This is how I see it too. I think George has been "all over" Casey from the beginning, and she had her whole life of being busted by him to fuel her desire to bring him down.
Cindy may have thwarted George at every turn, but Casey knew he tried. George was her "enemy" from the very beginning.
My ex-husband is a small time sociopath/narcissist, able to go long periods of time successfully pretending to be "normal". I was a well educated and successful person before I met him, with a couple of very barbarian teenagers and other life stressors that made me vulnerable to a man who said "I just want to take care of you, I just want to be a Dad again."
Within seven years, I was agoraphobic, completely isolated and without a shred of my normal self-confidence. He never laid a hand on me.
As much as I HATE HATE HATE to admit it, his Chinese water torture put downs and contempt for me reduced me into a person I can hardly recognize as myself. I was a PSYCH NURSE for God's sake!! And no slouch in the brains department!
I see myself in George in many ways. I, too, became dishonest and capitulated to my ex out of sheer exhaustion (he was relentless). George has had many more years of this than I did.
I hold myself responsible for the appalling things I did, lied about, etc etc, and I hold George responsible for his, too. He is, after all, a grown man, an adult. But, there is a definite effect on a person who spends years living intimately with a spouse such as Cindy Anthony and God help him, his daughter Casey.
It reduces you to your lowest common denominator.
I understand how George just sits there and goes along with it all. I understand why he does it. It doesn't excuse him any more than it excused me. But it is a common manifestation of abused spouses, and you don't need to be smacked around either.
I'm a member of a very active community of DV survivors. George's "story" is not somehow unique to George, it is actually common to abused spouses, male or female. In spite of being the "abused one" we aren't lily white victims, either. We are capable of atrocities, too, very capable.