In the context of the current scandal, it really doesn’t matter what the priest did or did not do to Foley. It does not mitigate what Foley did to those kids. It might help explain what Foley became, but it does no exculpate him from his responsibilities for his own actions. And the fact that it’s yet another conservative using the [insert problem here]-caused-me-to-do-it excuse is an example of hypocrisy in general terms.

It’s a common conservative claim that liberals love to excuse people from responsibility because of problems they suffered in life. I remember reading a crime novel my brother loaned me, written by such a person, and was already getting fed up when I reached a part that made me put the book down in disgust; it read something like, “the lawyer was a liberal, which is to say he didn’t believe black people were ever responsible for crimes they committed.” The thinking is that liberals believe that people go bad because their parents mistreated them, or because they’re alcoholics, or some other bad thing made them go wrong, so they shouldn’t be held responsible. A widely-held conservative concept which is, of course, wrong.

Liberals are sometimes interested in such formative experiences as a means of helping to understand why a person does something, to identify root causes so as to help correct them, perhaps. You may even find liberals willing to blunt a heavy punishment–say, change a death sentence to life imprisonment–as a result of understanding such a cause. Certainly not all liberals, but some, and perhaps as often to avert a punishment they would believe immoral in any case.

But I have never heard of a liberal (outside of conservative fantasies, of course) who would suggest that such formative experiences excuse the perpetrator for their actions and is a cause for dismissing liability. Right-wingers love to claim this about liberals, but it just ain’t so. Nor do liberals believe any more than conservatives that a few weeks in rehab or a stint in a psychiatric hospital will cure them and make it unnecessary for them to pay for their crime, so go ahead and release them on the public.

The hypocrisy comes in the shape of conservatives trying to use such excuses to exonerate themselves of wrongs they have committed. Mel Gibson tried to blame anti-semetic remarks on alcoholism. Mark Foley tried to blame alcoholism and molestation by a priest for his behavior. Both later claimed personal responsibility after the booze-made-me-do-it announcements didn’t work (just like Jim Bakker did, after first claiming the devil was responsible for his wrongdoings), but their initial use of personal problems to excuse their actions belies the whole “I’m taking full responsibility” pose later on. Republican Bob Ney claimed alcoholism made him accept bribes from Jack Abramoff. I had no idea that booze made you susceptible to bribery, time and time again.

Conservatives in the media are trying yet again to paint a wide brush with this one, finding a way to include Democrats so as to make it look more bipartisan–and in order to try to look bipartisan, the mainstream media is tagging along. The current slant: to include Patrick Kennedy in with Gibson, Ney, and Foley.

Why not include Kennedy? Because he went into rehab after he crashed his car, and admitted to a substance abuse problem. Alcohol can make you crash your car as a result of dulling your reflexes. It can’t make you into a sexual predator, an anti-semite, or a corrupt politician if you are not one already. Fault Kennedy for drinking and driving–for that, he should resign. But he does not fit into the current crop of right-wing rehabs.

One more thing, a note to conservatives reading this: if you’re going to agree with me that Kennedy should resign because of his drunk driving, you had better be just as willing to make the same statement about both Bush and Cheney, who have three DUI’s between them.

I thought not. Although, you do have to give them both credit for one thing: neither went to rehab after they were arrested. And Bush didn’t try to blame the booze for covering it up. Instead, he used his daughters–and, of course, blamed the Democrats for good measure.

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Update: Something else just occurred to me. I’m sure someone else has noted this by now, but I just haven’t spotted it yet.

While he was a congressman, Foley made a big thing out of protecting children, and hunting down sex offenders.

So, why didn’t he name the priest who molested him then? For years, while he had a very high-profile job in which he was supposed to be taking care of children, he kept mum about a sex offender who might still be molesting others.

Yes, he would have been reluctant to make such a personal statement while a congressman–but it would have dovetailed into his anti-molestation efforts, and could have easily been engineered politically as a sign of personal bravery and concern for others.

Instead, he maintained his silence in a way that may have put children at risk, but showed no hesitation at all to point the finger of accusation at the priest once he himself needed some form of defense to cover his own hide, spread the blame, and generate some quick sympathy.