Alcohol's Bad Political Rap

Oct. 13, 2006 — -- Most of us at one point in our lives have had too much to drink and have done something stupid, along the lines of the boorishness of John Belushi's Bluto in "Animal House" or the behavior of Will Ferrell who drinks and streaks in the comedy, "Old School."

But lately some high profile folks who did some pretty vile things have fingered booze almost as the culprit itself

In an interview with Diane Sawyer this week, Mel Gibson blamed his anti-Semitic rant during his California arrest on tequila.

"It's not a question of how drunk you are or you're, you're impaired. Your judgment is impaired enough to do insane things," Gibson said.

Corrupt Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio is now pleading guilty to bribery charges, and also blamed his behavior on a drinking habit.

"Congressman Ney's alcohol dependency has affected his judgment in this matter," said a statement issued today by Ney's attorney.

"The treatment and counseling I have started have been very helpful, but I know that I am not done yet and that I have more work to do to deal with my alcohol dependency," Ney said in a separate statement.

And then there's ex-congressman Mark Foley, R-Fla., who entered a substance abuse program after his scandal involving White House pages broke. Foley resigned after ABC News revealed he'd been making inappropriate Internet contact with high-school age boys.

"It used to be that the ritual of wiggle was that you admitted what was known, denied what was unknown and cried. And now, immediately it seems, you reach for step 10, which is check into rehab," said columnist Micky Kaus.

On "Saturday Night Live," a comic playing actor Peter O'Toole protested the newly popular alcohol excuse saying he had "slept in many a bathtub" and "wandered the streets at night without my trousers."

But the comedian also said he did "all this, because I was an alcoholic, a rich and wonderful tradition -- not to be confused with racism or perversion."

P.R. Move or Real Culprit?

Jesus may have turned water to wine, but can wine turn you into someone else? Is it possible that anyone could drink enough to become a bigot, or corrupt, or a complete pervert?

Is it fair to blame the booze -- or is just a public relations ploy?

"Alcohol loosens your tongue and makes you act, say and behave in a way that is not you," Gibson told Sawyer.

She asked if tequila could turn an unbiased person into an anti-Semite, or if alcohol removes one's inhibitions in the spirit of the phrase "in vino veritas."

"Well, that's the old Roman saying, in vino veritas," Gibson said. "Well, they don't know what they're talking about, it's as simple as that. Or they don't have the problem and they don't understand it."

Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University said it's more complicated than what Gibson had to say.

"It is possible that sometimes people say things when they're intoxicated that they don't mean," Berlin said. "It's also possible they mean the things that they're saying that they wouldn't have otherwise said."

Kaus points out that Gibson had been accused of anti-Semitism before, most famously with his film "The Passion of the Christ."

"It's not something that one just comes up with spontaneously," he said. "I mean, compared with getting drunk and cursing a cop in a bar. You can say, 'Well, I was a hot head,' or 'he was hitting on my girlfriend' -- those are things people understand. But why of all the things in the world to suddenly bubble up from within, were these anti-Semitic rants?"

Complicating it all is the fact that alcohol is an excuse that has its own guilty pleasures.

Analyzing the Excuses

Ney's alcohol excuse for his bribery plea came as no surprise to ABC News' Cokie Roberts, who has reported on her fair share of Washington scandals.

"Alcohol has certainly been to blame for people doing very foolish things. But they do wake up and do sober up and some of them continue to do very, very stupid things," Roberts said.

"The Bob Ney thing is much more problematic because I don't quite understand how drinking makes you corrupt," Kaus added.

And, as for Foley, Berlin said this could be simply a more acceptable vice.

"In our society it's thought to be much less stigmatizing to suggest that one is getting help for alcoholism, than it would be to suggest that one is struggling sexually and needing help in that arena," Berlin said.

There could also be an upside to rehab for Foley right now, according to Roberts.

"Is it convenient for him to be in rehab right now? You betcha," she said. "Otherwise he'd be surrounded by TV cameras and people staking out his yard when he came to bring out the garbage."

"If I or most people listening to this were to become intoxicated, there may be things we'd do that we'd regret, but it's very unlikely that we would engage in sexually explicit conversations over the Internet with teenage males," Berlin said.

But they might look for more creative excuses, Kaus said.

"Washington is such a boring town. These excuses are so uninventive," he said. "I mean, why not the urban rage excuse, or post-traumatic stress syndrome? Instead, all these Washington politicians are so unimaginative they keep coming up with the same excuse -- alcohol, alcohol, alcohol."

No doubt some people have real addiction problems, but the increased use of this excuse has many observers echoing what humorist Oscar Levant once said: "I envy people who drink -- at least they know what to blame everything on."