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Edited on Thu Oct-05-06 07:08 AM by newyawker99
Spin the Bottle
Mark Foley's 10-step rehab program.
http://www.slate.com/id/2151017/
By William Saletan
Updated Thursday, Oct. 5, 2006, at 12:45 AM ET
Bad news: You've been caught (a) taking bribes from Jack Abramoff, (b) telling a police officer that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," or (c) exchanging naked fantasies with teenage boys. What do you do? If you're Mel Gibson, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), or former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), you blame alcohol. Here's their 10-step program for rehabilitating your career.
1. Take "full responsibility."
This is crucial. Only by accepting blame in principle can you shift it in practice. After being caught in the Abramoff scandal, for example, Ney issued a statement that pledged "to accept responsibility for what I have done" and then segued to his "dependence on alcohol." Gibson's statement, released after his anti-Semitic rant during a drunk-driving arrest, opened with the excuse and then segued to responsibility: "After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong."
Foley's statement takes the Gibsonian approach.
"Painfully, the events that led to my resignation have crystallized recognition of my longstanding significant alcohol and emotional difficulties," he begins in the third-person passive. After two more paragraphs on his "disease" and his "treatment for alcoholism," he vows to "accept full responsibility for the harm I have caused." In press conferences, Foley's spokesman, David Roth, smoothly blends the rhetoric of responsibility with the chemistry of excuses: "Based upon the experts that I have spoken to, the combination of alcohol mental illness can result in inappropriate conduct, which Mark Foley has fully accepted responsibility for."
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2. Confess that the disease is bigger than you.
This is no time for arrogance. Only by expressing humility and weakness can you feign inability to control your behavior. Thus, Gibson puzzled over slurs that were "blurted out in a moment of insanity," seemingly against his will. Likewise, Roth portrays Foley as a casualty of a natural disaster: "The recent tragic events that led to Mark's recognition that he is ill and that his alcoholism and mental illness are beyond his control reached a crisis point on Friday."
3. Depict the drunken you as a stranger.
According to the sober Gibson, the plastered Gibson "said things that I do not believe to be true." In a second statement, Gibson added with pained innocence, "I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display." Similarly, Roth suggests there are two Foleys: "The communications that he made while under the influence of alcohol … are not the product of the Mark Foley—the sober and healthy Mark Foley—but are the product of someone under the influence of alcohol and suffering from mental illness."
4. Call yourself an alcoholic.
Foley adopts the label directly: "I am an alcoholic." This is vital, because when you're also a crook, anti-Semite, or pervert, "alcoholic" sounds so much nicer. Millions of people are alcoholic or love someone who's alcoholic. Embrace the label, and they'll embrace you. Roth adds a nifty twist to this maneuver, calling Foley "a closet drinker." Everyone knows Foley had a closet. The only question is what's in it. Booze is the least shocking answer he can hope to get away with.
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