Mark Foley: I'm a victim too, man!

Disgraced Representative Mark "Maf54" Foley is apparently now not only an alcoholic, but now he's a victim of molestation by a clergyman, too. Oh yeah, and he's out, too:

Attorney David Roth said Foley was molested between ages 13 and 15. He declined to identify the clergyman or the church, but Foley is Roman Catholic.

He also acknowledged for the first time that the former congressman is gay, saying the disclosure was part of his client's "recovery."

"Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man," Roth told reporters as Republicans struggled with fallout from Foley's resignation.

Foley "does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate e-mails" and instant messages, Roth said. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct."

Whatevs. Sorry, but I still question the timing of these disclosures. And it doesn't make me any more sympathetic to his plight.

Somewhere within my disgust at this entire Foley situation, I find Foley's defense/PR/whatever strategy pretty similar to the whole GOP defense/PR/whatever strategy regarding the War on Terr. Saudi terrorists slam jumbo jets into buildings? Let's bomb Iraq. A government official is revealed to be a Pederast-American, you say? Why, a few weeks in rehab for alcoholism's just the ticket.

The GOP: The Party of Cognitive Dissonance.

Oh yeah, and P.S.: Foley is a sexual predator, a pedophile, a pederast. That he's coming out as "gay" is incidental. In other words, as other astute bloggers have pointed out, way to fan the flames of homophobia there, fuckos.

It's so not about The Gay, people. Seriously.

But then again, some people just refuse to see it any other way.

And furthermore: The aftermath of Foleygate continues to bring forth The Sleaze. Freakin' A.

Oh yeah, and: The Editors at The Poor Man Institute have the truth behind those salacious IMs with Maf54 anyway.