Caution: Intemperate Dudgeon Ahead About Events From Long Ago Quoted Verbatim Except For Redactions

[Dear Mother,]

The other topic grabbed me almost as I was leaving Philadelphia. I picked up a hotel copy of the Inquirer and sort of skimmed the article about [Name] resigning as head of [Organization], which means, apparently, either “[Phrase]” or “[Phrase].” I re-read it and was so nauseated I had to tear it out to bring home. To me it epitomizes the contemptible dishonesty and cowardliness of the TV born-again money-hustlers. Here’s a man who fornicated, then paid a six-figure sum to keep it quiet. Look carefully at all the quotes from [Name] in the article. Does he take any responsibility anywhere? Does he express any sense of wrongdoing, or penitence?

I think where I began to be outraged was in trying to make sense of the literal language of the statement that he was “wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends” who “conspired to betray me into a sexual encounter.” Now, having been caught, he realizes that “we ought to have exposed the blackmailers to the penalties of the law.” Then he makes a pathetic appeal to peoples’ sympathies by saying that “my and [Wife’s Name] physical and emotional resources have been so overwhelmed that we are presently under full-time therapy at a treatment center in California.” What craven [Epithet]! Poor, passive [Name] hideously victimized by Satan’s agents, then prostrated not by remorse but by paranoia and self-pity! We can probably look for him in six months back in front of the cameras fully redeemed and idolized by hordes of [Slang] who resent how negatively he was portrayed by the media.

(c) 1987 Correspondence, 2018, JMN.