In the wake of fierce controversy over his profanity-laced phone message to a Democratic state legislator, Gov. Paul LePage has apologized and promised to seek “spiritual guidance,” but Republican Senate President Mike Thibodeau is probably closer to the mark in urging LePage to get professional counseling.
During his tenure as governor, LePage has frequently made headlines with angry rants, gratuitous insults and vindictive acts. This latest episode, however, was so egregious it caused some members of the governor’s own party to question his fitness for office.
In an Aug. 25 voicemail to Drew Gattine, D-Westbrook, LePage called Gattine a “little son of a bitch, socialist c*********r” and told him, in part, “I am after you.” The governor then gave a media interview in which he said he wished he could go back in time so he could challenge Gattine to a duel, one in which “he would point it [a gun] right between his eyes.”
What’s particularly disturbing about LePage’s diatribe is not just that it was uncouth, but that it may have crossed the line into criminal behavior.
Under Title 17-A sec. 209, a person is guilty of criminal threatening, a Class “D” misdemeanor, if he “intentionally or knowingly places another in fear of imminent bodily injury.” Under Title 17-A sec. 210, a personal is guilty of terrorizing, also a Class “D” crime, if he “communicates to any person a threat to commit … a crime of violence dangerous to human life, against … another, and the natural and probable consequence of such a threat” is to place “the person threatened in reasonable fear that the crime will be committed.”
The phrases “I’m after you” and “I would point it right between his eyes” could reasonably be interpreted as threats which were either intended to, or had the natural and probable effect of, placing Gattine in fear of imminent bodily injury or becoming the victim of a violent crime.
I hardly expect criminal charges to be brought against LePage. His words, taken in context, were susceptible to more benign interpretations, and a prosecutor would be highly unlikely to press charges against a sitting governor where the ability to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was questionable.
Yet if some person had directed these same hostile words at LePage, a criminal investigation might well have been conducted and charges filed against the speaker.
The compelling question is why LePage did what he did and whether he has the will and the ability to control himself in the future.
Here we enter into a shadow land of conjecture.
I don’t think LePage’s outbursts on this or on previous occasions were the product of political showmanship. I believe he has an explosive temper and is so thin-skinned that any criticism, however well meant or courteously phrased, can send him into a tantrum.
But this still begs the question as to why. The answer may lurk in LePage’s past.
The governor has spoken openly about having been raised in an abusive home, where his father, an alcoholic, beat his children, and from which he ran away at age 11. To his great credit, he has battled the demons of that past and become a successful businessman and elected official.
But child abuse inevitably leaves scars. In the worst-case scenario, the abused child, in adulthood, becomes an abuser or a chronic victim of abuse. I am not suggesting that LePage falls into either category. However, even among those abused children who have functioned well as adults, a simmering anger always seems to bubble just below the surface, waiting to break through in times of stress. The governor may well fit this latter category.
If I’m correct in my assumption, then LePage needs professional therapeutic intervention. In fact, it’s probably long overdue.
Many of LePage’s Republican supporters, trying to put the best face on a bad situation, have already started spouting platitudes about how the governor is entitled to make a mistake, how the people of Maine will forgive him (after all, he did apologize), and how we should put this behind us and move forward.
LePage himself has declared, “I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not a drug addict. I don’t have mental issues.” I’ll take him at his word on the first two points, but not on the third.
Someone manifesting the level of anger repeatedly displayed by the governor most likely has serious “mental issues.”
To ignore and leave untreated the underlying causes for that anger is a bad strategy for anyone, let alone a man sworn to faithfully discharge the responsibilities of high public office.
Elliott Epstein is a trial lawyer with Andrucki & King in Lewiston. His Rearview Mirror column, which has appeared in the Sun Journal for 10 years, analyzes current events in an historical context. He is also the author of “Lucifer’s Child,” a book about the notorious 1984 child murder of Angela Palmer.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
