It Ain't My Fault

Remember the days when you were a kid and if something got broken around the house, you'd be the first to point your finger at the person standing closest to you? That was a maneuver called "diverting attention"- a skill you learned real young as a way to keep your ass safe in the event belts came out and all hell broke loose! I know I did it, and unless you're an only child, you did it TOO! Once you got a little older you learned the rules of engagement for the "blame game" and found that you could come out looking squeaky-clean if you were able to get away with something you actually DID. If you got REAL good at it, you were able to get your siblings to take one for the team- even if you WERE the real culprit! Eventually, you got a little older and wiser and some noble idea called "taking responsibility for your actions" came about. This is where you started realizing that in order to be considered adult-like by your parents, teachers and peers, you had to acknowledge your wrongdoings and make amends. Sometimes this involved walking up to the owner of the house whose window you broke and offering to pay for it, or admitting that you stole a pizza from a teacher (a crime that was blamed on the two innocent Black kids!!!), or making a tearful plea for forgiveness. These simple acts of maturity go a long way to assisting the growth of your fragile teenage self worth and improve your levels of respect in your community by leaps and bounds. That being said, why is it that THIS asshole can't do it too?



In case you've been refraining from watching the news lately (and who can blame you these days) this is former Florida Congressman Mark Foley who resigned after he was discovered having a LOOOOOONG history of emailing sexually explicit messages to male congressional pages (i.e. teenage peons who get coffee, copies and file shit) . After been outed by a newspaper and consequently resigning, Foley's first excuse was, "I'm an alcoholic and I need treatment." OK, alcohol impairs your ability to drive, it doesn't CAUSE you to make passes at other men. His next excuse was, "I'm gay". OK, being a gay man makes you attracted to other men, it doesn't CAUSE you to make passes at teenagers. His third excuse was, "I was molested by a priest when I was young," and this is the guy he's referring to, Father Anthony Mercieca:



OK, being molested by a "man of the cloth" may give you a fucked up perception about sex AND religion, but it doesn't CAUSE you to solicit sexual favors from a teenager- via EMAIL at that! It's true that most sexual predators were sexually abused themselves, but here's where the Foley story gets interesting though. This Mercieca guy is STILL a member of the Catholic clergy, but now resides on the tiny island of Malta. When asked about the molestation allegation, the priest says "We were friends and trusted each other as brothers and loved each other as brothers," but it wasn't sexual....Oh, right....Tell us another one. It sounds like he's taking a page straight out of Michael Jackson's book. Oh, but it doesn't end there! Apparently, this "brotherly" friendship included "massaging the boy in the nude, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips." The Dragon and I have been friends for 12 years, lived under the same roof for at least nine but I have NEVER, EVER, neverevernevereverneverevernevereverneverevernevereverneverever seen him nekkid, much less masaged each other in ANY way OR skinny dipped together in some steamy lake in the middle of nowhere. He is my brother-from-another-mother, and we're tight, but we ain't THAT tight! Now get this! The priest claims that he was in a "drug-induced stupor due to a nervous breakdown and couldn't clearly remember what happened". Alright now, I've heard enough and I know you have too! How far does the blame game go? Foley blames his perverted emailing habits on alcoholism, his newly outed homosexuality and his priest for his conduct, and the priest continues the cycle by blaming his pills and a nervous breakdown that somehow caused him to have a two year "nakedrelatiafriendship" with Foley.

It seems to me that had Mark Foley resigned and disappeared into obscurity, things would be going a lot smoother for him right now. But like the egotistical lunatic he seems to be, he and his lawyers keep fanning the flames. It's almost as if Foley's not taking his fall from grace too well and he's hoping that this PR stunt of his will cause people to feel sympathy and forget what he has done. Maybe he's thinking that two or three years from now, he'll be able to get back in the race and once again campaign for a congressional seat- with all the other corrupt, perverted, maniacal mofos who have YET to get caught. Hell, Marion Berry did it- and he was smokin CRACK!!!



All I'm saying here is that a simple "I fucked up, please accept my apology" follwed by a quick timely exit would suffice, and in fact would more than likely be welcomed. Then, CNN, Fox"news" and the like can move on to more pressing issues of the world, like say, Madonna's African baby adoption or the new video game Bully- but alas, we live in the US of A and for some reason, people tend to focus on insignificant shit and quickly forgive for the wrong reasons. "I'm sorry" that I ain't one of 'em....