The Day After
One day after Gavin's big My Bad moment, the big question is what does this all mean for him, the city, and his reelection bid. After all, as bad as this all sounds, politicians getting caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar falls into the realm of been there, done that.. Willie did it and nobody batted an eye. Guiliani did it and he's considered one of the big contenders for the Republican nomination. Gavin is still popular, the election isn't until November, and this is San Francisco and it's not like he's the only San Francisco politico who did something really stupid. But the one thing that seems to be sticking in everyone's craw, the one thing that could hurt more than anything else, is that he did this to one of his closest aides and friends. As somebody put it (we searched but couldn't find the link), this whole thing could be summed up by this eternal axiom: bros before hos. In other words, Gavin broke one of the cardinal rules of guydom.
So here comes the typical noncommittal stories saying well it could be bad, it might not be so bad. But in light of this and other screw ups, his image has taken a huge hit lately. And hey, there's the NY Times bringing up SFist Gate as one of his recent troubles. We made the NY Times! Of course, they don't mention us by name, but it's still super sweet.
The Chron's editorial wondered what the hell Gavin was thinking while Debra Saunders wishes Gavin would grow up a nd Ken Garcia thinks things are only going to get worse and compares Gavin to Clinton in terms of self-destructive behavior. Actually, Garcia has a point. The Bad Reporter, meanwhile, is hilarious as usual and recasts the infamous "So Best" picture from much happier days.
The blogs have a different take. Left in SF things the thing was about power and the Bay Guardian says it's about the judgement, stupid. On the Wall and SF Junto, they're looking for another moderate to run in place of Gavin.
But on the other hand, the Chronicle's "Two Cents" thingamabobber seems to be running more pro-Gavin than anti-Gavin and KPIX had some survey saying that a majority of people in the city are http://cbs5.com/reference/local_file_032172707">still down with Gavin.
Around the country this thing was huge and made it to the "Situation Room" on CNN where James Carville, a man who should know a bit about philandering politicians, said it's probably not that big deal. Drudge picked it up but we did a few minutes of searching through Fox News to see if Hannity and O'Reilly weighed in, but so far they've been too preoccupied playing cheerleaders for the war to say anything about this. We shall see. We also wonder if a certain Fox newscaster will be going anywhere near this story over the weekend. We did note this great headline from the New York Post: FRISKY FRISCO SCANDAL HITS FOXY LADY. Man, we wish we had something like the Post here.
And finally, we move to the fun stuff, the rumors. Matier & Ross remind people that rumors have been flying everywhere for the past six months and why did nobody tell us these things? Most rumors have it that Ruby will not file charges against Gavin, which is a big deal but that's merely rumors right now. Both Fog City Journal and Ken Garcia allude to even more stuff out there-- Garcia about a three month leave of absence on her part and Fog City to a mysterious trip to Morocco- so, in other words, buckle up everyone-- it's going to be a bump ride.