Someone who has done something criminal, obscene or disgusting, but wants you to focus not on what they did (leaking secrets, killing someone, going to jail) but on how they are a VICTIM.
Another case in point: The cover of Time/Newsweek with the Dixie Chicks: "They were called unpatriotic". Oh, poor babies--one or two evil rightwingers who they never cared for anyway calls them unpatriotic, and now they won't shut up about how they were called unpatriotic.
Did people used to praise accomplishment in this country, or did I dream all that?
Agree 100%, though I'll say that Michael Schiavo makes the Dixie Chicks look like Mother Theresa.