Sam Adams has posted an open letter on his blog that is worth reading.  If you don't know, Portland City Commissioner, and potential mayoral candidate, Sam Adams, is the target of a viscous smear campaign by evil developer and potential mayoral rival, Bob Ball.  The details of the allegations against Adams will not be repeated here.  They are easily found if you are interested, but the fact that they are unfounded and exceptionally viscous is enough, and Adams deserves better.

This is not a political blog, nor do I want it to be.  But given Adams' support for the arts in Portland, and his active involvement in the community, it's time to offer some support in return.  Adams' contributions to art and artists in Portland are a matter of record and it would be a significant loss to our culture were he absent from local politics.  Even with that ridiculous tram, and the chaos and destruction he's created in downtown Portland.  But we're not all perfect.

Which is what got Adams in this trouble in the first place.  An obvious desire to do good, to help a young man who had the audacity to ask, has been turned into innuendo and rumor of the worst sort.  Now I don't know Sam Adams, I've never met him personally, but I've seen him around.  Portland is a very small town in many ways, and you don't have to spend much time downtown to encounter, well, everyone.  Adams seems like an honest, likeable, respectable man.  An unlikely politician perhaps, but also someone I think I'd enjoy meeting, which, when I think about it, isn't something I can say about most of our public figures.

Bob Ball, on the other hand, appears to be exactly the sort of creature who would exploit another man's good nature.  I don't recall behavior like his in Portland, a town remarkably free of mudslinging, at least on the local level, but then I don't pay much attention.  I miss alot, and I would have missed this, too, if it weren't for Adams' contributions to local art and culture that keep me reading his blog.  And in many ways, I wish I had missed it.  No one needs the likes of Bob Ball, least of all Sam Adams.