Reactions to the David Wu saga

Kari Chisholm

The Eugene Register-Guard calls on Wu to resign:

The 1st District congressman says he has sought professional care, and supporters claim that seeking treatment should not disqualify a person for public office. They’re right, but that’s not the issue. The real problem is a lack of candor, and for that he should resign. ...

Whatever the price of candor, the price of its absence is higher. Wu can recover his health, but public trust is lost forever. He should step down.

Wu's 2010 opponent Rob Cornilles finally speaks out - in, of all places, The Hill's "Ballot Box" blog:

Oregon Rep. David Wu's former GOP challenger said there were signs of the Democrat's mental illness during their 2010 campaign.

"The only sign I had was that he basically hid for the last 60 days of the election," Rob Cornilles, a sports management consultant, told The Ballot Box.

Washington County Democrats chair Karen Packer was supportive in comments made to OPB. Congressman Kurt Schrader and Senator Jeff Merkley talked to KGW's Randy Neves:

Rep. Kurt Schrader showed compassion for his colleague Monday. "David may have some issues and if it was anybody else besides a politician most people would be getting him help rather than try to beat him up," said Schrader.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon told NewsChannel 8 Wu and his constituents will have to wrestle with his circumstances. "If he's having a hard time, I wish him all the best in figuring it out," said Merkley.

Meanwhile, one of the most interesting reactions to yesterday's Good Morning America appearance comes from TIME magazine senior editor Amy Sullivan in a piece entitled, "David Wu Apologizes for the Part of the Story No One Cared About".

Noting that Wu apologized for emailing the Halloween tiger photos for staff, Sullivan points out that there's quite a bit of other bizarre behavior that Wu has yet to explain:

[S]etting aside the Halloween pictures, there's still the matter of:

• Taking oxycodone from a campaign donor,
• Engaging in such hostile and erratic behavior during the campaign last fall that his staff urged him to be hospitalized for psychiatric care and then quit after he won reelection,
• Talking his way past airport security in Portland in order to hit up deplaning passengers for votes,
• Taking the highly unusual step of making himself his own campaign treasurer after yet another staff member quit last week,
• And--based on what I was hearing from Wu staff way back in 1999 during his first term in Congress--generally being one of the most volatile and verbally abusive members of Congress.

Next to all that, apologizing for the Halloween photos is like your teenage son throwing an out-of-control bash that culminates in a Snickers-and-deep-fryer incident that burns down the house, and then apologizing for not watering the plants while you were gone.

And in a sign that perhaps the entire saga has jumped the shark, South Carolina U.S. Senate nominee Alvin Greene (yeah, that guy) weighed in via Twitter.

By Kari Chisholm Feb. 23, 2011