Twenty-four years ago a Nike television ad featuring Charles Barkley, then one of the National Basketball Association’s top stars, got a good deal of attention. While viewers watched him dribble a basketball, powerfully grab a rebound, and perform an emphatic slam-dunk, Barkley sternly voiced-over 41 memorable words. 

“I am not a role model,” he intoned. “I’m not paid to be a role model. I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”

Barkley’s contention that athletes, and by extension other entertainers, shouldn’t be held up as role models generated a good deal of discussion at the time. But while the erstwhile “Round Mound of Rebound” and current NBA television analyst’s point was (and is) a good one, recent events serve as reminders there are far worse role models than professional athletes or similar celebrities.

Like for example politicians, or more specifically the pair currently serving as the elected leaders of our nation and our state, respectively.

It’s impossible to list every example of inappropriate behavior exhibited by the crude and imperious individual who at this writing remains nominal president of the United States. His narcissism, impulsiveness, paranoia, and complete inability and/or unwillingness to utter truthful statements make him the embodiment of everything a responsible parent does NOT want his or her child to become. He appeals to humanity’s lowest common denominator, fomenting hatred and distrust amongst his nation’s citizens in order to further his own ends, although his performance so far makes one wonder if he is capable of articulating what exactly those ends are. He is a hypocrite of the first order, an arrogant, loud-mouthed bully who believes whoever has the most money and/or the loudest voice gets to decide what’s what.

In Christian tradition there are seven deadly sins, and America’s attention-craving commander-in-chief personifies each of them. 

Lust? Check. Thrice-married, he famously once said, “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” 

Gluttony? Check.

Envy? Check.

Greed? Double-check.

Pride? Triple-check.

Laziness? The man proudly eschews both reading and exercising.

Wrath? Think of all the impetuous early-morning tweets aimed by the self-proclaimed “Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters” at political opponents, business rivals, television hosts, reporters, beauty queens, investigators of his Russian connections and/or his tax returns, and countless others who have committed real or imagined offenses against Himself.

Common sense dictates anyone who dog-whistles support for white supremacists, insists on absolute loyalty from associates but shows none himself, and lies every time he opens his mouth while deriding anyone with the temerity to call him on his dishonesty is unfit for public service. But common sense is in short supply these days, as last year’s election results all too plainly reflect.

Widespread willful ignorance sweeping such an individual into power would be alarming enough were it solely at the national level. But nearly as disheartening is the continued antics of Maine’s governor, whose all-too-frequent foolish public rantings reflect an inexplicable desire to emulate the egotistical, self-aggrandizing prevaricator currently masquerading as America’s chief executive.

Maine’s governor lies nearly as routinely and shamelessly as the current White House occupant does, albeit to a much smaller audience, and chortles about intentionally misleading reporters. Like his apparent political role model he’s quick to claim credit for real or perceived successes, but even more eager to blame others when things go wrong. But to be fair he has on occasion owned his mistakes; “I apologize again. My brain was slower than my mouth,” he said the day after he got unwanted national attention for uttering seemingly racist words to the effect that out-of-state drug dealers come to Maine to not only sell heroin, but impregnate young white (his word) girls before leaving.

The most recent example of the governor’s mouth getting ahead of his brain occurred last week at a ceremony intended to celebrate vocational training and the mentors who provide it. During the event, he made an unfortunate remark widely seen as denigrating to Maine’s schoolteachers by offhandedly dismissing them as, “a dime a dozen.”

But maybe the governor was telling the unvarnished truth. If he was referring to his own instructors (and those of America’s current president) as, “a dime a dozen,” it would be hard to argue, because it’s painfully clear neither he nor the president ever learned anything about respect, kindness, trust, integrity, patience, tolerance, honesty, impulse control, morals, or character inside (or outside, for that matter) of a classroom.

— This year Andy Young is teaching for the 16th year at a Maine public high school.