Pinot grief

To wrap up the exhausting day we all had yesterday, last night a small band of Portland's left-wing troublemakers decided to hassle Mayor F. Ted Wheeler after one of them tweeted out that they had spotted him out on a date in the outdoor portion of a restaurant in northwest Portland. They had their cameras rolling, so they could record the whole thing on video.

The main provocateur, a guy whom you can't really see in the video, kept yelling at Wheeler for several minutes. He was calling him Tevis, which I guess is his real name. Called him all sorts of other things, too.

Wheeler showed an enormous amount of restraint. Watching the tape, I kept thinking, what would previous mayors have done in this situation? 

Frank Ivancie would have clocked the guy. Neil Goldschmidt might have, too. I don't think Vera Katz would have stood there taking it the way Wheeler did, either. 

Less clear is what Tom Potter would have done. Tom was a former police chief who was probably packing heat. Charlie Hales? Sam Adams? Also interesting to consider.

Bud Clark, a professional bartender who handled many an obnoxious jerk, would have humiliated those people so badly that we'd be laughing about it for a month.

But the one I would have paid to see is city councilman Randy Leonard. Admiral Randy would have chopped the heckler into little pieces and sprinkled him on his salad.

Anyway, this is life in Portland now. The avengers of all societal wrongs are running wild. If you don't vote the way they want, they'll break your windows and ruin your dinner date.

The voters of Portland just spoke about Wheeler. The voters said, pretty convincingly, that they prefer Wheeler to what the "protesters" have to offer. But that's not the end of it these days. The people who didn't get their way in the election have to keep acting out. 

It sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, other anarchists (or whatever they are) ran around downtown breaking windows again last night. Jacob Blake, Jacob Blake, let's trash Starbucks again! We will not be out-rioted. 

The cops followed them around but arrested no one. Great job, officers, as usual.