Exactly! Nobody is claiming or even suggesting that Dudley deliberately gave cover to a pedophile. His testimony before the LOSD probably was quite sincere. Indeed that appears to be what Carla suggested in the post.

It is possible to be both sincere and wrong. And when that happens, the judgement of that individual is, pretty much by definition, called into question.

See, we agree on the content of her article :-)

Keep in mind that Dudley's defense of Don King happened AFTER King was arrested, charged, and yes, acquitted.

This was not a minor story in the local press at the time. Lots of Oregonian stories, lots of LO Review stories.

This, I think, goes to a core concern here. As you say, it appears that Dudley disregarded his own instincts, to whatever degree and however slight it may have been (to give him the benefit of the doubt).

If the degree of self-honesty of a candidate for high public office isn't germane then I'm not sure what is.

A Governor has to make some tough calls, sometimes with less than as much hard data as he/she would like. At that point that governor's instincts become all the more important because they're going to be making decisions on behalf of every citizen of Oregon.

I notice that your listing of "facts" were carefully parsed down to just those that support your argument. Indeed, your first listing, if taken at face value, begs the question of why Dudley would even have testified on King's behalf... if his connection to King really was as tenuous as you make it sound like.

Be that as it may, I'm troubled by what appears to be the inference that citizens ought only consider those data points which a particular candidate may wish to have considered.

It seems to me that, under our system of government, citizens have a duty to question - or at least be open to questioning - the judgement of any and all candidate for office... and all the moreso for those candidates for high public office since their decisions will affect many more citizens.

Paul, really.

Carla has written an opinion piece on a partisan political blog. It is sourced and accurate, and she has written it under her own name. There's nothing improper about it at all. Nothing.

Politics ain't beanbag, as the saying goes. Dudley, much like Carla, must stand in the public square and answer critics. Carla has questioned him, you have questioned her (in some of the same language you yourself find objectionable when targeted at Dudley), and round and round it goes.

What she means by his "own human instinct" is unclear unless she has some sort of omniscience about Dudley's state of mind.

It is pretty straight-forward. Dudley had misgivings about how King was physically interacting with the kids around him when he the board noted that "Mr. Dudley conceded that he would have been uncomfortable observing any coach other than Mr. King perform these actions with his children if he was unfamiliar with the person and/or context."

So even Dudley himself acknowledged that what he saw King doing he would normally be uncomfortable with. Hence Dudley not following the instinct that what King was doing was not right if another person was doing it, yet he ignored it, rationalized it, then gave character testimony in defense of a guy who later admitted was having sex with under-age kids.

Seems pretty clear to me.

I wish I could give this 10 Likes

Where's the mud?

Carla could have suggested that Dudley somehow approves of child-molesters, but that's not what she did. She focused squarely on the issue of his judgement and that alone. Heck, she even provided him with some personal character cover by observing (correctly IMHO) that Dudley's own instincts appeared to have been correct viz King, but that he ignored them.

Did you read any of the links in her post? King was recorded by police in a phone conversation with one of the women as conceding that he'd had sex with. But he went to some pains to try to set that aside by claiming that it wasn't about the sex for him. That rather, his motivation had been the intimacy between himself - a grown man and swim coach - and the then-teenage girl who was on his swim team.

It's not as if we can't reasonably assertain whether or not he in fact has abused his position as a swim coach by engaging in the very sorts of sexual concerns to which Dudley testified that he didn't think were sexual. King admitted having sex! Highly, incredibly inappropriate sex!

Here's the thing: By my reading of the chronology here, Dudley agreed to give (and then gave) his testimony before any of the California women came forward. We all make mistakes, including misreading the character of those we think we know well enough to stake our reputation upon. I personally would be favorably inclined if Dudley were to now, in the 20-20 of hindsight, aknowledge that perhaps he'd made a poor decision in backing King.

That wouldn't undo his previous testimony. But it would demonstrate the capacity to take in new information and use the increased data to arrive at new conclussions. As opposed to... oh... say... Dubya! It would also demonstrate that his sense of right and wrong is stronger than his desire to win a coveted political office.

Politically I don't like Dudley. But as a Blazer I truly loved watching him do his thing. He was the epitome of a blue collar guy's kind of player... mixing it up, sacrificing body for game/team... taking body shot after body shot from sometimes taller, almost always heavier star centers from opposing teams... and without resorting to the usual prima-donna, drama-queen idiocy we've come to expect from so many of the egotistical stars of the NBA.

Paul, again, given the kind of dirty tricks that play out constantly in politics--unattributed smears, push polls, etc--this is HARDLY the least of anything. I mean, you might have a point if she were insinuating something that's not true, but for the love of Mike--no one's arguing the facts.

Seems like you'd prefer politics stay on some kind of pure level of intellectual discourse. All I ask is that everyone keeps it clean, transparent, and accurate. Carla has, full stop.

Smear and win or ride the high horse and lose. Welcome to politics.

Let's start with people that will never be subjected to the estate tax voting to abolish it and thereby gutting the funding for public services they rely on (be it public education to core services like police and fire) shall we?

Of course I dispute that. There is no evidence that Chris acted in bad faith or that what he testified to was untrue. Why is is bad judgment?

Remember, he wasn't the decision maker here. He was asked to offer testimony as to what he knew and what his honest assessment was based on his personal knowledge and observations. He did that.

I don't regard it as bad judgment to tell the truth, even when it's unpopular.