Every month or two it’s someone, some poor schmuck whom we all zealously latch onto like a bitch in heat. We’re like a swarm of seven billion vampires, I tell you, snapping at and mutilating the same defenseless body. Whether it be O.J. Simpson, that bitch who pretended she was kidnapped to get out of a wedding, Don Imus or now, Chris Brown, we have this inherent need to feast upon the immorality of others. We’re all Church Ladies, boosting our egos to the sky with Hebrew Slaves or Yertle and his fucking turtles. And these losers, these unlucky douche bags never recover from the heinous onslaught of hypocritical chastisement. Marv Albert could cure cancer, and he’d still be the sexual deviant who bit that stripper. Janet Jackson could facilitate unity and understanding in the Middle East, and she’d still be that chick who’s boob we all saw during the Super Bowl.

But I can’t call these people victims. I can’t call Chris Brown a victim when he punched a defenseless woman in the face. He’s the asshole. He’s the piece of shit wife beater. I can’t make him the martyr for media frenzies. But we call Rodney King a victim and he was drunk, driving 100 miles an hour down the freeway and forcibly resisting arrest. So, why then is he a victim when he so clearly violated the law? Is it because some dumbfuck, white trash LAPD cops got in a few extra potshots at a broken man? Why? Why, I ask you. Why is Pattie Hearst a victim when she so clearly violated the law? Is it because some radical, truly horrible human beings put scary ideas into her head? Why? Why, I ask you? Why are they to be pitied and Chris Brown to be the love child of Susan Smith and Judas?

Chris Brown is a victim. That he is a wannabe two-bit alpha male thug batterer is beside the point. He is all of those things and I’m sure a hell of a lot more we don’t know about, but he’s also the victim of rampant hypocrisy, a cultural obsessed with public opinion justice, and this month’s unlucky son of a bitch.

Over thirty million women in the United States alone have been victimized by physical or sexual abuse. Some researchers put the sobering statistic as high as one in every four. Chances are you know several women part of that shameful statistic. But chances are you also know several of their abusers. You see, the media rests comfortably at night thinking they’re doing the public a service by stringing up someone like Chris Brown, as if telling the world even a famous pop star can be abused by her famous pop star husband. But in reality, it tells them nothing of the sort. We’ve thrown away Chris Brown Cds, blacked out his music on the radio, and shaken our heads at the police photograph of Rihanna. We’ve dehumanized him, made him a monster. He’s not a monster. He’s just part of a staggeringly high minority of the population who beats their wife. Surely we wouldn’t refer to more than ten percent of the population as monsters.

I’m sure this debacle will end up doing a little bit of good. A few bruised women will gain the courage to call for help and a few men will finally decide to seek treatment. But mostly, after the media feasts on some new asshole and the public fervor drifts into an echo, there will be two people left to pick up the shattered pieces. Rihanna’s innocence is gone. Chris Brown took it from her with one swing of his fist. And with that punch flew Chris Brown’s reputation. He is done. We’re looking at a minimum of five years before he can even be described sans the adjective “spousal abuser.” Even if Rihanna forgives him and Chris Brown becomes a goddamn reincarnation of Mike Brady, he will still be a wife beater. Maybe that’s deserved. You know what, it probably is deserved. But it’s unjust. It’s unfair. And we, as a society, should be better than that.

Pastor Ted Haggard had gay sex while vehemently opposing California’s proposition against gay marriage. Now that hypocrite can’t even find a job to support the wife and family who chose to stay with him. His life deserved to be irreparably damaged because he was the only one who ever publicly compensated for his gayness with outward homophobia. How vindicating. Senator Gary Condit had an affair with an intern who was later murdered while she jogged in the park. Now that seedy lowlife lost his Congressional seat. Who cares if we didn’t have all the facts? Who cares if some random, shiftless attacker with absolutely nothing to do with Condit murdered Chandra Levy? He still cheated on his wife. It doesn’t matter two of the most revered men ever, John F. Kennedy and King David, did the same thing without career ruin. Gary Condit deserved the incessant scrutiny because he was a monster, nothing like us.

We’re all wrong. We’re all abusers. And we’ll never stop. We’ll always be outraged by the deviance of strangers, unwilling to notice the deviance in our own. Thank God for those Octuplets. I was getting sick of eating Chris Brown anyway.