What the F*&% does being an alcoholic

[Homer Wells]

have to do with Foley's e-mails and IM's to these boys.

I have enjoyed the pleasure of drinking (not to the alcoholic stage,thank god) for a lot of years, and I do not recall ever having any irresistible compulsion to hit on children for sexual gratification.

Seems to me, in Foley's case, this argument makes No sense.

A pedophile is a pedophile, or in his case, a drunk pedophile.

[lvx35]

1. This is a common justification.

I have worked in mental health and been trained on sex offenders. Blaming it on some other factor, usually alchohol, (or even the child) is a telltale sign of a predator. The people who got messed up and fess up to how sick they are usually are treatable.

[Mz Pip]

9. The Devil Scotch made me do it

An excuse. Not a good one. I know a number of alcoholics and they don't do this pedophile IM stalking stuff. They are just people who can't handle alcohol. It doesn't make them do anything they don't already have the proclivity for doing.

This is the Foley is a victim defense.

F*ck, he could have checked himself into rehab years ago if this were the case.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[NOLADEM]

2. I think such quotes are revealing

MANY Repuke types I have known over the years have a couple of drinks and become insane. They act out all the shit they jam inside the rest of their week, trying to be impossibly square and dead to the world.

They are trying anything, and their options are few. All they have is pathetic excuses.

[mrcheerful]

3. Because republicans can forgive a recovering alkie no matter what his

crime was while drinking. Of course this only applies if you are republican. GW is a good man because he gave up the bottle and replaced it with the bible, so all of his drunken transgressions are forgiven as youthful nonsense.

[bridgit]

4. nothing, it's a ruse, a ploy...that's all it is...

[Nailzberg]

5. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I imagine a pedophile might be more likely to act on such urges if he were drunk. But this action seems like a pathetic attempt at damage control. Check into rehab just to have something to blame it on.

[zonkers]

6. It's SOP. Mel Gibson did it when he dissed Jews. Charlie Sheen does

rehab whenever he screws up.

[mcscajun]

7. It's "Deviance Disavowal"

Deviance Disavowal: "I'm not a deviant, the alcohol made me do it." It's a smokescreen, an avoidance of personal responsibility for the unacceptable behavior. He may even have deliberately gotten drunk Knowing it would "allow" him to pursue urges he was struggling with. (That's a massive "benefit of the doubt" I'm giving him there.)

Yet I still say he's no pedophile: he's a sexual predator and a sexual offender, but he didn't hit on prepubescent or peripubescent individuals.

[savemefromdumbya]

8. Nice try Foley! It doesn't take alcohol to write an email

[achtung_circus]

10. 2 things.

It gives him a scapegoat, and by entering a treatment program he can be kept out of the public view "on his doctor's reccomendation". A costly (as I'm sure this one is) treatment centre has security.

[AspenRose]

18. It also garners him sympathy with his supporters and his base

Rachel Maddow talked about this tonight....and brought up Bob Ney and Mel Gibson....

[leftofthedial]

11. it's the bush precedent

confess to having been a drinker, then pretend to have quit

all your past sins are washed clean AND you get the benefit of the doubt for anything going forward.


IF

you are a repuke.

[Shakespeare]

12. Nada. It just gets hime out of the reach of the press for a month. n/t

[WCGreen]

13. I'm as recovering Alcoholic....

And I found out this...

If you were an ass hole when your were drinking...

Chances are you are going to be an ass hole when you quit...

So if you enjoy predatory sex while you are drinking....

Chance are you will still yearn for predatory sex after you stop....

[LostInAnomie]

14. You would be surprised how far the alcohol excuse goes with...

... some fundies.

I used to work with a group of fundies at my old job. None of them had ever had a drink in their life and never wanted too. They swore up and down that whenever anyone has any amount of alcohol they automatically lose control and immediately become a sociopath. Not being a stranger to the drink I tried to inform them that they were misinformed in their conceptions about the effects of alcohol because I had drank many times and I never became a raving lunatic. Their response was that I didn't remember the deviant things I must have done because the liquor had made me black out and blocked my memory.

People like these would believe that a person like Foley could be led astray by alcohol. If it reinforces their worldview they would be capable of believing anything.

[valerief]

15. It's a reason to spirit him away from the glare of the klieg lights. nt

[barb162]

16. they just said on the news that he was in rehab for mental

problems and alcohol

[Swamp Rat]

17. He's trying to hide from the press

It will not work for very long. :eyes:

[BuyingThyme]

19. In 2003, Foley introduced legislation which would have

allowed accused drunk drivers to use drunkenness as a defense.

[Spazito]

20. Nothing, it has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with him being a sexual

predator, a pedophile. I don't even believe he has a drinking problem but if he does or doesn't is not the issue. The issue is his criminal activities, period.

[Imagevision]

21. Rehab, it's the proper/wise thing to do, ask Mel Gibson - Pelosi will

get this predator who claims pedophiles are "sicko's, to testify under oath along with Hastert and reynolds, and especially John "Boner"