Let's cut to the chase on this Bob Filner matter. He intelligently analyzed San Diego's festering problem: the neighborhoods and infrastructure are being ignored while the money is being hogged downtown for corporate welfare projects that should be financed with private capital. He got this message through to the public. He got elected.

But he has always been arrogant and abrasive...an a-hole, if you will. And he admits that for many years, he has had a problem of being abusive to women. This was an egregious political liability that he should have known could kill him politically. His current accusers say his problem goes back many years, but none came forward to point that out in his mayoral campaign. Once in office, he tried to wrest power from the downtown overlords in blunt and imperious ways. He micromanaged -- a sure route to staff problems. It appears that he told Democrats he was now their boss. Knowing his vulnerabilities -- that they had kept quiet -- they attacked. The rollout of accusers certainly smacks of a pre-planned barrage.

But instead of hitting the main issues -- that he is an a-hole who micromanages abusively -- his enemies took the certain political route: the sex scandal, which they had in their back pockets all along. The downtown overlords gleefully chipped in. By demanding his resignation -- which they will eventually get -- they avoid telling San Diegans the truth about this power struggle.

Tragically, the main idea he put forward -- that money has to go to rundown neighborhoods and rotting infrastructure -- will almost certainly evanesce as corporate welfare projects rise again. The public won't know what hit it. Sex scandals sell.