Neil Goldschmidt in the Land of the Dead

Just two weeks ago, as Neil Goldschmidt’s ghost began drifting toward its next station in the Land of the Dead, there was a revealing, and actually entertaining, flurry of stories from the print media back here on earth – starting, as one would expect, with a much labored-over obituary in the Oregonian.

To their credit, they didn’t try to pass the disgraced former mayor and governor’s statutory rape of a young teenage girl off as a romantic interlude – an “affair,” as they attempted to spin in it a front page headline some thirty years ago.

As they freely admitted, yes, he had sex with that little girl, which made it statutory rape, and that is a definite no-no. But then, inexplicably switching back to their old ways, they said she was fourteen when it started and it lasted only a few months.

Which was, of course, part of the cover-up line from the beginning – as if it somehow reduced Goldschmidt’s guilt in the matter. Doesn’t anyone read these things before they send them out?

Other than that, however, the gist of the obituary seemed to be that, all-in-all, Goldschmidt had had such a glorious career, getting Portland’s economy moving as mayor, and then as governor converting the state to a technology-based economy, that maybe we should all excuse this apparent lapse in judgement and let bygones be bygones.

And in case you had any doubts on that score, they ended with a quote from a long-time Goldschmidt camp follower named Mitzi Scott.

“The point,” said Mitzi – and if you haven’t noticed before, one of the ways journalists let you know what they really think is who they give the last word to – “is all around this state and certainly around this city, Neil Goldschmidt transformed things and made lives better. Does that cease to exist because he made a mistake?

“No,” said Mitzi “it doesn’t.”

Later that day Willamette Week came out with a piece by Nigel Jaquiss, who, as you might expect, since he’s the one whose expose’ brought Goldschmidt down, took a somewhat less adoring view of the departed. He ended with a quote from Senator Ron Wyden, and as the state’s senior elected official put it rather succinctly:

“Neil Goldschmidt’s abuse of a young girl destroyed her life, a horrific act that should make any other discussion of his political career moot.”

We can only imagine the fervent discussions that must have ensued back at the Big O, as we used to call it. But three days later they were back again with, not one but two, further ruminations on the subject. One by occasional columnist Steve Duin, under the headline “The brutal legacy of Neil Goldschmidt,” and the other an unsigned piece by the editorial board – sort of the limited-hang-out version – entitled “The complicated legacy Neil Goldschmidt leaves for Oregon.” 

Duin seemed embarrassed enough by the Oregonian’s initial obit that he led, quite pointedly, with the Wyden quote, which of course the Oregonian otherwise completely ignored. In addition he  took some time to talk with former state senator Vicki Walker, who, as he reminded everyone, had started the whole thing rolling by giving Willy Week a copy of the heretofore secret settlement agreement between Goldschmidt and girl, Elizabeth Dunham.

And although he didn’t say who she got it from – Jaquiss would reveal that a couple of days later – I probably have some explaining to do because it was me. I apologize for the diversion.

At the time I was writing a column for the Portland Tribune, and in the course of the things had heard about Goldschmidt’s dirty secret. After poking around a bit I came up with the settlement agreement between Goldschmidt and Dunham, which had been filed in Washington County, indicating he was paying her $350 thousand to keep her mouth shut.

Of course I realized I had a bombshell I had on my hands – and I already had my own history with Goldschmidt, who as governor had held a couple of press conferences to denounce Kevin Francke and myself for raising questions about the Michael Francke murder investigation.

So I started doing interviews, trying to piece the story together. As it soon became apparent, however, the editor at the Trib – for reasons I certainly didn’t understand at the time – was never going to let me publish the story.

So I sent a copy of the settlement agreement to a young state senator, Vicki Walker, who had already demonstrated a willingness to stand up to Goldschmidt, expecting that she would ask Goldschmidt questions about it in an upcoming hearing. Then I’d be able to use those public utterances as a pretext for breaking the story out. I was, to be sure, tormented by the information I was carrying around inside and willing to try anything.

Well, it didn’t happen that way, and when I realized Vicki had taken the settlement to Willamette Week of course I had mixed feelings. However it didn’t take long to realize, as Vicki obviously had, that this was the only way the story was ever going to get out, and I actually gave WW more scraps of information I’d turned up in my own investigation.

If I haven’t said anything publicly about this before now, it’s because I didn’t want to even appear to be detracting from the truly excellent job Nigel Jaquiss and WW did in nailing it all down. I have a great deal of admiration for Nigel’s ability as a investigative reporter and for the sheer guts demonstrated back then by Willy Week’s publisher and editor, Richard Meeker and Mark Zusman. They had every reason to pretend there was nothing to see here, just as the Oregonian and Trib did at the time. But they didn’t, and good for them.

But back to the Oregonian’s coverage of Goldschmidt’s demise:

The same day Duin’s broadside appeared, the Oregonian’s editorial board came out with a new, revised take on the meaning of Goldschmidt’s life and death. In it they acknowledged that the girl had actually said she was thirteen, not fourteen when the sex started, and that it lasted much longer than Goldschmidt, or the Oregonian for that matter, had previously said.

“Goldschmidt’s legacy extends to the newspaper as well,” the Oregonian at long last acknowledged. “We failed to diligently follow up on a tip about the abuse. And we failed in our 2004 portrayal of Goldschmidt’s repeated rape of his neighbor’s daughter, including our notorious headline referencing the abuse as an ‘affair.’”

So far, so good.  And if you go online to the Oregonian’s archive, and look up their initial obituary which appeared on June 13, you’ll see that they’ve even pulled that adulatory Mitzi Scott quote from the story.

As some of the editors down there must realize, you don’t make wholesale changes in a story like that without at least noting that a correction has been made. Journalism 101. But hey, you can’t have everything.

And, who knows, this might even be a sign that the editors at the O are getting up the courage to acknowledge their equally awful performance over the years on the Michael Francke murder case – which, not at all incidentally, since as governor he  actually led the cover-up of the murder back in 1989-90 –  should be considered an inextricable part of Goldschmidt’s legacy.

Of all the local commentators, in fact, only law professor and blogger extraordinaire Jack Bogdanski thought to make the connection.

In fact, less than a year after the Oregonian got whupped by WW on the Goldschmidt story (and then of course tried to push the “affair” line in front-page headline), they published another stink-bomb billed as a be-all-end-all re-investigation of the Francke case – which, as is now clear, was little more than a regurgitation of the state’s fabricated case against Frank Gable.

As we know now, with the benefit of two federal court rulings  exonerating Gable, not only did they get their facts wrong but in what has to be one of the more despicable acts in the history of American “investigative” journalism, they personally attacked the brother of the murdered man – tried to make him out as crazy or a liar – for raising questions about the investigation.

The O’s rewrite of the Goldschmidt obituary is certainly a step in the right direction. But the Oregonian will never be made whole again until it confronts its equally deplorable history of trying to sweep the murder of a ranking law enforcement official, stabbed to death in front of the office where he worked, the night before he was scheduled to appear before a legislative committee and expose a rats’ nest of corruption he’d discovered within his own department, under the journalistic rug.