John Cook counts the bodies:
Scientology has a long history of spastic, sweaty spokespersons with creepy laughs who eventually crack under the pressure and leave the organization. There was Robert Vaughn Young, who publicly renounced the church in 1989 after decades in its leadership. He was followed by Mike Rinder, an unhinged Australian bulldog who decided to stop lying for church leader David Miscavige last year and spoke out publicly about the cult's bizarre and arbitrary cruelty in June. The latest inheritor of Young and Rinder's mantle as the unsettling public face of scientology is Tommy Davis, the head of the cult's Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles.
Cook explains why Davis "probably won't last long":
The Nightline interview was another in a string of embarrassments for the church, and Paul Haggis' high-profile defection over the weekendannounced in an open letter to Davisis likely not sitting well with Miscavige. Davis' job is to "handle" anyone who would do harm to the church's reputation, and his tenure thus far has been marked by a string of pile-upsangry confrontations; Haggis' defection; John Travolta's acknowledgment that, contrary to church dogma, autism is real; the St. Petersburg Times' devastating series detailing the revelations of high-profile defectors about Miscavige's violent and insane regime. He also has personal relationships with people who've left the churchhe worked with Rinder, and was close friends with Begheand has left the reservation before. How much abuse and lying can he take before he follows them out the door?