I should be stunningly happy about this news…but I’m still too numb to celebrate.

Finally, the opportunity to become a victim is within my grasp.

For at least the last two decades, every petulant special interest group and their friends in the media have been reminding me that I have been the problem.

As a Caucasian, college educated male, I am one of the dominators. In a paternalistic, chauvinistic, racist society, I wear the devilish goatee and carry the pitchfork.

According to the politically correct stereotypists of our day, the problem is not what I do, believe or say, the problem is WHO I am. And there’s nothing I can do to change that, so the sooner I find a corner to crawl into, turn off my brain and mouth, the better off society will be.

Now, thanks to a scientific study published in the Lancet, a prestigious British Medical Journal, we are being told that those who are overweight are actually victims.

Oh, happy day!

In fact (SURPRISE!), the brain structure of those of us who tend to overdo it in the buffet line apparently resembles that of a drug addict. Those tending toward any addictive behavior apparently have fewer dopamine receptors in the brain so we seek proper balance by overloading our systems with substances that produce heightened levels of the pleasure inducing substance.

With over half of all Americans overweight, I cannot now be considered part of a protected minority. But I can, at least, be considered a member of a coddled, accepted majority.

When these results become public, I will be free to take that third plate of Mongolian beef and shrimp cow with dignity. No longer will I scan neighboring tables for frowns and signs of disapproval.

I expect to see tears, sympathy and perhaps enough spare change left at my table to pay the $6.95 bill…or at least leave a tip my waiter will never forget.

At last, no more "fat boy" jokes. There’ll be Jerry Lewis telethons, weight watchers parades to the capital "rotund"-a and even Disney cartoons with masked supportive titles like, "Beauty and O-bese."

No, I don’t expect compassionate conservatives like George W. Bush to push for special tax cuts on my behalf or grant me specially recognized status.

All I ask is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of size 44 Dockers.

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