Red Ken, Victim

The other day London Mayor Ken Livingstone, annoyed at being questioned by a reporter from the Evening Standard, asked if the reporter was a "German war criminal". Informed by the reporter that he was Jewish and found Red Ken's remark offensive, Red Ken doubled down, as he is wont to do: the Mayor of London suggested that this Jewish Evening Standard reporter was like a "concentration camp guard", apparently because he accepts editorial instruction.

Nothing like the casual yet spirited give and take with the press, eh?

What makes it particularly priceless is that Red Ken views himself as the aggrieved party. In a press conference two days ago, "His voice shaking", the Mayor of London said that he could not apologize, because that "would require me to be a liar...[and] why should I say words I do not believe in my heart?" Then, moving from his performance as Martin Luther to channeling the spirit of Jean Jacques Rousseau and not a little of the Valley Girl, Red Ken said, "...I am sorry, but that is how I feel after nearly a quarter of a century of their behaviour and tactics."

Red Ken neglected to mention during the press conference that, for a period during those twenty-five years, he had moonlighted as an Evening Standard food critic.