The culprit's perspective?

By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom is the culprit. He’s the elected official, the boss, the guardian of the public treasury, the guy asking for our continued trust, the only reason why anyone cares who Ruby Rippey-Tourk fucked.
Amid all the chatter about Newsom girlfriend Jennifer Siebel’s nasty comments about Rippey-Tourk, few people have keyed in to what strikes me as the most important revelation in all of this: Newsom appears to have lied when, upon admitting the affair, he proclaimed, “I am accountable for what has occurred.”
Newsom has proven himself anything but accountable since then. He has refused to answer questions about the incident or the alleged alcohol abuse treatment he’s chosen to seek, even as there have been new revelations about improper payoffs to Rippey-Tourk using public funds and ethical questions raised about his rehab.
Except for one softball television interview, Newsom has refused to field any questions on the subject from the public or media, acting like a wounded victim or a blind and deaf man whenever I or anyone else has tried to press the issue at public events (something we’re forced to do by Newsom’s refusal to hold regular press conferences). Absent that accountability, we’re left to sift through the tea leaves of his girlfriend’s extensive comments – which, it seems clear, are based on what Newsom has told her-- to learn how Newsom really feels about Rippey-Tourk and his own culpability in the affair.
In other words, this is closest thing we’ve seen to Newsom’s true feelings about what happened (an account that Newsom has yet to disavow, going on three days later). And the results are not pretty, revealing Newsom to be a dishonest and dishonorable cad who still doesn’t have a clue as to what he did wrong.

Let’s start with money quote – “the woman is the culprit” – a well-worn phrase that causes feminists everywhere to cringe. But it seems to sum up the perspective that Siebel offered in her Chronicle interview, in which she cast Newsom as the unfortunate victim of a tainted woman and mean journalists. "All of this stuff that happened and came out was in a darker period of Gavin's life: going through a divorce, losing his mother, being under all the pressure he is under. The supervisors and The Chronicle have not made things any easier. It's amazing that he's as sane and healthy and down-to-earth as he is."
The article repeatedly indicates that she takes Newsom at his word, twice talking about his honesty and saying, “At the end of the day, what it comes down to: We connected right away, we communicated right away.” I’ve already written about whether she’s being gullible and some of the other disturbing parts of this article (such as the strange “arranged marriage” aspect of this), but let’s keep the focus on Newsom. Clearly, her understanding of this affair came straight from Newsom.
So let’s move on to the more frank and extensive comments that Siebel made in her SFist post, beginning with the most disturbing passage: “what's your definition of affair? he's been so hurt by this all -- personally and professionally- and it was a few nothing incidents when she showed up passed out outside of his door. come on guys, have a heart. I have tried to see Ruby's side of the story but unfortunately everyone near to her has stories and says she is bad news.”
I’m not quite sure how she justifies Newsom having sex with someone who has just passed out on his doorstep. If accurate, there are serious legal issues raised by someone having sex with a woman too inebriated to give her informed consent. Even if we assume this disturbing portrait is exaggerated, it still seems to flow from a narrative that we do know, which is that Rippey-Tourk was having substance abuse problems that last May landed her in rehab. Most observers think that places all the more responsibility on Newsom – her boss and the boss and friend of her husband – not to take advantage of the situation. Newsom and Siebel seem to believe just the opposite, that Ruby had it coming because “she is bad news.”
Now is a good time for me to repeat an earlier point. Newsom is the only player in this drama that matters to the public. The rest is sex and gossip. It doesn’t matter whether Rippey-Tourk was a bad mother, a bad wife, or a completely train wreck (and I’m not saying any of these things, although many blog commenters are) who seduced our poor hapless mayor. All that should matters is that our mayor had sex with a subordinate, in the process betraying Alex Tourk (a close friend and confidante who was his deputy chief of staff and later his reelection campaign manager), and that he oversaw a payout of more than $10,000 in taxpayer money to that subordinate. Everything else is just sex. But Siebel’s comments are not just about sex, they are about whether our mayor is an honorable man who has accepted responsibility for his actions and deserves a second chance and a second term.
Siebel wrote, “but i am not going to blindly support a woman who has cheated on her husband multiple times and watch while my boyfriend is the only one who gets punished..and, what, for something a long time ago when the man was going through a crises- divorce, the loss of his mother, the pressures of being mayor, etc. and he was vulnerable and lonely?”
For the record, Rippey-Tourk says Siebel’s comments are untrue, the Guardian has no reason to believe it’s true, and there has been nobody who has produced any evidence that Rippey-Tourk had multiple affairs. In fact, that statement is probably libelous, which is why the Chronicle was afraid to print it (we consulted our own lawyer and were told we could discuss it in this context provided that we indicate that it is simply an unfounded accusation). And it certainly seems to follow in the ugly tradition of exploring the sexual histories of women who have raped or otherwise taken advantage of, as if they are Jezebels who deserve whatever they get. But the most important question here: Where do you think Siebel heard that version? Who planted and reinforced the notion that Rippey-Tourk was some kind she-devil on a mission to bring down angels? Did Newsom trash a woman that he once took advantage of in order to excuse his own behaviors? Is that really how he thinks about what happened?
Siebel also seems to share Newsom’s perspective that the press is the problem, not the substance of what the press is writing about, whether it be his record of broken political promises or his unwillingness to come clean about his scandals. “I hate the press,” Siebel said, noting that she had been tricked into the Chronicle interview and misquoted (even though the Chron’s Cecelia Vega noted that Siebel had praised the Chron for its article). “the press just decided to make it that. also, something to consider, we have so much power as women and yet it's taken away by stuff like this- gossip and mistruths.”
So sayeth the trafficker in Rippey-Tourk gossip and mistruths, the woman who has chosen to trash the Tourks even as they have been silent throughout this scandal, refusing to make any public comments about Newsom.
“i just wish her the best in her recovery and marriage and i just wish that she would leave gavin and i alone and stop causing all of this drama and gossip. she did a bad thing to her husband and needs to take responsibility. gavin is and has taken responsiblity and it's not like i haven't given him tough love through this at times. but anyone close to him knows he is a good man and a great mayor,” she wrote.
For the record, Rippey-Tourk has taken responsibility, sought real help, tried to make amends, and came clean to her husband (which is how this story broke in the first place, much to the secretive mayor’s chagrin). Newsom, by contrast, seems to be denying his responsibility, both to the public and to his girlfriend.
I, too, am trying to show the mayor a little tough love, which I frankly don’t think he’s actually getting much from Siebel or the sycophants that he’s surrounded himself with. That’s part of the problem. Newsom and his people seem to feel so entitled to their position, so destined for bigger things, so disdainful of questions they didn’t write themselves that they’ve forgotten that running a city is tough business that requires them to interact with the media, the Board of Supervisors, and maybe a hundred other constituencies. They’ve become brittle and unaccountable, even more so since he made his statement that, “I am accountable.”
Newsom should now be assumed to share Siebel’s disturbing perspective, but it doesn’t have to be that way if he wants to truly be accountable. He can do that by starting to hold regular press conference and public forums in which he’ll answer all questions on any topic. And he can do that by heeding the will of the voters who passed Prop. I and want him to appear at monthly meetings of the Board of Supervisors to discuss important policy matters. In other words, he can start acting like a mayor, rather than a celebrity.
Or, he can remain bunkered down in his fantasy world of victimhood and resentment, with an adoring if vapid girlfriend who thinks he’s the “best mayor in the world.” Because at this point, I think she’s the only one who feels that way.

Comments (11)

amosmag

I’ve just read the Matier & Ross account about the latest fallout over Siebel’s school girl post about Ruby Rippey-Tourk. They report that a furious Ruby Tourk had a conference call with her lawyer and her publicist, followed by a call to Newsom’s lawyer.
I would dearly love to see a “furious” Rippey-Tourk. Every picture of her that I have seen on the internet shows a beautiful young girl with wide-eyed innocence clearly visible. These pictures have led me to wonder how Rippey-Tourk, who undoubtedly started life with such promise, wound up in politics, the slimiest occupation one can imagine.
When I say that she looks “innocent,” I am not talking about sex. Everyone in America knows the 48 positions and can probably execute most of them with ease.
No, I am talking about an ignorance of the prime directive of politics: everyone is expendable, and expendability increases the lower one is on the totem pole. The halls of power are littered with the bodies of young women who wandered into a mine field and couldn’t make it out before losing a limb or worse.
Ruby Rippey-Tourk has learned her lesson the hard way. I am certain she is genuinely working hard to get her life back on track. Siebel, on the other hand, seems destined to jump her own tracks. We probably won’t hear from her again, although she has been somewhat erratic lately.
If Ruby-Tourk is smart, and I think she is, she’ll get out of San Francisco (if she hasn’t already done so) and find a new career in a socially redeeming field such as hands-on experience with neglected and abused children. Hawking used hand bags is below her talents.

Posted by amosmag | March 14, 2007 02:43 AM

jonesy

There are two worlds, one for Gavin and the "Billionaire Boys Club" members he surrounds himself with and the other for the poor useless riff raff that they all must deal with which includes probably 99.9% of the voters and all of his employees at the city. The Mayor came into office promising "best practices", "the best and the brightest" and a thousand other sound bites to portray the then Brown administration (which tapped him for supervisor) as corrupt and himself as someone above the fray who was committed to change. But as the old saying goes the more things change the more they stay the same or in this administration get worse, which brings me to my point. Throughout this entire tragic affair of Gavin betraying a loyal, hard working and selfless friend and violating that friends wife and putting their family at risk there is a fundamental issue that falls at Gavins door or more appropriately the door of his Chief of Staff, Phil Ginsberg. Phil is as most people know a former city attorney in the labor relations division who went on to be tapped as head of the Department of Human Resources. I suspect that this appointment had more to do with Phils going along with Gavins ambitious plan of "Civil Service Reform" structured to break the unions and unempower the ranks of city workers than with his abilities but he was none the less the Director. As Director and as an attorney skilled in labor practices and complex charter matters Phil is keenly aware that laws were broken relative to the processing of Ms Tourks timecards and perhaps in the settlement she received as part of the catastrohic illness porgram, he was the ultimate authority on personel matters for all of the city in his previous tenure. Also under his previous tenure many city employees were subjected to dismissal and protracted disciplinary proceedings for what the city terms as "falsification of records" which covers a multitude of issues but which also covers abuse or falsification of timecard records. The information covered in various articles on this affair clearly indicates the breaking of laws relative to the falisification provisions and Phil knows it. Obviously Phil would rather have his former colleagues at the City Attorneys office investigate this breach and keep his political career on fast track, but unfortunately he is paid by the public and needs to take action on this matter as he is "the expert" on these matters and also now the manager overseeing the office where these abuses occurred. Doubt it will ever happen as politicians like Phil don't like the hard part of what their getting paid for and certainly don't like pissing on the guy who put them there but the fact remains that Mr.Ginsberg gets paid very, very well for a job and that job requires that he obey the charter and obey the law. If Phil could discipline other low level managers and civil servants before for these offenses he can certainly go after the offenders now who are "his" staff. Don't hold your breath because if Phil does the right thing he'll be one step behind Steve Kawa and won't get whatever Gavin promised him as payment for making "the mess" go away but it clearly shows the rest of us and in particular the city employees who were held to a different standard, some of whom lost their jobs for much lessor offences, what truly is going on here.

Posted by jonesy | March 14, 2007 01:29 PM

Scribe

Good point, Jonesy. In fact, KGO's Dan Noyes interviewed Ginsburg, who admitted that Rippey-Tourk's timecards were not properly handled. And to clear up any confusion, I wrote the original piece, but I'm not this Jonesy.
Steven T.
http://www.abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=i_team&id=5094582

Posted by Scribe | March 14, 2007 03:05 PM

vanity

Thank you for this article. It sums up everything I feel about this situation much more articulately than I have been able to. And I say this as a former Newsom supporter.

Thanks again.

Posted by vanity | March 14, 2007 03:57 PM

thesurf

Let's give this issue a rest. It's very obvious that the SFBG is bias against Newsom, so where is the credibility of your reporting? SF voters are much smarter. The Mayor's approval ratings are still very high. It won't be long before the Nov election, yet there is no serious challenger.

Posted by thesurf | March 14, 2007 09:23 PM

The only bias that seems obvious, thesurf, is yours in favor of Newsom. Why is your side so dismissive and contemptuous of debate about this issue? Must we all blindly follow the mayor and believe all his dubious pronouncements? I don't think so, and I believe voters are smart enough to understand that we're not the partisans in this debate.
stj

Posted by Scribe | March 15, 2007 01:04 PM

There are a couple of things that probably will keep this story moving forever. One is absolute silence from the administration (with the exception of deputy mayor Jennifer Siebel). Nothing will rouse the juices of a journalist quicker than a very loud silence.
The second thing is the unresolved issue and the unanswered questions about the fiscal laxness of the administration. Until someone adequately explains how about $10,000 in public funds were disbursed without authorization, or until an outside agency investigates the matter, journalists are going to continue digging.

Posted by amosmag | March 15, 2007 04:03 PM

patmonk

"Gavin Gets Clean Charade"
I wonder if 'la blanca' is a topic that ever comes up in behind closed doors 'sessions' with his personal, impartial, objective counselor/sponsor. How many of us have spent wasted days and wasted nights convincing each other that we didn't have a 'real' problem, we were just recreational users; though I must confess that many of those nights were wasted deliciously!. Anyone who has been around the block at least once knows that Mama Coca was the other willing participant in that now infamous menage, along with the Lady in the sky with diamonds. Do you think KenDoll will ever come clean on that ? But then again miracles do happen, after all Ken Swaggart got "cured" of 'unatural tendencies' after just a few weeks special treatment: Maybe KenDoll can be cured of delusions of grandeur, a sense of entitlement and just being a plain old a**hole: that is if he is ever in town long enough to take care of the peoples business, and meet with Mimi.
On a related topic, special treatment for the privileged. Maybe the Sacred Heart Scumbags who reportedly flashed gang signs and taunts of "415" before wilding and stomping on the preppies recently, should not be subject to the same gang ordinances as their 'lesser' brethren in BVHP, Mission, Western Addition etc; maybe all they need is to sentenced to a couple of hours a day in their rec rooms watching Sesame Street re-runs so they can learn how to become 'nice boys' and good neighbors.
On a different topic, if you've got this far. Free Public Transportation for the People.Of course it's a good idea, but who is gonna subsidize it. Logically it should be the large Corporations and businesses who benefit most from having their labor force delivered to their door and consumers to their emporiums. But can you imagine KenDoll taking that to his $pon$or$. He would surely find a backdoor scheme whereby he could, directly or indirectly, pass the burden on to small business, neighborhood interests and taxpayers. If anyone doubts that the major purpose of our 'public' transportation system is to service 'business', then why is it that on weekends, when most of us peons have time to recreate or tend to personal business, countless precious hours of freedom are wasted waiting for the bus that never comes due to 'reduced service'. But then I guess it is our fault if we can't afford to jump in our SUV, pay for parking, burnup fuel and add to pollution, in order to get to the nearest Starbucks, Petit dejeuner place du jour, Pottery Barn or PlumpJack.
God, what a miserable bunch of self-serving, corrupt, mendacious, heartless, arrogant mo-fo's we have in power,destroying all that is special, precious and beautiful in this once great city. We need to root the rot out of the San Francisco Peoples House. Serve notice on the current occupant on Room 200. Encourage everyone to run, Matt, Art, Angela, Danny G, Ross, Chris, Tom, Mike etc, etc. Let's get off our butts, get busy and let 'em know that we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take this shit no mo !!!
OK. I'm done, feel better now. Should be another glorious weekend. Grab your honey, whatever gender or species you prefer, and take a walk or bike somewhere, slow down, simply soak it all in and enjoy before it is sold to Newsom/Maxwell/Lennar Inc, and we can't afford to live here anymore. Thanks for your time
Patrick Monk.RN. Noe Valley.

Posted by patmonk | March 15, 2007 08:59 PM

general

There's a lot of mindreading and just plain bullshit here. Basing a pile of detailed speculation about Newsom's state of mind and the imperfection of his contrition on notion that Seibel must be parroting his words is just stupid. It's possible, of course, but so is this: Seibel has heard a lot in great detail from many people, she has strong feelings and opinions about it, and she has come to her own conclusions, flawed as they may be, about how to apportion responsibility.

Worse is the allegation, repeated above and many places elsewhere, of rape based on Seibel's single sentence declaring that Ruby showed up nearly passed out at Newsom's place. If you heard that sentence during a gossip session about two people whose secret affair had turned messy, but you didn't already despise the man or feel personally or politically betrayed by him, I doubt you would infer rape -- and if you did, it would say more about you than the narrative. While, again, it is *possible* that Seibel's phrase alluded to instances of something like date rape, a more plausible interpretation would be that her words summarized, (and possibly hyperbolized) a pattern of behavior that she heard about second or third hand, and which she thought best characterized the sleazy onset and essentially transient nature of the affair. She was trying to illustrate that the relationship was brief, superficial, ill-conceived, and mostly Ruby's fault.

I'm certainly not saying she's right about that or that she made a very good case. I'm saying that turning her sketchy hearsay version of how it all went into a window on Newsom's soul or an implication of rape is either dumb or dishonest.

You know, at this point when you want to rip Newsom on a personal or political level, it's not like you have to scrounge for facts. Why not just stick to them? If you feel super-tabloidy or self-righteous, you can still dress them up in florid tones and dramatic adjectives. That will make them a little harder to find, and make the post a little more about you, but there will still be facts in there. In some places, that counts.

Posted by general | March 17, 2007 05:42 PM

I apologize for repeatedly misspelling Siebel. And anything else I misspelled, for that matter.

Posted by general | March 17, 2007 05:57 PM

I don’t know if anyone watched the video tape of a 6’1”, 250 pound Chicago police officer unmercifully beat a 5’4”, 115 pound female bartended in a Chicago neighborhood bar. I did and the beating was quite savage.
The beating occurred in February but the officer wasn’t arrested until March. Why the delay? The so-called officer straight away entered rehab. Ostensibly, the Chicago police either couldn’t locate him or were prevented by law from arresting individuals in rehab facilities.
Right now, the policeman has been suspended, his badge and gun confiscated, and the state’s attorney is investigating accusations that the officer and at least one of his friends intimidated the bartended by threatening her and offering her money shortly after the beating.
What does this have to do with the topic that headlined this article “The culprit’s perspective?”
Well, for starters, there’s the rehab angle. Ruby Tourk entered rehab in June 2006. She spent ten weeks in a facility, and according to a recent report, she has been sober for ten moths. Based on what we know now, we must assume that Ruby’s rehab was sincere rather than a cover-the-buns reaction to a political crisis.
Newsom, on the other hand, didn’t enter rehab until his political handlers convinced him that rehab would be a politically astute move. As it happened, the “rehab” he entered was rehab in name only. Later he was quoted as saying he didn’t think he was an alcoholic anyway.
. But the rehab angle isn’t the only similarity between Newsom and this Chicago policeman. A more disturbing comparison characterizes the entire spectrum of politics in America. It is the size and disparity in power between the large (powerful) and small (powerless) individuals in out society.
In this specific matter, Newsom is the 250 pound gorilla and Ruby Tourk is the 105 pound female bartender. When push comes to shove, the gorilla will win every time.
Remember the old joke: Question “Where does a gorilla sit?” Answer “Anywhere he wants.” That pretty well summarizes the disparity in power between the mayor of San Francisco and an employee at the lower end of the political and bureaucratic totem pole.
A more startling example of disparity in power can be found in Washington, D.C. Bush is the 250-pound gorilla and the American electorate, who recently ejected so many Republicans from Congress that the Democrats gained a majority in both houses, is the 105-pound female bartender.
Apparently the 250-pound gorilla in the White House sits anywhere he wants.
Oh, I almost forgot—when the police officer’s defense team gets in high gear, the 5’ 4” female bartender will undoubtedly be branded “the culprit.”

Posted by amosmag | March 22, 2007 11:18 AM

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