How can Ed Murray serve Seattle for 8 more months?

It is said that Ed Murray has bowed out of the next Seattle mayoral race. But, after Tuesday’s press conference, that is not how I would characterize it.

He didn’t “bow out.” He’s whining his way out. Martyring his way out. Eternally victimizing his way out. Bowing out would have been much more gracious than the nonsense we heard Tuesday morning.

DORI: No desire to see Ed Murray personally destroyed

Murray faces a civil lawsuit alleging he paid a minor for sex in the ’80s. The lawsuit represents one of four now-grown men who have accused Murray of child rape decades ago. How in the world does Ed Murray continue to serve out the next eight months in office with this kind of cloud hanging over him? I don’t know.

As Murray said Tuesday:

The mayor’s race must be focused on these issues, not on a scandal, which it would be focused on if I were to stay in this race. The allegations against me paint me in the worst possible historic portraits of a gay man. The allegations against me are not true and I say this with all honesty and with the deepest sincerity, that the scandal … is hurting this city. It hurts those who have been victims of abuse, it hurts my family, it hurts (my husband) Michael. For these reasons, I’m announcing that I’m withdrawing as a candidate for mayor.

OK. If all of these things are too much of a distraction for re-election, how is he going to finish the next eight months as Seattle’s mayor?

I’m sure the tipping point was the incredibly compelling interview that KIRO 7 aired Monday night, when Lloyd Anderson said Murray raped him as a child. The man has family and kids and is not asking for anything. He has no reason to come forward with those accusations other than having someone who he says is a serial child rapist out of office.

Last week, Murray said something that convinced me he was guilty of these accusations. It was when he said that “either you are looking at a serial pedophile, or this is a big political take down.” That statement has stuck with me. And the idea became reinforced with the interview of Lloyd Anderson. I found that interview to be very compelling.

If Murray is guilty (yes, a big if), how do we let someone like that continue for another nearly eight months as mayor of Seattle?

Murray’s supporters have heard the allegations and compelling words against him and yet they applauded and cried behind him as he made his announcement Tuesday. It was all poor-poor me, right from the very beginning. All of these lackeys standing behind him, applauding wildly at his every utterance, and then Murray, before he got to say that he is not running again for mayor, started telling us about all the wondrous things he has done.

What I see in Seattle under Murray is a homelessness problem that is worse, while other cities are seeing a decrease. People can’t afford to stay in their houses. Taxation through the roof.

Today, though, I heard that Ed Murray was the greatest mayor ever.

What about people who have to deal with hypodermic needles and crime? What about the rampage of shootings over the last few weeks? All the crime that comes along with homelessness and the drug addiction problem? A problem Murray has so carefully enabled under his watch. What about the masses who have to deal with the daily gridlock? A traffic problem that is not only the result of incompetence in transportation planning but also placing someone in charge of transportation who has ethics violations and bilks the tax payers out of millions. Those are the realities of Mayor Ed Murray’s time in office.

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