US News

Rehab a made-up cure for sex jerks like Steve

Steve Phillips is the world’s luckiest man. He’s proven that you, too, can profit from adultery.

Fired by ESPN for hav ing sex with an unglued junior staffer who embarrassed the network, stalked his son on the Internet, and terrorized his wife, Phillips has been sentenced to, of all things, residential sex-addiction treatment. Sounds like a great way to meet horny chicks.

We are living at a time where there is no evil. No one is truly bad. And no one pays for his sins.

All a man has to do to get away with a crime — from drug addiction to violence to sleeping with a gal young enough to be his daughter — is confess, repent and vow to clean up his act.

And if he falls off the wagon, as Phillips’ agent so colorfully described his client’s habit of obtaining sexual favors in a parking lot, that’s not demonstrably bad. For Phillips, who earlier slimed the Mets by helping himself to the help, that is a relapse.

Sexual addiction is the strangest disease to gross out the canon of psychiatry. Darryl Strawberry claimed to suffer from it when he shamed his then-wife in a haze of drugs. Actor David Duchovny also said he was so afflicted when he repeatedly strayed. All that’s required to claim that a man’s transgression is really a disease over which he is powerless is a large bank account, a small degree of fame, a clueless wife. And a straight face.

An entire industry has grown up around the 12-step program, which has been hijacked by the selfish, the arrogant, and those who don’t truly want to change their ways. I can’t wait for the tell-all memoir.

Addictions are routinely compared to deadly diseases, such as cancer, by people who’d rather drink than put down the glass, the crack pipe, or — hopefully — the condom. This is an outrage that sickens those who are truly diseased.

“How can he compare his drug-taking to cancer?” a recovering cancer patient, Mary, wrote to me after listening to such drivel. “I wish I was just an addict. You can stop taking drugs and drinking.”

I think it is the men of the country who should be appalled at this state of affairs. For Steve Phillips is a walking advertisement for the notion that men are no better than beasts, physically unable to resist urges. It’s not their fault!

Steve, I beg you — stay away from wackos, young things and the pleasantly plump.

And leave the 12-step programs for people who want to be cured.

Water girl Jen is really all wet

Next time, try showering with a friend.

Actress Jennifer Aniston ratcheted up the idiot-celebrity quotient with her confession to The Green Book that she showers for no longer than three minutes, and brushes her teeth while under the spray.

And — wait for it — she said, “Every two minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day!” No way! Everything?

Didn’t Mom ever tell you to pack up your extra water and send it to the dirty people overseas who need it?

Yanks, just say thanks!

The Yankees owe you one.

The Bronx Bombers have an opportunity to repay the fans who’ve stuck by the squad of overpaid, overpampered, oversexed and over-the-hill testosterone cases through years of temper tantrums, sloth and chokes so devastating, the Heimlich maneuver should be taught at spring training.

It’s not just that another World Series victory by the Phillies — the cheesesteak-munchers condemned to dwell at the end of the Amtrak line — would be a disgrace. It’s worse.

For years, the Yanks have played their loyal fans as if they should be honored by the franchise’s very presence.

If the highest-paid team in baseball history does what it’s paid to accomplish, all will be forgiven. Don’t forget who’s the boss here.

Let’s have a play date

Maureen Dowd is having another mid-life crisis.

We have a winner, all you lovers of serious journalism and worshipers of President Obama. (Or is that redundant?) Yesterday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning chief chick of The New York Times used her valuable real estate in the Gray Lady to pen an embarrassing op-ed column in which she — duh — essentially begs Obama to hang out with her.

This, from a dame who wrote an entire book in which she whined that she was too strong, too successful, too threatening to land a man. Maureen — Paris Hilton wants her brain back!

Of course, “Are Men Necessary?” came out before Dowd met the dashing Mr. Obama. A man who, she wrote approvingly, “may desire a testosterone break from his estrogen nest — a wife, two daughters and a mother-in-law.”

Rambling jealously in her column about her colleague Tom Friedman’s recent golf game with the president, Dowd, who once railed about male-only clubs, male-heavy administrations and, well, males in general, excuses the “frat-house atmosphere” that holds sway in the current White House.

“His race also gives him cover,” she wrote. “It took a while for anyone to accuse Obama of being exclusionary.”

Without explaining herself, she somehow took a pot shot at Fox News Channel and former Vice President Dick Cheney for convincing the commander in chief to invite a token female to the golf course — which Dowd called Obama’s “Man Cave.”

Had she labeled a women’s group as such, she’d be called obscene.

Dowd ended her sexist screed by inviting Obama to play a game of Scrabble, for which she’s offering a $10 bet.

Is that exchange of cash for play legal?

The skinny on fat city

If we’re eating less, why are we so fat?

The obesity police are claiming victory. The city Department of Health concludes that people bought less-fattening grub after being terrorized by those calorie counts that have popped up at fast-food counters all over the city, designed to ruin your appetite. I mean, 400 calories for a “fat-free” muffin at Dunkin’ Donuts? I’ll starve.

Looking around subway platforms, I tend to think most people are either illiterate or ignoring evidence that lattes wind up in your butt.