Liberals need victims the way a gasping man requires oxygen.
When the second shrillest woman in Congress, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Anywhere She Can Find Victims), and the Los Angeles Times agree in the same edition that President Bush made a wise and overdue move, bet your bank account that both of them are demonstrably wrong.
When the wholly political playboy Cardinal Mahony drops a bomb, and then winks with a disingenuous expression, “Never mind,” bet what remains of your bank account that he may be stepping into the familiar gutter once again. By newspaper accounts, he seems to have spent most of the last two decades in that neighborhood.
How Did It Happen?
Take the Cardinal first. Do I smell scam?
On his KABC radio program last evening, the commentator Al Rantel raised the possibility that the Cardinal may have been generating a hoax when he claimed recently — and publicly — that he had been assaulted by one of the many Southern California victims of priest abuse. So severely was he injured that it took the 71-year-old Cardinal a month to recover.
But, no, he didn’t want to press charges. Shoot, he didn’t even contact the LAPD. As Mr. Rantel noted, you are laid low for a month by an attacker and you don’t want the police to know about it?
You don’t want the police to hunt him down and punish him?
Please, I Want to be a Victim, Too
Sounds to me as if the Cardinal is trying to capitalize on the victim craze sweeping America. Once again, he is trying to turn himself from a villainous predator-enabler into a homegrown victim while at the same time generating fresh spray of sympathy for the Catholic Church and its under-siege leadership.
That is the bizarre victim twist to this story.
One of these times, don’t you think the Cardinal, with his enormous capacity for creative storytelling and self-pity, will push too far and finally get nabbed?
Cardinal Blight
This sounds like a case for human eminent domain. The Cardinal is a blight on the good people of the Catholic Church.
Almost seven years into the latest round of priest scandals, Cardinal Mahony’s moral mushiness, his penchant for lying, his fundamental dishonesty, have been thoroughly documented. He is not in prison, I suspect, because law enforcement officials are cowed by the awesome power of the Catholic Church.
In the Catholic hierarchy, cardinals are known as “princes” of the church, royalty.
And so, Cardinal Mahony tells a story in which he, a prince of the church, was walking to the mailbox in the wonderful, bird-trilling neighborhood surrounding the cathedral in downtown Los Angeles when he was suddenly assaulted — but shh, dear audience, he says. Don’t tell anyone. This is just between you and me.
How cozy, Your Eminence. No witnesses. No corroboration. The Cardinal likes that kind of rubbery scenario.
Imagine That, Murgatroyd
When the Times caught up with the story this week, the Cardinal muttered, “Darn. Now how did they find out? Oh, well. I guess I am just a victim.”
Which is where this latest strange Mahony tall tale reposes…
Before dashing away for the weekend, two other parties need to be upbraided.
One of President Bush’s worst gaffes of the year was yesterday’s decision to implement a far-flung “rescue” plan to relieve the so-called homeowning “victims” of the sub-prime mortgage “crisis,” which is not a crisis in the sense that it has spawned victims.
Not Lambs, They Are Sneak-Thieves
Those helpless little homeowning lambs supposedly led to slaughter by bad-boy, deceitful banks and finance companies actually were greedy, corner-cutting, open-eyed adults.
They were foolish. They were irresponsible gamblers. They thought they were going to buy a new car for $100 down and $10 a month.
That they are getting nailed is merely justice catching up to them. They are entirely undeserving of sympathy. They are fully responsible. The government is not. And it does not seem that the financial institutions are. Caveat emptor.
Because liberal-told stories require victims, the greedy, scamming homeowners have been magically turned into victims.
A Casting Call for Victims
But the Los Angeles Times and Ms. Waters feel as if they are starving if they are not served up a scrumptious plate of victims at every meal.
And so, this morning the Times, in an editorial headlined “Helping homeowners,” lauded Mr. Bush for, oh, probably the second or third time in seven years. For coming to the rescue of the self-imploding greedy Americans who thought they could scam the system.
Liberal minds work funny
Ms. Waters, who sends her staff to the streets every morning at dawn in a quest for fresh victim meat, said — also for the second or third time in seven years — that Mr. Bush did the right thing but should have acted sooner.
If Ms. Waters’ wills her mind to science when she dies, the seller can brag: Like new. Seldom has been used.