AUTHOR: linda TITLE: A good story about Gav DATE: 9:59:00 PM ----- BODY:

What is Mayor Gavin Newsom like after dark?

Well, the public sure got a good peek this week, the worst of the worst made itself known, the fear of all fears, a brutal skewering of Gav in full public view...

... ADULTERY, with the wife of his deputy chief of staff!!

And, ALCOHOLISM, entering treatment for a long-rumored problem!!!

Gav told his staff this afternoon that he will be entering out-patient treatment to manage issues with alcohol abuse (as reported by The Chronicle, though radio KGO described it as alcohol use"), but he will not be stepping down as mayor.

"I take full responsibility for my personal mistakes and my problems with alcohol are not an excuse for my personal lapses in judgment," he said through a press release statement.

Allegedly, "questions have been raised about Newsom's drinking for quite some time," with today's announcement on the heels of the outing of an affair he had with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, his appointments secretary and the wife of his then deputy chief of staff.

So what does this have to do with his job as Mayor? Dorothy Barnhouse, of The Richmond neighborhood had this to say: "Newsom does not have to apologize to me or to anybody except the parties directly involved, just as Clinton did not have to apologize to anybody except his wife and, if the two of them as parents agreed it was appropriate, their daughter. Private behavior between consenting adults concerns only those adults and their spouses. Whoever first publicized it, and whoever continues to publicize it, needs to apologize to me."

Whatever Gav likes to do in the dark, stays in the dark. Unless you happen to be there. It is, however, a dark day for the Mayor.

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