The horrible Mr. Wead.

I'm officially abandoning my theory that Bush knew Douglas Wead was taping him -- because things have gone so badly for Mr. Wead:

Mr. Wead has appeared on several television news and talk shows to defend his actions, insisting several times that he had never sought to profit from the tapes and had decided to release some of them only after the president's re-election.

"My thanks to those who have let me share my heart and regrets about recent events," Mr. Wead wrote in the statement, posted on his Web site Wednesday. "Contrary to a statement that I made to The New York Times, I know very well that personal relationships are more important than history."

That statement itself is a lame formulation of what Wead had to have learned from his long twisting in the wind. What he learned -- and he's too much of a weasel to put it straightforwardly -- is how deeply wrong it is to betray a friend for personal gain.

Are personal relationships more important than history? That question calls to mind a famous movie quote: "[I]t doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Many virtuous people have sacrificed personal relationships because they understood that there were historical matters of greater importance.

Here's Wead regrouping his thoughts:

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Mr. Wead, sounding noticeably fatigued, said he decided to change course because of "the perception that I have tried to exploit the tapes and make money off of it and hurt the president and had all kinds of agendas."

"This seems like the best thing to show that isn't the case," he said.

"Nobody believes my story that I saw him as a figure of history," Mr. Wead said with exasperation. "I guess I have got a story that is unbelievable to people."

Oh, no one believed his story? We all formed a "perception" about his motives -- which was wrong because those motives in fact were so unbelievably lofty. We imagined his mind worked like that of an ordinary person -- an ordinary person with a book to sell and a publicity gimmick and the ear of the NYT.

Yeah, and we don't believe that either, Mr. Wead.

UPDATE: Regarding my question "Are personal relationships more important than history?" Richard Lawrence Cohen -- AKA my ex-husband -- emails:

E. M. Forster famously said, "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." That comment, although collected in the 1951 TWO CHEERS FOR DEMOCRACY (the essay is "What I Believe"), is often seen today as emblematic of the mentality of prewar middle-class British appeasers.

Strangely, as I was in the middle of writing this update, I opened an email from the Conlawprof list and saw that someone was offering this very E.M. Forster quote about a completely different subject. Just a coincidence I guess, or are people thinking a lot about betrayal these days.

ANOTHER UPDATE: For more on coincidences, read this recent post of mine and click on the last link.