Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 5)

PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:

Introduction

Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy

Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”

Let’s Go to the Videotape

THE DA AND WWE BACK OFF; WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

With the current state of the public record, it is impossible to say for certain whether young Daniel Benoit had Fragile X Syndrome. In CHRIS & NANCY, I suggest that he probably did – a conclusion that has not exactly earned me brownie points with the Benoit family survivors, most especially his in-laws.

It just doesn’t make sense to me that the woman in Vancouver would make up the story about her late husband talking to Chris Benoit about becoming a Fragile X spokesman. Benoit’s turndown of that request is consistent with the consensus portrait of him as ultra-private. Possible secrecy about his son’s condition, including shielding the information from close family members and friends, is also common in the whole heartbreaking dynamic of how parents try to cope with the disorder.

For me, the clinchers are:

(a) DA Scott Ballard may have been loose-lipped but I don’t think he’s nuts.

(b) Daniel, at age 7, had just graduated kindergarten. I have not heard a good explanation as to why he would have been in kindergarten at 7; most kids do it at 5.

(c) Nancy Benoit’s friend and next-door neighbor confirmed that they had conversations about some unspecified medical condition of Daniel’s.

So I don’t think Linda McMahon and WWE planted this story.

I do, however, believe they covered themselves in disgrace by furiously and haphazardly exploiting it to direct attention to everything but the elephant in the room: the tremendous stash of drugs in the Benoit home and the tremendous quantity of drugs in Chris Benoit’s body. The latter already had been found in WWE “Wellness Policy” drug tests, which were trumped by a “therapeutic use exemption,” and soon would be confirmed in post-mortem toxicology reports.

Did the spinmeisting by Linda McMahon in her Good Morning America interview – half-baked assertions, almost immediately withdrawn but not until they had served as a temporary but important diversion – add up to the skills and qualities the people of Connecticut would like to see in their next United States senator? We’re about to find out.

END OF SERIES

Irv Muchnick

Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 4)

PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:

Introduction

Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy

Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”

LET’S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE

The audio of an interview Linda McMahon did for the ABC News Good Morning America website on June 28, 2007, can be heard at http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=3326657. In the interview, McMahon uses many of the same talking points in her television interview the same day with Robin Roberts, but this one does not have the exact language on TV referring to”the management and the schooling and the rearing of this child who had the mental retardation.”

I can no longer find the Robin Roberts TV interview online. Surely the video still exists, and if someone has it and can pass it along to me (tips@muchnick.net) or put it up on YouTube, that will be another valuable record for the 2010 Senate campaign. There is no point in my trying David Westin, the president of ABC News; Westin did not respond to my queries about the doctoring of the website transcript of a recent interview with McMahon promoting the piece that ABC’s Kate Snow did about her for weekend World News Tonight.

NEXT: The DA and WWE Back Off; What Does  It All Mean?

Irv Muchnick

Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 3)

PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:

Introduction

Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy

LINDA McMAHON GOES ON “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”

On June 28, 2007, Linda McMahon was interviewed  by Robin Roberts on ABC’s Good Morning America. Here’s the money quote from Linda:

“And as we found out over the last, literally, probably over the last 48 hours, we found out about Daniel’s illness, which we did not know…. But we do understand now, in fact, I think the, the focus of this is really turning more to the tension that must have been happening between a husband and wife over, you know, the management and the schooling and the rearing of this child who had the mental retardation.”

(The full transcript can be viewed  at http://muchnick.net/lindaongma.pdf.)

NEXT: Let’s Go to the Videotape

Irv Muchnick

Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 2)

PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:

Introduction

CHRIS BENOIT’S SON’S MEDICAL CONDITION SETS OFF A MEDIA FRENZY

After World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy, snapped their son Daniel’s neck, and suspended himself by the throat from a home gym exercise machine, one aspect of the media frenzy concerned the medical condition of Daniel. (The bodies were found on June 25, 2007, after a weekend-long chain of events.) All this is explained fully in my book CHRIS & NANCY. During my book research, I blogged contemporaneously about this subject at these links:

“Crossing the T’s on Fragile X,” September 28, 2007, https://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/archive-92807-crossing-the-ts-on-fragile-x/

“Back to Daniel Benoit and Fragile X Syndrome,” May 8, 2008, https://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/archive-5808-back-to-daniel-benoit-and-fragile-x-syndrome/

In a nutshell:

(1) The loose-lipped district attorney of Fayette County, Georgia, scene of the crime, told the media that Daniel’s arm showed needle marks from injections of Human Growth Hormone by his parents, who were said to be concerned about the boy’s size. He was “small, even dwarfed,” DA Scott Ballard said.

(2) Hearing these reports, a woman in Vancouver, British Columbia, a Fragile X parent and activist, told a radio station there that her late husband had once contacted Chris Benoit (a native Canadian celebrity) about the possibility of Benoit’s becoming a Fragile X spokesman in Canada.

(3) Nancy Benoit’s family fired back in outrage, saying Daniel was a medically normal child. The chastened district attorney recanted.

And in the middle of all this, Linda McMahon, CEO of WWE, helped directed a 48-hour corporate media campaign, which exploited the vague and undocumented Fragile X story to divert public attention specifically from the large stash of steroids, growth hormone, and other drugs found in the Benoit home, and generally from the hideous culture of death in her industry.

NEXT: Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”

Irv Muchnick

Linda McMahon and ‘Fragile X Syndrome’ (Part 1 )

INTRODUCTION

Far from the clamor of electioneering, families across the country were heartened this week by a possible research breakthrough for cures of a genetic disorder called Fragile X Syndrome.

What this has to do with the Linda McMahon Senate campaign in Connecticut is like most things related to pro wrestling and death: tangential but revealing. For details, read on.

But first let’s use this opportunity to educate whoever is reading this on the tragic phenomenon of Fragile X and on today’s important news in the hope for a cure.

Lauran Neergaard, who covers health and medical issues for the Associated Press, did a thorough story yesterday about the clinical trials for a pill to treat Fragile X. A good link is http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gfjBuMAT2mLOwnO5GkJ8NOIQYMWg.

According to the National Fragile X Foundation (http://www.fragilex.org), Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of mental impairment. The syndrome occurs in approximately 1 in 3,600 males and 1 in 4,000 to 6,000 females. There are various symptoms, with divergence between the genders. The majority of males with Fragile X show significant intellectual disability, from learning disabilities to severe mental retardation and autism.

NEXT: Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy

Irv Muchnick

Program Note: Blog Series on Stamford Police and ‘Benoit Wikipedia Hacker’ Interrupted by Breaking News

There is still one part to go in our series “Linda McMahon Chronicles: Strange Tale of the Stamford Police and the ‘Benoit Wikipedia Hacker.’”

Because of a breaking new series of posts on another aspect of World Wrestling Entertainment’s despicable spin of the June 2007 double murder/suicide of star wrestler Chris Benoit, I’m going to hold off on the conclusion of the Stamford/Wikipedia story. I’ll get back to it in due course – and closer to the date of my March 25 book signing, at Borders in Stamford, for CHRIS & NANCY.

Irv Muchnick