Will anybody ask the question?

Neil Goldschmidt's speechwriter told Ted Kulongoski about Goldschmidt's babysitter rape, and was shocked when Kulongoski ignored it. Read it in his own words, published just today.

When does Ted Kulongoski have to answer the question about why he continued his association with a man that he knew was a rapist and referred to as excrement?

Excerpt:
Convinced by Neil's former state police bodyguard [This is Bernie Guisto] in 1994 that the rumors were true, I told Kulongoski, my close friend and at that time Oregon's attorney general. But the statute of limitations had expired, and Neil had obtained a confidentiality agreement from his now-adult victim in exchange for cash.

A child rapist had not only escaped justice and public shame, he cashed in on his government career, becoming the wealthiest and most influential power broker in Oregon. Ted often used a two-word phrase to describe Goldschmidt and others like him who undeservedly attain wealth and power: "Shit floats."

I stayed away from Neil out of disgust, and I assumed Ted would do the same.

But by 2001 when Ted was gearing up to run for governor, he told me that the hardest part of that job would be "keeping Neil at arms length because he asks me to do unethical things."
It turned out to be harder than he thought.

During the campaign, Neil provided political strategy and access to corporate cash. As governor, Ted showered favors on Neil's clients, and in spite of what he knew of Neil's crime, appointed him to the State Board of Higher Education.

This reckless and irresponsible act was more than I could stomach. I took the story of Goldschmidt's crime and Kulongoski's knowledge to the state's leading newspaper, expecting to unleash a firestorm of outrage.

Instead, I encountered a conspiracy of silence and, even more sickening, indifference.
The Oregonian sat on my story for five months until its local rival, Willamette Week, exposed Goldschmidt's past in an investigative report that would later win its author, Nigel Jaquiss, a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize.


Leonhardt also chides the Oregonian for hypocrisy when it editorialized: "anyone in Congress who protected Foley should be given the boot, period. And that includes (House Speaker Dennis) Hastert himself," because sheltering a pedophile is "a truly odious act."

Short memory at the Oregonian, it seems. Leonhardt himself told the Oregonian about Goldschmidt's crime and Kulongoski's knowledge of it five months before Willamette Week broke the story - and the Oregonian sat on it.

Sounds like "sheltering a pedophile" to me! Will the Oregonian give itself the boot?

Update 4:40 PM:

Go to Jack Bog's Blog and read the response from Leonhardt himself which gives explicit detail on precisely when and where and why he told Ted Kulongoski about Goldschmidt.