Quote Of The Day: Newsome A New Man? Edition

"Upon reflection with friends and family this weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I will be a better person without alcohol in my life."
-- Gavin Newsom

Celebrities -- including celebrity politicians -- fleeing to rehab to exonerate their PR demons is getting as tiresome as the town drunk on yet another rant.

Gavin Newsom, mayor of Baghdad by the Bay shown here with a future delirium tremens, certainly has manifested the bizarre behavior known by professionals to be a call for help: an affair with a friend's wife, dating 19-year-old Brittanie Mountz and legalizing gay marriage.

I haven't had a drink in over eight years (ooooh, confession time!) so while I'm not sure if quitting drinking will actually make Newsom a better person, it certainly will make him a saner one.

But here's the problem with Newsom, Mark Foley, Patrick Kennedy and all the other rehab bunnies: They announce it.

That turns the whole thing into spin and stinks of insincerity. The sort of insincerity you expect from alcoholics and egomaniacs. Newsom is one, the other, or both.

The announcement itself is not an admission of guilt; it's a duck for cover, a pulling up of a tested security blanket. But forgiveness ... that's tougher.

It isn't automatically granted when you walk into your counselor's office for the first time or attend your first "anonymous" (get that? anonymous) meeting, but celebrities and politicians think they've bought an out with their announcement. They think we'll all go, "Ahhh, poor Gavin."

Not a chance. Get straight, then straighten out your messes and be decent and dependable for, oh, five or six years. Then, if you're sincere, you will have re-earned lost trust.

Note: This rule doesn't apply in San Francisco, where people are so strange that this episode is almost certainly his ticket to higher office.

Related Tags: Gavin Newsom, Alcoholism, Politics