Posted on 01/21/2009 10:00:58 AM PST by MovementConservative
You'd think, listening to Portland Mayor Sam Adams' apologies for his poor judgment in having sex with a teenager, that the whole thing was a passing mistake. A misjudgment, maybe, covered up by a pro forma lie in the heat of a campaign.
When pressed, Adams on Monday reversed that long-standing lie about his 2005 relationship with a young man named Beau Breedlove and admitted that it was sexual, not platonic or mentoring. Adams apologized Tuesday for lying and for pressuring Breedlove into lying, too, when the rumors about them first arose in 2007, early in the mayoral campaign.
Adams acknowledged the obvious problems that all of this creates for his ability to be effective in the mayor's job that he assumed less than a month ago. Yet, he argued, it was "an error in judgment. An anomaly, not a trend." He suggested that Portlanders need to weigh this behavioral blip against his two decades of public service and good judgment.
We don't think it's as easy as all that.
For one thing, when Bob Ball, his would-be opponent began spreading rumors about Adams and Breedlove back in 2007, Adams didn't just deny the allegations and decry Ball's tactics. He launched an all-out public relations assault against the man.
He asked one of the city's leading campaign specialists to coach Breedlove in dealing with the onslaught of impertinent questions. He preached piously about the importance of mentoring young, confused gay men to help them through their identity crises. He derided Ball for falsely employing a vicious anti-gay canard in his effort to force Adams out of the mayor's race and out of politics. He took care, he claimed, to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. He'd do it all again, Adams proclaimed back then, to defend these virtues. He fairly dripped sanctimony . But it was a lie, Adams now admits, cooked up to save his political career.
Sad to say, plenty of us bought it and, for that, we owe Ball an apology. Yet, even this week, Adams felt an underlying justification for his tactics back then because Ball accused him of criminality instead of mere sexual exploitation of a callow young man.
What the mayor does not seem to grasp is that such "heartfelt" defenses, when based on lies, are as unjustifiable as the lies themselves.
Adams said this week that he lied because he did not think voters would believe him if he said that his relationship with Breedlove was not illegal. Perhaps he was right, but it was not renewed faith in the judgment of Portlanders that prompted the mayor to come clean with them. It was simply that he was being pressed by the Willamette Week newspaper, and the lie was not sustainable on any of several levels.
So now, Portlanders are left with a mayor whose election was built on a lie. Nobody knows how the election might have turned out if Adams' conscience had gotten the best of him in a more timely way. But he preferred not to put it to the test.
Nobody -- not even the mayor -- knows if his sense of right and wrong will fail him again, but he is asking us to give him another chance. In his Tuesday news conference Adams responded to one question this way: "If it's no longer in the city's best interest for me to stay on, I will resign."
He's already said he doesn't plan to quit, but we submit that it is not in the city's interest to have a mayor who cannot vouch for his own character under fire.
He should resign.
I would think that sex with an underage boy is a prerequisite as mayor of Portland.
The media and DNC leadership falsely accused Mark Foley of criminal activity too. And they knew it to be a lie when they ran their Stalinist campaign against the GOP's "culture of corruption. But that was 2006, when Pelosi wanted to steal Congressional leadership from the GOP.
Where has our economy gone since 2006?
The deviant has sodomized a boy and is a clear and present predator. Go directly to the site and post your outrage that he is not being prosecuted.
“BrokeBack Mayor” born in Montana.....homo is, as homo does.
It was an honest mistake...........</sarc
Oh’ come on now. It’s just sex with an underage teenager. Not like he got caught tapping his foot in a bathroom stall
Oh’ come on now. It’s just sex with an underage teenager. Not like he got caught tapping his foot in a bathroom stall
Oh’ come on now. It’s just sex with an underage teenager. Not like he got caught tapping his foot in a bathroom stall
The high dudgeon of the Oregonian will be short lived, and I doubt Adams will resign unless he’s indicted.
I doubt he will be indicted, as the Gov and the AG are both liberal loons, despite the AG having once served in the Marine Corp.
He's appologized.
It's the formula for demoRATS,
Get caught: Deny
Presented with proof: apologize and continue in job/position.
Everyone fogettaboutit.
Only if you're republican does it matter and THEN, you are deemed guilty and out on your kiester whether or not there was any shred of truth to it.
That's the formula.
(Remember what ousted Trent Lott- an innocent toast at a farewell event - and others?)
After all: " Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared "I have paid what I owed" and apologized to Congress" = end of story...
wouldn't be for thee or me...
I’m not defending the mayor’s actions or his lying, but wasn’t the ‘boy’ 18 at the time, and so technically not a minor?
I think he should resign, but I don’t see how he can be prosecuted.
Good to see that its a felony. I actually had to wonder since we were talking about Oregon.
“Beau Breedlove”???
Geez.
Don’t let the homos near your kids.
Yeah I know. The names of the characters involved sound like they were lifted straight from a trashy gay romance novel. Beau Breedlove, Sam Adams, Bob Ball.
So you take his word for it that, even though he started "mentoring" the boy when he was only 17, that he didn't have relations with him until he was "legal" ?
Okay...
no wonder the rats get away with so much...
No, I don’t take his word for it. If there is reasonable suspicion that he did have sex with a minor, then he should have his day in court.
If Democrat Neil Goldschmidt is any guide, sex with minors seems to be a perogative of being Portland Mayor. You may recall that Goldsmidt served in the Clinton Cabinet and as Governor as well. His weakness was the same as at least one of the Kennedy Cousins - the baby sitter.
If he ends up losing his job in Oregon, he always move to Massachusetts and get elected. Maybe he ought to contact former congressman Gerry Studds for some advice.
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