Does Jack Edwards’ soliloquy show he’s lost it? YEA: He needs a history lesson

History abounds with tales of people who receive absolute power and promptly overstep the boundaries of good taste.Louis XIV of France modestly called himself “The Sun King” and said, “L’etat, c’est moi” (“I am the state”). Fulgencio Batista of Cuba chummed around with American gangsters like Meyer Lansky, making Fidel Castro look appealing by comparison. Those who didn’t watch the Will and Kate nuptials can throw in their own comment here.Now we have Boston Bruins broadcaster Jack Edwards, who delivered some well-publicized remarks following Wednesday’s playoff series win over the Montreal Canadiens. In such a situation, we would normally expect to hear discussion of, say, the Boston power play, or the Montreal goaltending. Instead, we turned on a post-game show ? and a pseudo-academic lecture broke out.Edwards likened the Canadiens to decadent royalty who have not met the achievements of their ancestors – Louis XVI on the eve of the Revolution, perhaps – who “sit there on their shiny thrones and primp in their hand mirrors and try to dictate morality according to them.” (One senses he had no interest in Will and Kate.) Meanwhile, he praised the Bruins and their fans for being Paul Revere-style working-class heroes. “And the rest of us, those poor filthy masses, are just supposed to take it,” he said. “Well, a couple of hundred years ago a bunch of rowdy radicals charged out of some Boston bars, went down to the dock, and dumped the King’s tea into the salty sea.”Edwards’ comments reveal the folly of vesting too much power in one person. In Boston, you can only watch Bruins games on NESN, which makes Edwards our unchallenged hockey expert. Lord Acton’s remark continues to hold true: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Edwards has no rivals on other networks to keep him in check, so his rambling Revolutionary remarks are the result.It is worth noting that those under the heel of overzealous rulers tend to take their indignities only so far (the Boston Tea Party being a case in point). May I suggest to Boston’s newest expert in colonial history that he stay within the blue lines from now on before the fans start storming the barricades.Rich Tenorio is The Item’s sports copy editor.