Nashville’s Mayor Has Stumbled. Who Will Cast the First Stone?

Nashville’s Mayor Has Stumbled. Who Will Cast the First Stone?
NASHVILLE — On Jan. 31, the mayor here, Megan Barry, called a news conference to announce
that she had been having an affair with Robert Forrest Jr., a police sergeant who was the head of her security detail: “It was wrong, and we shouldn’t have done it,” she said.
But for those who are unperturbed by appearances of hypocrisy, a sex scandal presents a golden opportunity to halt Ms. Barry’s ambitious progressive agenda — primarily her expensive plan for public transit,
but also her unequivocal support for abortion rights, gun control, same-sex marriage and refugee resettlement — and end any plans she might have for higher office.
“Please know that I’m disappointed in myself but also understand that I’m a human and that I made a mistake,” Ms. Barry said in her news conference.
All we know for sure is that this is a particularly fraught moment in American history for
a person in a position of power — male or female — to reveal an affair with a subordinate
An editorial in the conservative Tennessee Star wasted no time in calling for her resignation: “Barry
and the fawning, liberal Nashville media are trying the Clinton defense.”
In the age of Donald Trump, conservatives have surely surrendered the right to moral outrage on this particular subject.
Along with this confession, the mayor offered the kind of full-throated apology we almost never get from
public officials: “I accept full responsibility for the pain I have caused my family and his,” she said.
“I knew my actions could cause damage to my office and the ones I loved, but I did it anyway.”
She ended her statement with a pledge: “God will forgive me, but the people of Nashville don’t have to.