Sam Adams |
Some months back a first-time candidate (not in Oregon) asked the question: Why do so many politicians keep getting caught in scandalous or near-scandalous sexual situations? (Worried, maybe, he might be missing a crucial strand of political DNA?) It was a good question. The snap answer might be that politicians tend to be gregarious people and prone to lots of human interaction generally; they draw energy from being around other people. Or something like that.
But there ought also to be a strand of political DNA that sends up a red flag in the face of a bad idea, and that's a strand that seems to be missing from a lot of political people these days. At the moment, you wonder: What was Sam Adams, long considered one of the brightest guys in Portland politics, thinking when he struck up that close friendship in 2005 with a 17-year-old named (however improbable it may sound) Beau Breedlove, a friendship that eventually and briefly went further than that. And then, for an extended period, lied about it.
Now on Adams' website (responding to a story just broken by Willamette Week): "In the past, I have characterized my relationship with Beau Breedlove as purely non-sexual. That is not true. Beau Breedlove and I had a sexual relationship for a few months in the summer of 2005 after he turned 18 years of age. I should have been honest at the time about the true nature of my relationship with Beau Breedlove when questions about my relationship with him first surfaced publicly in October 2007. In fact, Beau encouraged me to be honest about the facts of our relationship. I am deeply sorry that I asked him to lie for me."
The immediate comparison in the Northwest would logically be to the case of former Spokane Mayor James West, who was recalled from office in December 2005, after exposure of his trolling on gay sex web sites and relationships with much younger male partners. That was an explosive story that totally riveted, dominated, public life in Spokane for nearly a year.
How does the Adams story compare? What effect might this revelation have? (more…)