ParadeGate: Cui Bono?

I'm posting a follow-up on the whole parade issue for two main reasons. First, I've always wanted to give a scandal a name that ends in "gate." Well, I'm calling this ParadeGate, and I hope that enough people raise a stink about what happened, and use this term to communicate the importance and local impact of the scandal and the long-term repercussions it brings.

Second, I want to make it clear, based on a misinterpretation of my previous post, that I was not accusing anybody in particular of being responsible for the City Attorney's letter. I cast shame upon the Mayor only because, well, it's the Mayor's Fourth of July Parade, and, as the Mayor, the "buck" is supposed to stop with her. Whether it came from inside city staff, or council, or the parade committee, or the KGB, it doesn't matter: She's the Mayor, so the shame is, ultimately, on her.


As far as who is responsible, remember Innocent until proven guilty. This is turning out to be a quite a mystery that will need a bit of investigation. As with crimes and political intrigue, a way of come up with a list of "suspects" is to ask yourself: Cui Bono — who benefits? The comments on Lauren's latest post about the issue are ripe with potential beneficiaries of this ruling.

Ultimately, I think that this dirty laundry will be one the line for us to examine within the next couple of weeks, as long as the issue doesn't get ignored. (I was surprised that there was no mention of the issue in this last week's Journal or Sun, but maybe they weren't prepared to write up something on such short notice.)

By the way, I thought that the victims of the gag handled their predicament with honor and grace. Rob Bonta's campaign was out in full force — family and friends wearing Bonta T-shirts, big Bonta signs on the convertible — but thanks to some last-minute self-censorship, the signs just said "for City." I wonder if people were perplexed by the display, or if enough people knew that this was a censored campaign entry. Tony Daysog's float looked a bit more self-serving, a rolling résumé of sorts, but people could probably figure out that he was running for something again even if they didn't understand why his display didn't say it. The third victim that I could find by perusing the program was likely to be Chris Pareja, an independent candidate running for Congress. I don't know if he even made it to the parade or not; he may have been there but just lost among the People Who Weren't In The Parade Last Year. I'm curious to find out if anybody else was told that their float couldn't contain any advocacy.