Foley's Folly

Well, it appears, based on information since the Foley scandal unfolded, that Foley has checked into a rehabilitation center for alcoholism treatment. Moreover, according to the latest "breaking news", Foley was once sexually abused by a priest. You may wonder: What exactly is going on here?

Really, it's quite simple. Foley has taken a page straight from the Hollywood playbook. When you get in trouble/do something stupid, you must declare yourself an addict of some kind, typically an alcoholic. You must then immediately check yourself into a treatment center (for Hollywood types: the Betty Ford Center is best) and have your spokespeople offer your (or their) sincerest and deepest apologies and regrets for your actions. You do this in hope that, someday, people will see you as "courageous" for "taking on" your addiction.

Unfortunately for Foley, the American people aren't really willing to let sexual predation of children slide due to alcoholism. Moreover, people can't even see the connection between the sexual predation and alocholism (I mean, what the heck is the connection? It was just a non sequitur that I don't think the media even knew how to handle it).

So, realizing this, Foley and his handlers decided to explain that he had once been sexually molested -- by a priest. Isn't it amazing and shocking that the priest sex scandal of just a few years ago would be resurrected in the current one? What an amazing coincidence that the two seemingly unrelated events could be connected! See, this whole thing isn't really Foley's fault -- it's those evil priests from a few years ago and those bishops who protected them. It's their fault!

Frankly, this is now just absurd. If Foley was actually abused, I have the deepest sympathy for him for that. No one should ever be sexually abused. And perhaps, if he's in a court of law or facing God, this may be a mitigating factor for his punishment (not an absolution of his potential crimes -- just a mitigating factor in deciding his punishment). Nonetheless, these revelations of his smack of playing the victim and passing the buck. First, he's a just a victim of his disease - addiction. Then, he's a victim of sexual abuse himself. Somehow, this last piece of information is supposed to explain his actions, but mostly it seems to suggest that the truly evil person -- the "source" of the evil -- was a priest from his childhood and that he is not fully to blame.

I'm not buying it, though. It sounds a little too convenient for me. Perhaps, in his next revelation, we'll find out about the guy holding the gun to his head while he wrote those IM exchanges.