Free Republic

He’s so old that his young-enough-to-be-his-daughter trophy wife, for whom he dumped the woman who loyally waited for him while he was a POW, is old.

Ambitious plans for city could be challenged by supervisors, police union -- Embattled San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's first major public appearance Friday -- at a celebration of Black History Month in the City Hall rotunda -- couldn't have gone better. Hordes of children clutched at his suit and asked for autographs, and the mayor clearly relished the positive attention. Waiting back at his office, though, was a quick reminder of the scandal in which he finds himself. Reporters threw questions at him. "I'm back at work, and I'm going to focus on getting things done for the city," was...

When the Gavin Newsom scandal broke, most of us assumed the public reaction would be a no-brainer. Sleeping with a married woman? How do you think that would play with wives, girlfriends and single women in the Bay Area? As a Newsom staffer told a Chronicle reporter, there goes the women's vote. But a funny thing happened after the headlines hit and the buzz began: Many women said they were ready to forgive and forget. Not men, though. No way. Many said they would never trust Newsom again as long as they lived. Some were livid; many were incredulous. The...

For more than a year, the affair between San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the wife of his good friend and campaign manager, Alex Tourk, was a bomb that those around the mayor knew would one day go off. But it wasn't until last week that the fuse was finally lit, by Tourk's wife herself. After this week's explosion, people close to the mayor, Tourk and Ruby Rippey-Tourk, revealed what had gone on behind the scenes. We're told the affair didn't last long -- the mayor has privately said to friends that there were only a couple of encounters. Rumors...

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