Richard Jewell, the Olympic bombing hero-turned-suspect, is the latest bubba to bask in the slimelight.
Jewell looks like he came out of the same New Jersey Orphanage For Future Bubbas as Tanya Harding's bodyguard Shawn Eckardt and White House file grabber Craig Livingstone.
It's not just that all of these guys look alike, even though they do. They are all hefty, bubba-looking characters with visions of grandeur. But they also all seem to be suffering from the same personality disorder. I call it the Security Guard Syndrome. And this is not intended to cast any bad light on the millions of really good non-bubba security guards out there, especially the ones hanging around the News Building.
But there seems to be a type of guy out there who wants to work in law enforcement who doesn't have the right stuff to actually make it on a police force. So instead, they end up in little quasi-law enforcement niches, working as security guards, bodyguards or heading up "personnel security" for the White House. Maybe there's a Bubba gene that eventually will be discovered to explain where these guys come from.
First there was Eckardt, the Blutto-sized bodyguard for Harding. He's the genius who hired the guys who tried to break figure skater Nancy Kerrigan's leg with a bat.
The first time I saw the big galoot standing behind Tanya in his hangar-sized overcoat I thought, "Who the hell is that guy? Why does Tanya need a goomba like him hanging around?" After Kerrigan was attacked, I'd yell at the television and point at Eckardt saying, "It's him! It's him! He did it!"
Then the White House file controversy erupted. And who pops up but Eckardt clone Craig Livingstone. This fat weasel says he needed confidential FBI files on half the Republians in the country simply in case they were invited to the White House. When asked who hired him, Livingstone stuck to the Number One Bubba Weenie Rule of Thumb: Blame Everying On A Dead Guy. So, he claimed that suicide victim Vincent Foster was the one who hired him. Poor Foster. He'll be responsible for the Kennedy assassination and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa before this is all over.
Now we come to Richard Jewell. What can I say? The press had already dubbed the Olympic incident as a "Bubba Bombing." You couldn't have asked central casting to send down a better bubba to take the heat than Jewell. He has all the qualifications of bubbadom: the balloon-like physique; the jaw line that makes it look like he is either storing up nuts for winter or enjoying a good chaw; the past failures as a sheriff's deputy; the inevitable career as a security guard.
If Jewell is not guilty of the bombing, and authorities are saying he might not be, he is the unluckiest bubba in the world. If he is innocent, it means he's the first bubba who actually did something heroic - saving a number of people from being blown up - only to smeared by his bubba past.
Actually, I really hope Jewell is not the bomber. Bubbas are hurting for some good press.
If cleared, Jewell will be able to launch a nationwide Bubba Pride movement. He probably couldn't get together enough guys for a Million Bubba March, but he could probably scrape together a couple of hundred for a beer bust.
They could march on Washington and demand that law enforcement quit targeting bubbas for every domestic act of terrorism.
They could convince famous movie stars to wear little Bubba Ribbons on their lapels. Willie Nelson could do a "Save the Bubba" concert.
All that could happen if Jewel is innocent. If he's guilty, I'm burning my Bubba Club Card.
