you are looking for male role models, men with spines of steel, men of courage, and men of honor, don’t open a newspaper or turn on the TV. All you’ll find are louts:
— Our former president figuratively trashes the White House for eight years — and then literally loots it on his way out the door.
— The nation’s foremost civil rights spokesman, moral esquire of the Left, fathers an illegitimate child and pays his mistress with tax-exempt funds.
— And a star football player, acquitted of third-degree sexual assault and child enticement charges, clutches a Kleenex and blubbers for the cameras while his attorney compares him to the nation’s most decorated war veterans.
With so much sleaze generated by Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson, you might not have caught that last act of gutless decrepitude by former Green Bay Packer Mark Chmura. The fallen NFL star and his lawyer put on a tear-jerking show this weekend that would make even Oprah blush.
Chmura, 31, was caught last spring in his underwear, splashing in a hot tub with his then-17-year-old baby sitter and playing “drinking Ping-Pong” games with other teens at a high school prom party. Chmura is the married father of two little boys. The baby sitter accused Chmura of luring her into a bathroom and sexually assaulting her in the wee hours of the morning. The jury found enough reasonable doubt to acquit Chmura of the criminal charges. But on the charges of wretched stupidity, bad judgment, and first-degree senselessness, Chmura is unequivocally guilty.
The 6-foot, 5-inch, 200-pound Chmura sniveled and whimpered like an infant when he was acquitted. He broke down again at his post-trial press conference and buried his empty head into his forgiving wife’s shoulder. With crocodile tears still glistening on his cheek, Chmura signed autographs for admiring fans and told reporters that he and his family were “going to Disney World.”
This All-Pro tight end belongs in the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame. Four years ago, Chmura won the admiration of conservatives — myself included — for skipping out of a White House reception honoring the Packers’ Super Bowl victory. Chmura, a popular fixture at Republican fund-raisers, said at the time that he had lost respect for President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal and could not bear to shake his hand. “It doesn’t really say much for society and the morals he sets forth for our children,” Chmura complained.
Well, what does it say to our children when a grown man gets away with boozing up barely-clad girls at 3 a.m. because he can run fast and catch footballs? What does it say for his morals when that grown man refuses to answer questions under oath about why he dove right into a liquor-soaked prom party — instead of breaking it up?
Even more nauseating than Chmura’s hypocrisy was his lawyer’s post-trial spin. Defense attorney Gerald Boyle (whose other famous client was serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer) declared that Chmura deserved hero status for his courageous performance and was on par with men who win “the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Chmura’s football groupies cheered.
God help us and the families of the nation’s 3,500 Medal of Honor winners. Honor is dead when a hulking crybaby, defended by the best lawyer money can buy, puts himself in the same company as the valiant warriors who stormed foreign jungles, beaches and deserts, rushed foxholes, charged up hills and into machine gun nests, single-handedly captured pillboxes, limped across mine-laden fields to rescue wounded comrades, led air raids, survived prison camp torture, dove onto grenades and mortar shells, and headed straight into hails of enemy fire in defense of their country.
These honorable men sacrificed their limbs and lives so craven miscreants like Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson and Mark Chmura could enjoy the blessings of liberty. Now that is a crying shame.
