It was not a long, long time ago that the singer-songwriter Don McLean was charged with domestic violence assault and terrorizing – and pleaded guilty.

In 2016, the folk-rock star entered a guilty plea to charges of hitting and threatening his ex-wife, allowing him to avoid jail time. McLean moved to Camden, where he was arrested in the middle of the night in response to a 911 call earlier that year, in the late 1990s.

Even had it been a long time ago, even had it not made local, national and international news, McLean’s invitation to a White House dinner two weeks ago is a disgrace – one the Biden administration should have to answer for.

It’s not that other individuals and institutions have overlooked McLean’s criminal record, a matter – resulting in a conviction by a court of law – that is in no doubt. A festival booker in Rockland went on the record in 2018 to say he would never book McLean again. In 2019, the Student Alumni Association of the University of California, Los Angeles, upon learning of the case, rescinded a lifetime achievement award designated for McLean.

McLean’s indignant and combative attitude to his record and other allegations against him (including by his daughter, in a Rolling Stone interview, of “psychological warfare” during her childhood) amounts to grievous insult to injury.

Using legal correspondence, the performer has taken steps to intimidate the press here in Maine. In 2019, in response to the withdrawal of the UCLA award, McLean asked, “Are you people morons?” and referred to the events leading up to his 2016 arrest as a “squabble” that had been “all over the internet for three years.”

The details of the case that led to his arrest, more often referred to as an “ordeal,” have now arguably been all over the internet for eight years, making the White House honor particularly hard to stomach. One would expect that the most bare and standard vetting of guests would have ruled McLean out of the running.

Reached by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram last week, McLean was pugnacious and disrespectful, going so far as to refer to his ex-wife, a tireless advocate for survivors of domestic abuse who was rightly critical of the White House invitation, as a “#MeToo hustler.”

What kind of person goes about the world in such a contemptible manner? Somebody who continues to be emboldened by a negligent, irresponsible establishment on his side.