<big sigh>

So this is not my promised blog on Bryan Adams (which, by the way, has now been upstaged by Qwanty's response anyhow), but it is, rather, an open letter to newly-installed Portland mayor Sam Adams. I don't usually get political, but this situation is upsetting and confounding. If you don't already know about Adams and the recent scandal, check out the Willie article that led to Adams's recent media confessions.

Dear Sam Adams:

I am very, very, very disappointed in you. It's not that you did something creepy by sleeping with an 18 year old (although I would argue that you knew it was creepy. If you didn't know that, you wouldn't have lied about it). It's that you lied--over and over--until you got yourself into the mayor's office. And your lie most hurts those who have supported you. It makes the people of Portland, who love and are proud of this town, look like fools for believing you when you claimed that you were just a "mentor" to this young man. You had to have known that Portland would get national attention for electing the first gay mayor of a major American city, and that your administration would be under some heightened scrutiny. I'm not saying that it is fair that you should be more closely watched than a heterosexual mayor may be--but I would think that you would be 1) sensitive to the very real possibility that you would be and would 2) take appropriate steps to conduct yourself in a way that would reflect well on the city that you claim to care about and the community that has been so supportive of you.

Not only have you made Portlanders look bad, you have actually further damaged perceptions that too many in the straight world have of gay men. Instead of contributing to gay history in a positive way, you have helped set back gay public relations. Well done. Right wing talk show hosts are probably positively gleeful. (And, if for no other reason, you are dead to me because you have made that ass Lars Larson happy. That is unforgivable.)

There are two aspects of this situation I find especially galling. First, that you thought--even for a second--that you could get away with this. What the hell is wrong with you politicians? In what world does this young man, or his friends NOT TALK? You were bound to be found out. But you lied anyway. People might have forgiven the bad judgement (because sleeping with a barely legal intern less than half your age IS bad judgement--whether that intern is the same sex or not) , but you don't deserve to be forgiven by the very people who believed enough in you to take your word over the word of those who tried to tell the truth in the first place. You clearly think that you are very smart and the rest of us are very stupid.

Second, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you would risk your reputation, the reputation of the city (that, again, you claim to love), and the perception of the gay community for an 18 year old piece of ass. I mean, it isn't like you were in love. Or thought that this was going to be a long term relationship. You literally just wanted to have a fling with a twink. Well, good for you. I hope that you DO get yanked out of City Hall. I hope that this ruins any other political aspirations that you have. Because you could have had all the tail you wanted after you were done with your public life. Your lack of self-control (and it IS reported that your staffers warned you away from this "relationship" so you can't very well claim that you didn't know better) has been visited on all of us. I hope it was worth it.

You know, I was willing to look past your ridiculous "leaf tax" and that terrible fur hat you wore during the December snow storms because I thought you were an ok guy. You are not an ok guy. You are a guy who has repeatedly shown bad judgement, arrogance, a propensity to lie (even when you are sure to be caught) and supreme selfishness. You don't deserve to be the mayor of the greatest town in America.

A truly disgusted,

Kristin R. Dorsey