Now It's My Congressman

Today it's my representative who is resigning due to a sex scandel: David Wu (D) of Oregon. It's a good thing. He was accused of an unwanted sexual encounter with the 18-yr old daughter of a friend last Thanksgiving. (Wu is 56 yrs old.) -- the woman left a distraught, emotional voice mail message at his Portland office. Wu hasn't directly admitted to anything, but something bad clearly happened -- this only came out last Friday.

I voted for Wu in the last two elections. He's a quiet congressman who doesn't seek much press or do many interviews, which was frustrating, but he voted in line with what I support. But he's seems to be having some serious personal issues in the last year or two and they have badly spilled into his office -- a divorce, erratic behavior, mass staff departures, etc. (In 2004 it came out that Wu was accused of aggressive sexual behavior towards his girlfriend when he was in college; it never was prosecuted or ever clearly explained, but troublesome.) I hope his resignation allows him to get his life back in order. But I think he had clearly lost any possible effectiveness, which is needed now more than ever, and resigning was the honorable thing to do, if you can use that word in such a circumstance.

{Sigh.} Anymore it seems like the whole world is fucked up.