This Filner Guy Kind of Creeps Me Out

Okay, I opined a little about this in a post I pulled because I went a little too cheeky with the title and somehow never came to my point: there is something kind of dark about a person whose boundaries issues seem to be this far-reaching, who somehow made it 70 years without actually getting the idea that women are not some kind of multi-purpose party favor: we're people. Two weeks of therapy is obviously not going to undo whatever cultural/psychological fuckup that turns a meeting with a constituent into something like this.  It won't undo whatever sense of entitlement led him to treat his former fiancee like this. So far, about a dozen women have come forward to say that he's been a total sleaze to them--this is not a small sample to begin with, but I get the feeling that they are only coming forward because the initial accusations got the ball rolling--and there are probably more women who just haven't come forward yet or who would prefer not to.

What still astounds me about this is that many of these women are even professional women--all women are entitled to respect, but many of these women were in positions where they were not just entitled to respect but in a position to call him out for his disrespect towards them. Sadly, it seems to me like not being called out only reinforced to him that there wasn't anything especially wrong with what he was doing. He may still just think he was being a schmoozer or whatever, without seeing that, especially in situations where there was clear "quid pro quo" involved, what he was doing was abusive of an authority that he probably had no business holding if that's how he used it.

Given that the concept of sexual harassment as an example of abusive behavior isn't all that novel, it is pretty freaking ballsy that he wants to allege that the city currently cutting his paychecks should have advised him that the sorts of things he was doing were "no-no's", and it's pretty sickening that San Diego doesn't have a clear-cut way to easy shed themselves of this ass.  Resigning would be the most decent thing to do from the vantage of his political effectiveness (uh, which would be pretty much disappearing, given that he is up to his ass in scandal), but if he won't, he's basically using the city of which he is mayor no differently than he used or tried to use so many women. Hey, San Diego--it's "What can you do for Bob?" And let's never you mind what you think Bob can still do for you.

This piece of work should find a rock to hide under, and stay there.