The Man in the Tiger Suit

The Daily Beast, Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 6:20am (PDT)

By Winston Ross, The Daily Beast

• For years Rep. David Wu has managed to bounce back from one strange escapade after another. Oregonians re-elected the Portland Democrat to a seventh term in November, not yet knowing that he'd emailed his staff bizarre pictures of himself in a tiger suit. The pictures later went viral, and “David Wu tiger” became the most popular Google search term for the congressman.

  Related story on The Daily Beast: The Murdoch board is under fire

  But Wu's long, strange career in Congress may be coming to an end at last, amid accusations that he finally did something offensive enough to warrant a congressional ethics investigation.

  RELATED: Wu and other VIPs who have resigned amid sex scandals

  The congressman is being urged to resign immediately over a teenager's allegations that Wu forced her into an unwanted sexual encounter. While he says he won't seek reelection in 2012, he is resisting calls to leave office before then.

  According to a report that ran in The Oregonian over the weekend, a “distraught” 18-year-old girl left a voicemail at Wu's Portland office accusing him of an “aggressive” sexual encounter.

  Wu, 56, acknowledged that some kind of sexual encounter did occur with the 2010 high-school graduate, the daughter of a longtime friend and campaign donor, but claimed it was consensual, the newspaper's sources said.

  While the girl didn't contact police at the time of the "unwanted" sexual behavior, Wu isn't necessarily denying it.

  “This is very serious,” Wu said in a statement. “I have absolutely no desire to bring unwanted publicity, attention, or stress to a young woman and her family.”

  The teenager has declined to comment, but the newspaper's sources say she's the daughter of a high-school friend of Wu's in Orange County and that the alleged incident took place last Thanksgiving weekend. The sources said the woman didn't think there was enough evidence to press charges, given the lack of witnesses. Why she decided to bring it up months later, and via an emotional voicemail, is anyone's guess.

  But Wu has apparently decided that this is the political scandal straw that broke the camel's back. Spokesman Erik Dorey told The Daily Beast on Monday that though Wu isn't resigning, he has decided not to seek reelection in 2012.

  Asked why Wu isn't quitting now, Dorey declined to elaborate. But the congressman, whose staff tried unsuccessfully last fall to get him to check himself into a psychiatric hospital, may not be able to make it until the end of his term, especially if calls for his resignation continue to mount.

• “It's probably time for him to resign,” said Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University, in Wu's district. “But knowing his personality, and him, I don't think he will.”

  The congressman doesn't have a life he can hop right back to, Moore said, and may want some time to figure out how he's going to earn a living before he leaves office. And he may want to use the time to see if he really has to hang up his congressional hat.

  Wu has survived scandal before, and he may think this, too, shall pass. In 2004, he apologized for a 1976 incident that led to an allegation the congressman tried to rape his former girlfriend. He then handily won reelection. Portlanders don't bounce liberal pols from office very often.

  “His experience says if you just hunker down, these things will blow over,” Moore said.

  Whether that happens may depend on the outcome of the congressional ethics investigation that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for on Sunday, though she notably stopped short of asking for Wu to step down.

  Moore said he thinks Pelosi's decision reflects a prevailing attitude that Wu's creepy behavior doesn't rise to the level of, say, Anthony Weiner, whose resignation she did call for after the New York congressman was caught sending lewd pictures to numerous women.

  But if Wu's scandal isn't so bad, why not weather the storm and see if voters will look the other way in yet another election next fall?

  “What I think is going on is the age difference between the two, and the fact that The Oregonian characterized this as an unwanted sexual relationship,” Moore said. “That's what pushes it over the line.”

  Wu likely realizes his chances at keeping his seat are now slim, especially with a growing list of candidates lining up to challenge him.

  Among them is Oregon Democrat Brad Witt, who offered a somewhat muddled demand for Wu's resignation in an interview with The Daily Beast on Monday.

  Wu should quit, Witt said, if he is “seeking out the professional help and the magnitude of the help he needs would undoubtedly divert him from his ability to provide first-rate representation for his constituents. I just can't imagine, given the series of poor judgment calls and improprieties, that he's going to be able to address this in just a couple of days.”

• The congressman needs to resign now, Witt said, because “if this is true, then it's another person, at least one other person who has been harmed by this, and it rises to a higher level than perhaps the past series of events.”

  State Rep. Mitch Greenlick, a Portland Democrat, said Wu is “obviously having an episode of mental illness” and that people shouldn't be forced out of their jobs but instead need to be given the opportunity to seek treatment.

  Still, this should be the congressman's last term, Greenlick said. “One shoe after another kept dropping. And my suspicion is that there's probably more stuff that's going to show up,” he said. “Now he's running, trying to raise money while he's under siege."

  Allen Alley, chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, said it would be “ridiculous” to allow to Wu finish his term.

  “The citizens of Oregon made a decision without having all the data on this guy,” Alley said. “I think he should resign.”

  Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

  Winston Ross is a reporter for the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon and a regular contributor to Newsweek.com. He blogs irregularly at winstonross.wordpress.com.

  For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.