When the owner of a "Clean Flicks" franchise in Utah was arrested for sexual acts with underaged girls (I thought they were eighteen...), it was international news. After all, a guy who edits swearing and nudity out of Hollywood movies getting oral sex from a fourteen year old is big news right?
Of course if your the mayor of Portland, and you engaged in sexual relationship with a young, male intern named--I kid you not--Beau Breedlove, its a case of "move on people, there's nothing to see here.
In his first face-off with reporters, Portland Mayor Sam Adams apologized for "a sexual relationship" he had with Beau Breedlove and for lying about it during his campaign for office."I made a mistake," Adams said, adding that he has no plan to resign. "This was clearly an error. I clearly messed this one up. But it's an anomaly over the two decades I've served Portland."
"I have no plans to resign and this was a serious error on my part on my judgment that happened four years ago. (An error) in my personal life and my professional life. But in my job right now is to come clean - I mucked it up - and to press forward."
It was Adams' first public statement today in response to news reports that he had a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old in summer 2005 and, on the eve of his campaign for the city's highest office, lied about it and urged the young man to lie as well. Adams is expected to issue a public apology within minutes.
Adams said Monday that he made a mistake in not admitting the relationship when reporters first asked about it in September 2007. He did not describe the relationship itself as a mistake.
Adams, had been in D.C. attending a national mayors conference and the presidential inauguration when the reports broke. He flew back to Portland to apologize publicly and to deal with the situation.
Adams met Beau Breedlove in April 2005. Breedlove, then 17, was an intern at the Oregon Legislature for Rep. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer. Adams, 42 and a city of Portland commissioner, was in Salem on a lobbying trip. They struck up a conversation, and Breedlove called Adams soon after, hoping for both professional and personal advice on coming out of the closet in the political world.
The mayor's political affliation is of course--unmentioned and unknown.
I don't really get upset about the double standard because there are in fact two standards. Republicans are accountable, Democrats are not. When a Republican does this, its newsworthy because Republicans care about issues like corruption, moral turpitude an general slimeballiness. They will vote him out (see Mark Foley).
You can of course report this stuff about Democrats, but they don't care. They expect their politicians to be on the take, on the make and some degree of flake.
They don't care, but they don't want you to know that, hence the routine obfuscation of the party affiliation of these bozos.
