By John Leo

The top 10 victims
The competition was stiff, but these people made it to the big time

Many commentators have noticed that nobody is responsible for anything anymore, since everybody is a victim. But with all the lists of person of the year and man of the century, where is the list of victims of the year? Right here. The top 10:

Jeremy Strohmeyer. Convicted of the rape-murder of a 7-year-old girl in the women's bathroom of a Las Vegas casino, Strohmeyer went on 20/20 and portrayed himself as a heartbreakingly unloved, abused, whacked-out, drugged-out alcoholic who should not really be blamed for his crime. At his trial he blamed the following: a therapist; a former girlfriend; Los Angeles County adoption officials; his friend David Cash, for not intervening to stop the murder when he discovered the assault in progress; and Las Vegas casinos, for allowing children to play at arcades.

Michael Costanza. A TV show has stolen his life, according to his lawyer. This bald, stocky Long Island real-estate agent says he is the model for the bald, stocky George Costanza on the recently retired NBC sitcom Seinfeld. Claiming that he was defamed by the character and that his real-estate sales have suffered because the TV Costanza is such a lout, the real-life Costanza is suing the Seinfeld show for $100 million. "They've taken a lot from him," said his lawyer. "They've taken his life."

Harold Crall. A Kentucky gynecologist, Crall surrendered his medical license in 1994 after having what he called "inappropriate contact with female patients." The licensing board let him resume practicing medicine, but only if he worked for the state corrections department and never saw another female patient. Now Crall claims he is a victim of sexual addiction and is suing his insurance company for $8,700 a month in disability benefits. The diagnosis of sexual addiction isn't recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Many psychiatrists and psychologists consider it imaginary. But Crall's psychiatrist says, "There is no question in my mind, as with all addictions, a sexual addiction is a disease with genetic predisposition." (Coming next: disability claims from serial rapists.)

Aaron McKinney. Charged in the torture and beating death of a Wyoming gay student, Matthew Shepard, McKinney said the drug methamphetamine and "gay panic" syndrome made him do it. McKinney said Shepard made sexual overtures, inducing an almost unconscious fury for which he was not really responsible. Prosecutor Cal Rerucha filed papers listing some of McKinney's problems apparently not covered by a "gay panic" defense: He had about 40 criminal and traffic citations in Wyoming, some including criminal entry and making threats, and once allegedly offered to have a woman's ex-husband murdered.

Blaine Gamble and Deanna Emard. Gamble, charged with bank robbery in Pennsylvania, told the court he was a victim of cultural insanity, due to "unwarranted exposure, victimization, and repetitive confrontation with white racism." Emard, a Canadian Indian, after being convicted in Vancouver of stabbing her common-law husband to death, told the court she should not go to prison, in part because "Indianness" made her do it. A 1996 Canadian penal law, citing the high number of aboriginal people behind bars, allows light sentences for offenders who have suffered from barriers commonly faced by natives, such as alcoholism, drugs, physical abuse, poverty, or attendance at a residential school for Indians.

Michael Griffin. On trial for killing abortion doctor David Gunn, Griffin blamed graphic photos of dismembered fetuses. His lawyers said Griffin had been "influenced" or "brainwashed" by antiabortion leader John Burt.

James Moore. An upstate New York landscape gardener, Moore raped and strangled a 14-year-old girl in 1962 and was sentenced to life without parole. Last year he told a judge that he should be freed because insecticides made him do it. He argued that the chemicals brought on "episodes of mania . . . the true cause of the depraved act on the young girl I murdered."

Pizza Hut. Feeling victimized by the hurtful pizza-box slogan of rival Papa John's ("Better ingredients, better pizza"), Pizza Hut sued in federal court and won. A jury in Dallas ruled that the Papa John's slogan was deceptive and must be removed from boxes and ads.

Bill Clinton. In October, the Washington Post reported that Clinton sees himself as a victim of media bias. Citing "three people who have talked politics with him recently," the Post reported that Clinton was galled by George W. Bush's high standing in the polls, and is "disdainful, too, of what he regards as the softball news coverage of Bush, comparing it with the harsh scrutiny he received, and attributing the difference to an elitist bias in the media." This was the clearest positioning of Clinton as victim since Arkansas writer Gene Lyons went on Meet the Press to argue that the Lewinsky involvement might be seen as "a totally innocent relationship in which the president, was, in a sense, the victim of someone rather like the woman who followed David Letterman around." In response, columnist Michael Kelly wrote: "The poor man. The poor victim. My God, how he must have suffered."