"My heart is broken. You can give your kids everything they could ever want in their entire lives and they can still turn against you."

Wrote Tommy Lee, formerly the drummer for Mötley Crüe and formerly the husband of Pamela Anderson, the mother of the son who punched him in the mouth that looked brutally swollen in the photograph Lee captioned with that quote.

My reactions, in order:

1. After reading the quote out loud, I said, out loud, "Maybe you shouldn't have given him so much."

2. Maybe you should have given him something other that what you think is "everything [he] could ever want."

3. Lee is such an asshole to take his swollen lip out of context and whine about his relationship with his son to the world even as he is further damaging the relationship by disparaging the son and defaming him as violent. Tommy Lee himself has had violence problems. He spent 6 months in jail after pleading guilty to beating up Pamela Anderson. And the son — Brandon Lee, 21 — says that he hit his father in self-defense. So it's at least complicated. Don't take it public and hurt your own son in a self-serving effort to enlist fans on your side!

4. Was Lee influenced by the #MeToo movement, in which some women have successfully used photographs of injured faces to bolster their credibility? Most notably: "Rob Porter's ex-wife Colbie Holderness is pictured in a photo from 2005, when she says Porter gave her a black eye on a trip to Italy."

5. The incident happened right after Pamela Anderson did a TV interview and talked about the old abuse. It's possible that the dispute with the son was related to that. Perhaps the son intended to aggravate the father into doing something stupid that would elevate Anderson's story. But Brandon also defended himself with a punch (it seems) and that left a mark that enabled Tommy to make a social media move that's more commonly associated with women.

"Another unqualified Trumper who had no business in the White House. She had zero experience in government; but she had the 'right look' for Trump's reality show."

"She is following her boyfriend Rob Porter out the door and probably considering what her lawyer bills will be now that she has admitted to telling "white" lies for Donnie Trump. She is complicit in all of the sleaze and crimes of this administration. A true Trumper; she joins a whole line of luminaries who have helped to degrade our democracy and our standing in the world. Glad to see the girl (and I do mean 'girl') go."

That's the top-rated comment (by Trishspirit33 Los Angeles) on Maggie Haberman's "Hope Hicks to Leave Post as White House Communications Director" in the NYT.

I'm not surprised to see that kind of sexism, but I'm tempted to affect surprise and call this an amazing display of sexism: When a woman gets a great job, she got it because of her looks. When a woman makes a career decision, she's doing it for a man. And just go ahead and call her a "girl" and underscore that you mean to disparage her in a specifically gendered manner.

As for the "white lies" — who in politics doesn't tell white lies? If they say they don't, they're telling a white lie. I'd give Hicks honesty points for admitting that she tells white lies, though not too many points, because it's so obvious that white lies must be told that it's like admitting you're not perfect.

Does any politician claim never to have lied?

I know some have spoken in the future tense. Jimmy Carter famously said: "I will never lie to you."

And Donald Trump released his inner Jimmy in 2016: "In this journey, I will never lie to you. I will never tell you something I do not believe."

Did they ever say — in the past tense — they never lied? Will anyone sit them down at a hearing and confront them with the question have you ever lied? No. But if they did, they might think — don't say this out loud! — it depends on what the meaning of "lie" is. And then they might decide they could say no. Or they could be decently honest and admit to telling "white lies."

"I was told, yes, he was deeply flawed, but then again so was I. And so I worked on myself and stayed."

"If he was a monster all the time, perhaps it would have been easier to leave. But he could be kind and sensitive. And so I stayed. He cried and apologized. And so I stayed. He offered to get help and even went to a few counseling sessions and therapy groups. And so I stayed. He belittled my intelligence and destroyed my confidence. And so I stayed. I felt ashamed and trapped."

Wrote Jennie Willoughby, last April.

Via Emily Yoffe at Twitter, who says "This statement by one of the ex-wives of Rob Porter, now former White House staffer, describes so well what it's like to be with an abuser and what makes you stay. I know because I've been there. If you're there, please get help and get out!"

ADDED: I'm seeing at the Jennie Willoughby site, that you can "Book Jennie" and that she does "Teaching & Speaking" with "Mindfulness/Meditation group lessons," "Corporate Training workshops," and "Resiliency/Learning keynote talks" in which you can "Hear me tell my story and inspire you to dig deeper as you recognize the beauty of life unfolding, adversity and all."

It's incredibly hard to think about what goes on inside a marriage, especially when you're listening to the story one participant chooses to take public after the marriage breaks up. In the case of Rob Porter, to attack him is also to go with flow of the torrent of raging attacks on the President of the United States and roiling #MeToo accusations.

Willoughby did, apparently, publish her statement last April, before #MeToo took off, but long after the presidential election, which was heavily focused on accusations of sexual harassment against Trump.

AND: At The Washington Post, "‘Your story is mine’: Rob Porter’s ex, Jennie Willoughby, inspires outpouring from abuse survivors." Excerpt:

“This could have been me writing the article,” one poster [i.e., commenter at Willoughby's post] wrote. “OMG, your story is mine also . . . for 19 years. Yes, we stay, and we hurt, and we try,” another added. “[A]nd others don’t see it, so we are alone.”...

“Outside the house he was Mr. GQ, an Associate Director at one of our federal agencies,” one poster said. “At home, he terrorized me and our children. He belittled me, called me names, told me I had no friends, told me I was stupid, unattractive, evil, that I’d never make it on my own, a lousy mother, a lousy wife, a crack addict (never seen it), ad nauseum.”

Another stated: “I was attractive, well educated and confident; people can never understand why I stayed. He was charming, in a boy next door kind of way, and everyone loved him; people have a hard time believing that he wasn’t always so wonderful. Your ability to explain that he was not just some horrible person and you were not just a victim, was very accurate and left me in tears.”

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