Writers know sleepless nights and the midnight oil. Frankly, I’ll miss them both.

There is satisfaction in communicating a simple thought in writing – however difficult it can be at times. And there’s something gratifying about sending your thoughts out to be critiqued by the literate masses.

Am I inflating my vitae to call myself a columnist when no newspaper actually hired me? Will the résumé police unmask my inflated biography? Many readers simply thought I was buying the space – a blowhard’s advertorial.

That would be a plausible explanation in a day when novice politician Meg Whitman is spending tens of millions to become a public servant.

But readers know by now that I was really given the space by this newspaper’s owner.

Imagine if you could pretty much write anything you wanted in 650 words every seven days as long as it wasn’t X-rated or otherwise unfit for a family newspaper. In these angry times, there is plenty to rail about.

When it first came to light that I was given a free space to expound, the newspaper companies denied it and tried to claim that I was buying an ad. Reporters muttered into their monitors and editors braced for explosives.

You have to understand, this was before Willie Brown became a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“How could an ex political consultant be given a free column in the daily paper?” astonished insiders pecked in emails.

My enemies cowered. The smartest immediately called to offer feigned congrats. A few editors and reporters got word to me that they were just doing their jobs when they commissioned tough stories on my career. It was nothing personal – just business.

My friends laughed out loud.

While the buzz got louder, I broke out in a cold sweat. My bluff had been called. Did I, in fact, have anything at all to say?

Yes, I did.

I wanted to say a lot of things, particularly about cynicism toward public service. I am an unabashed believer in social change through civic participation. That was my motivation for becoming a political campaign manager back in the 1970s.

And that’s why my real estate business, which I founded after leaving campaign management in 1995, has been heavily involved in both politics and philanthropy.

In his book, “Giving,” Bill Clinton extolled the work that nongovernmental organizations are doing globally to move the human race forward.

Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest” chronicled the countless non-political movements for reform that groups of ordinary citizens initiate around the globe.

I finally got married 15 years ago after a lifetime as a bachelor and we now have two daughters. I prefer to believe that my family is living out some of the principles espoused by both Clinton and Hawken.

My wife, Janet, is currently a candidate for Supervisor in San Francisco. The first question she gets at forums usually comes from an incredulous citizen wondering why she wants the headache.

Her answer is that public service is still one of the best ways available to improve lives and change the world.

But politics isn’t the only way she is involved. Janet has spent the last two years helping to open a free health clinic with a national nonprofit called Volunteers in Medicine. In more than 70 such clinics across the country, retired doctors and nurses provide free care for working uninsured families.

I am still active in politics as a volunteer, donor and fundraiser. But I am also working with nonprofits. I recently spent many great years as President of the Board of Catholic Charities CYO, an experience I found richly rewarding.

So, if I may use my soapbox one last time, let me encourage you to do one thing: Volunteer for a candidate or a cause that you believe in. Whatever your ideology, don’t succumb to the cynicism that says we can’t achieve great things. Get involved.

Thank you for reading.

At one point in the article, Google CEO Eric Schmidt states, “Nothing I see suggests the ‘death of newspapers.’”

The case of the San Francisco Chronicle would appear to be an exception.

The paper’s paid circulation numbers within the city itself have shrunk to 64,000 on Sunday and 58,000 during the week. If estimated Daly City subscribers – who are not really San Francisco residents – are subtracted, Sunday paid circulation falls further to 57,000 and weekday circ dips to 52,000.

San Francisco is a highly educated city of 808,000 residents. That means that only 6.4 percent pay to read the flagship daily newspaper each morning, about one in 16.

Those numbers aren’t encouraging.

The Chron has been part of my daily ritual for all of my adult life and most of my youth.

There was a time during my early years as a political operative that I bought the morning Chronicle’s bulldog edition at 9PM the night before. I recall waiting in the cold with other hard core news buffs at the paper’s Fifth and Mission Street offices where the Chron was literally hot off the presses.

Journalism was an honored profession and civics courses reminded every young American that newspapers kept government honest.

I.F. Stone – better known as Izzy – sent shivers down the spines of Washington power brokers with well-researched exposés in his eponymous newsletter. Woodward and Bernstein’s dogged Watergate reporting toppled a president and inspired a hit movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

While the New York Times and Los Angeles Times led the nation and state respectively with tough, informed political coverage, the Chronicle was better known for its lively and cantankerous columnists. Herb Caen, Stanton Delaplane, Art Hoppe, Charles McCabe and Count Marco were funny gossips who could also be insightful and poignant.

To be fair, local political coverage suffered from the fractured readership of a newspaper that spanned every Bay Area county and covered hundreds of political jurisdictions, public agencies and elections.

Unlike New York City, where Mayor Ed Koch was elected by all five boroughs, San Francisco’s mayor, Dianne Feinstein, governed only a tiny fraction of the Chronicle’s total market.

Nevertheless, Harvard-educated Jerry Roberts and his protégée Susan Yoachum managed to carve out a distinguished niche in state and national political reporting in spite of the Chron’s lukewarm commitment to their work.

For a long time, newspapers represented the only comprehensive record of our life together. The information they reported became the fuel for our democratic society. But times change.

Today, many young people eschew newspapers in favor of niche news sites and opinionated blogs. It’s now possible to read only news that fits your ideology or interests.

Worse yet, some young people choose ignorance. They take for granted the role of an aggressive press in a democratic society.

Two weeks ago, I attended a speech by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in which she lamented the disappearance of civics courses from America’s public schools. She noted that most students cannot identify the three branches of the federal government.

One of the functions of public education is to pass down the precepts and values of democracy from generation to generation.

The critical function of a free press is one of those core civic values that I learned as a student at Dayton Elementary School and St. Leander’s Catholic School in the 1950s.

And while I may be tempted to believe that today’s youth aren’t getting that message, there are other statistics which suggest that Eric Schmidt may be right.

While the Chronicle’s print circulation plummets, its online home, SFGate.com, is exploding. More than 12 million unique users visit the site in any given month, many of them via mobile devices like iPhones and Blackberries.

Perhaps reports of newspapers’ death have been exaggerated.

I certainly hope so.

After three terms in Washington, Boxer must climb down from the senatorial throne and beg for votes in an angry state where unemployment has reached 12.5 percent and spiraling budget deficits have resulted in cutbacks to parks, transit, libraries, police and fire departments.

Eighteen years in the Senate might seem to entitle Boxer to an easy re-election. But easy elections in tough times are for dictators.

Full disclosure: I am a Barbara Boxer contributor and I hope she wins. Early in her career, I helped her get elected to Congress.

A subsequent campaign – which I did not manage – proclaimed “Boxer is a Fighter.” This year, she’ll have to be more than a fighter if she wants to hold on to her championship belt.

I’m sure the pugnacious Senator was watching apprehensively last Tuesday night when the working class voters of Pennsylvania dealt a lethal blow to the political career of her six-term Senate colleague, Arlen Specter.

Old, tired and defeated, Specter’s sepulchral countenance during his televised concession speech fit the occasion perfectly. All that remained was for his eyes to be closed and the body slid neatly into the coffin.

He had just been beaten in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary by Admiral Joe Sestak, a congressman who had boldly defied the White House to take Specter on.

Arthur Miller gave us Death of a Salesman. Here was “Death of a Politician.”

Specter survived two recent bouts with cancer and 30 grueling years in the Senate. But in 2010, his number came up.

Arlen didn’t give up without a fight. With conservative firebrand Pat Toomey looming in the Republican primary, Specter saw the writing on the wall and bailed on his party of 40 years.

A newly minted Democrat, he successfully blackmailed Democratic Party Pooh-Bahs – anxious for a 60th Democratic vote in the Senate – for the support of President Obama and Pennsylvania’s powerful governor Ed Rendell.

Poor Arlen. He picked a moment in history when incumbency and executive imprimaturs were the kiss of death.

For those who love the game like Specter, the macabre metaphors are painfully appropriate after losing an office held for three decades. Consider that Specter first ran for Philadelphia district attorney in 1965 – 45 years ago. He served two terms as DA and lost a race for Mayor of Philadelphia in between.

He was also defeated for U.S. Senate and for Governor of Pennsylvania before riding Ronald Reagan’s coattails to victory in the 1980 landslide. Pennsylvanians dragged Specter through the coals before they finally relented and elevated him to the U.S. Senate.

But for elected officials, the hangman’s noose is never far away. They know voters will not hesitate to drop them from the gallows when things go bad in their own lives.

In most successful careers, an executive can expect accolades at a retirement dinner and a golden parachute. Not politicians. Senators face only a final humiliating hazing.

“Thanks for the memories Senator Specter! Don’t let the door whack your fanny on the way out!”
Hardly a fitting thank you for 30 years of 24/7 blood, sweat and tears.

Instead of extolling speeches, a defeated Senator can look forward to weeks of embarrassing post mortems from Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer and Bill O’Reilly.

Maybe Barbara Boxer will never face Specter’s fate. At this writing she holds a narrow lead over her challengers. But political winds shift quickly.

Even if she comes up short, I doubt we’ll see the same soul-crushing grief in her eyes as she makes her concession. Like Al Gore and Newt Gingrich, Boxer would likely enjoy a fulfilling second career as an ambassador or a celebrity ex-politician.

There she would be liberated from the wrath of vengeful voters.

Congressional Democrats surged back into power in 2006 because of the “culture of corruption” Republicans had fostered in Washington. In 2008, after eight disastrous years of George W. Bush, the election was simply about “change.”

This year, with unemployment hovering around 10 percent and little hope for a quick recovery, conservatives and liberals alike have pre-branded this year’s mid-terms: This year, it’s about “ordinary Americans.”

Both parties have practically fallen over themselves trying to show their commitment to the average voter. While Republicans try to cast President Obama and congressional Democrats as “out of touch,” Democrats scramble to tie the GOP to Wall Street.

Sensing danger, Obama has laid out a “reconnection strategy” to renew ties with the first-time voters and independents who swept him into office.

That’s what makes his nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court so baffling.

Obama has argued in the past for judges with “real world” experience. He was no doubt referring to recent presidents’ propensity to stock the court with career jurists for whom legal theory exists in a vacuum.

Kagan understands the law “as it affects the lives of ordinary people,” Obama said when announcing the nomination. He went on to argue that Kagan would make the court “more reflective of us as a people than ever before.”
Really?

Kagan attended an elite New York prep school before blazing her way through Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School. She is esteemed by her peers and her former students speak about her with reverence. She is obviously a smart, capable person.

But Republican Senate judiciary committee member John Cornyn has a point:

“Ms. Kagan has spent her entire professional career in Harvard Square, Hyde Park and the D.C. Beltway. These are not places where one learns ‘how ordinary people live.’”

We shouldn’t begrudge Kagan her New York roots or Ivy League education, but there’s a grain of truth in Cornyn’s assessment as it relates to Obama’s ability to connect with average Americans.

In many ways, Kagan is a caricature of the East Coast elite so effectively vilified by the right wing. In 2004, George W. Bush used the same label to bludgeon John Kerry. Kerry’s Brahmin heritage and sophistic tone estranged him from mainstream Americans who wanted a president they could relate to. His qualifications may have been impeccable, but he just couldn’t connect.

In less than a year, Obama has nominated two single, Princeton grad New Yorkers to the court. Is that his idea of “us as a people?”

Obama’s choice of Kagan only reinforces the rarefied nature of the current court.

If Kagan is confirmed by the Senate, as she almost certainly will be, every justice will have received their law degree from Harvard or Yale. But these schools represent only a fraction of the American legal curricula. Surely there are strong candidates with views developed at other great universities offering different perspectives on jurisprudence.

Nor would Kagan’s appointment help to balance the court geographically. Kagan, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor all hail from New York City. So, while the Big Apple represents only three percent of the U.S. population, it represents 44 percent of our Supreme Court justices.

With Kagan’s confirmation, the court will break down into two distinct religious blocs as well. Of the nine justices (presumptively including Kagan), six (67 percent) are Roman Catholic and three (33 percent) are Jewish. But Catholics and Jews make up only 24 percent and 1.7 percent of the total U.S. population, respectively.

Of course, the Supreme Court is not a representative body by definition. For decades, it was the exclusive province of white, Protestant men. But if Obama were serious about reconnecting with regular Americans, if he truly valued bringing diverse perspectives to the court instead of simple ideological balance, couldn’t he have done better?

Kagan’s nomination may make it through the Senate, but an increasingly alienated electorate may have the last say in November.

Today, Credo is open and serving more than 1,000 diners per week.

For our March launch party, we squeezed more than 400 friends into Credo’s 75-seat ground floor dining room. The original skeptic, my wife Janet, opened the night on a humorous note by recounting her initial horrified reaction to my idea.

The famous social justice priest Monsignor Eugene Boyle, now a venerable 88 years old, then blessed the premises.

Our guests enjoyed a short parade of Credo personalities: Mario Maggi, our Milanese executive chef; Tim Felkner, our suave young general manager; Frank Holland, our editor and creative director; and finally my close friend, Lorenzo Petroni.

Lorenzo owns North Beach Restaurant, a renowned destination which is thronged nightly. Who better to help me cut the ribbon?

That was the easy part.

Credo’s grand opening was a lot like some of my experiences as a political consultant.

The campaign launch always turned out to be irrelevant to the final outcome of the election. I usually forgot the details of the announcement by the time the election rolled around; the rough and tumble of the actual campaign quickly replaced the ceremonial perfection of opening day.

No sooner did we open our Pine Street doors than diners starting walking through them. At first there were only a few. But Credo sits in the middle of San Francisco’s Financial District. More than a million workers migrate there from all over the Bay Area each weekday. Around the corner on California Street, classic FiDi restaurants like Tadich Grill, Perbacco and its new sister Barbacco are thriving.

The hungry workers soon found Credo. Our lunch became a blockbuster almost overnight. The young service staff, led by Felkner, was overwhelmed initially but adjusted quickly. Chef Mario’s kitchen ran like clockwork. Our dinner, where Chef Mario really shines, is steadily growing too.

Still, there are hiccups.

On our best lunch day last month, I was dining with associates when Credo’s power blew out and it took more than 15 minutes to restore. This happened on three different days before PG&E discovered that rain water was seeping into their electrical source on the street, causing a short.

But you never want to make customers unhappy, even if it’s PG&E’s fault.

Today, eating out is the top leisure time activity in the country. An entire food culture has blossomed around celebrity chefs, food blogs and review websites.

At websites like Yelp! and Opentable, anyone can be a critic and make his or her opinions known to the world.

Hundreds of people have already reviewed Credo on both sites, where we’re happy to boast a four-star rating.

You’ll read comments extolling Chef Maggi’s world-famous sedanini and fettuccine Bolognese. But you’ll also read loud complaints.

Restaurants are now exposed to constant critiques from customers who provide immediate feedback on the good, bad and ugly. We already have more than 250 reviews on Open Table alone! Most are gratifying from my perspective as owner but many are a wakeup call to meet a higher standard.

The restaurant critic also plays a role. I encourage you to check out the San Francisco Chronicle’s review of Credo on Sunday, May 1; sometimes it’s fun to read a review that truly pummels. In fact, critic Michael Bauer practically tells you not to come.

Although he praises Credo’s design and service, he severely pans our food, giving us only one star. Chef Mario is angry. He takes it personally. I’m more philosophical. I’ve sued the Chronicle’s owner, Hearst Corporation, three times and exacted painful and embarrassing settlements.

Myself, I don’t believe in turning the other cheek. So why should they? William Randolph Hearst didn’t.

For Credo, the long campaign has begun. Count me a risk taker.

After nearly three years of writing this column, I have decided that I disagree with Mr. Ruskin.

I began my relationship with the owners of this paper under antagonistic circumstances. In 2006, I filed an anti-trust lawsuit to block a partnership between Hearst Corporation (owners of the San Francisco Chronicle) and MediaNews Group (owners of every other Bay Area daily), which I believed would have diminished the richness of news-gathering and opinion in the Bay Area.

Apologies to Mr. Ruskin, but I believe that rivalry between competing news organizations is not only beautiful, it is essential in a democratic society. My lawsuit succeeded in stopping the partnership, and I ended up with a quarter page space in the Tuesday paper to try my hand as an independent columnist for three years.

The calendar has nearly run out, and my June 8th column will be my last.

Although my relationship with MediaNews began as a courtroom rivalry, I must say that I am humbled by the support, responsiveness and goodwill shown to me during these past three years by the MediaNews staff and readers alike.

Another piece of our settlement agreement called for MediaNews to place independent citizens on the editorial boards of their Bay Area papers, a project we worked on together. I had initially been concerned that the seasoned pros at the papers might feel burdened to participate.

But again, the editorial staff at each paper – like Dan Hatfield at the Contra Costa Times, Barb Marshman at the San Jose Mercury News, and Brad Breithaupt at the Marin IJ, among many others – were true professionals throughout the process. We worked together to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and I hope that they will continue to solicit citizen input going forward.

What impressed me most about all of these people is the pride they take in their work, especially under difficult circumstances and adversity. No one – not even Ruskin – could argue that their pride is less than noble.

Dean Singleton, the founder and CEO of MediaNews Group, knows adversity well.

After building a heavy debt burden in his acquisition of the Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News, Singleton was tasked with steering the company through a virtual meltdown of the U.S. economy and the most dramatic downturn in the newspaper industry’s history.

Chalk one up for Dean.

MediaNews recently emerged from bankruptcy having shed nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in debt. Remarkably, Singleton still controls the company. It is a tribute to him that the banks never thought twice about displacing him as chief executive.

MediaNews is now the second largest newspaper chain in the country and the largest in the Bay Area by far.

Our local papers are growing stronger under sound leadership from MediaNews executives like Steve Rossi and Dave Butler, and publishers David Rounds, Matt Wilson and Mac Tully.

Singleton, of course, is still pushing the envelope in Denver.

I have come to know Dean since our paths first crossed four years ago. He is a true newspaper man, a swashbuckling Texan with a no-nonsense management style and genuine passion for the business. He is the antithesis of a stereotypical “media mogul,” although he controls 54 daily newspapers and more than 100 non-dailies across the country.

I had dinner with Dean last year near his office in Denver. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986, even small movements can sometimes be a struggle for him.

I remember watching him put forth a herculean effort just to get into his SUV before driving us to the restaurant. There was no flotilla of aides, no coterie of subordinates there to help him. It was just Dean, alone.

Like any larger than life Texan, he seemed to welcome the challenge of surviving the greatest crisis to ever confront the newspaper industry.

As the dust settles, Dean and his newspapers are still standing.

Although many contend that there is no direct correlation between pedophilia and celibacy, Catholics in the pews are beginning to discuss the Church’s ban against a married priesthood.

Former United States Federal Attorney Kevin Ryan and his wife Ann sat at our table. As the retired U.S. Attorney in the Region, Ryan was deeply troubled by the revelations of molestation by priests against innocent children.

I recently wrote that the celibacy topic was above my pay grade but Ryan challenged me to focus a column on this important issue.

So, last week I asked my mother – a devout Catholic – whether she favored lifting the ban on a married priesthood. She was baptized as a convert at St. Felicitas Church in San Leandro nearly sixty years ago.

Her closest girlhood friend, Loretta Crinnion, became a Sister of the Holy Family of San Jose and just recently passed away in her 80s.

My mother is a liberal Democrat and progressive populist who mistrusts power – temporal or ecclesiastical. When I asked her, she did not support lifting the celibacy rule.

“What about sex, children and divorce?” she countered. She immediately wanted to protect her priests from the real life soap operas that come with dating, broken families and the responsibilities of parenthood.

Like the head of a corporate HR Department, my mom also worried that higher salaries for married priests would further burden vital charitable works and already stretched budgets at parishes and schools.

My mother’s view is shared by many Catholics but countless others are willing to trade these problems for a married priesthood.
A dramatic decline in the number of men entering the priesthood coupled with priests leaving for married life has resulted in a severe shortage of priests.

The same is true for the number of nuns and young women entering the convent.
The question is, “Why?”

“Compulsory celibacy is the principal reason for today’s catastrophic shortage of priests,” writes Hans Küng, one of the world’s elite Catholic theologians.

Küng – a veteran of Vatican II – has jousted with Pope Benedict since their days together as young academics at Tübingen University in Germany. He has repeatedly called for a reexamination of the celibacy law for priests in spite of reaffirmations by both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.

He is not alone in his stance. A 2004 survey of priests in 53 dioceses across the country found that 67% favored an open discussion of mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests.

Many may not know it, but the Catholic Church did not institute celibacy until 1079 AD, under Pope Gregory VII. Celibacy is therefore a man-made law of the Church, which could also be rescinded.

But Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have both dismissed calls to alter the rule. “The value of celibacy as a complete gift of self to the Lord and his church must be carefully safeguarded,” said John Paul.

But Küng cites the New Testament, where Jesus and St. Paul were celibate but St. Peter and the apostles were all married.

Küng goes further. He is one of the few who cite a possible connection between celibacy and pedophilia among certain priests. “Why is pedophilia so prevalent in the Catholic Church under celibate leadership?” Küng asks.

“The celibacy law obliges the priest to abstain from all forms of sexual activity, though their sexual impulses remain virulent, and thus the danger exists that these impulses might be shifted to a taboo zone and compensated for in abnormal ways.”

Do I agree with Küng?

I think we should lift the marriage ban for priests and nuns in the Catholic Church but also permit celibacy for those who choose it – two classes of priests and nuns. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, bishops are required to be celibate but priests may marry.

That sounds good to me. Since so many bishops seem to cherish the vow, why take it away from them?

Kes was an excellent student; very smart. We liked him. He was our classmate at St. Joseph’s High School in Mountain View and St. Patrick’s College/Seminary in Menlo Park during the 1960s.

There were hundreds of students in the seminary and dozens in our class. The all-male seminary was filled with young Catholic teenagers and men studying to become priests from throughout the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley, as well as Hawaii.

On the two campuses, students ranged from 13 to 25 years old.

Kes and I were both students for the priesthood from the Oakland Diocese so we sometimes commuted home together on Christmas and holidays. I left in 1969 but Kes stayed and was ordained a priest in 1972.

“Kes” was Steve Kiesle, the pedophile priest who was allowed to continue in his role for years after being convicted for tying up and molesting two young boys in a church rectory in 1978.

Kiesle’s story has taken on new weight after recent revelations that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict – ignored pleas from Oakland Bishop John Cummins to remove Kiesle from the priesthood in 1985.

At the time, Cardinal Ratzinger was in charge of these matters under Pope John Paul II. He cited Kiesle’s young age (he was 38) and the damage his firing would do to “the good of the Universal Church” in his decision to delay action against Kiesle.

Kiesle apparently molested numerous children during his years as a priest. He also pleaded no contest to a felony and served time in jail for molesting a young girl at his Truckee home after being forced out of the priesthood in 1987.

I haven’t seen Steve in more than 40 years. But I have read the many news stories and compared notes with my old seminary classmates – almost all of whom are happily married with kids – having left the seminary long before they were ordained to the priesthood. There are also a few fellow seminarians who came out publicly as gay after exiting and are living full, productive lives.

Here are three reasons why the Kiesle case is so deeply troubling.

First, the all-male seminary had no sex education programs whatsoever. None. The philosophy seemed to be that if a young man found out about sex, he would clearly not choose celibacy.

This head-in-the-sand, cover-their-eyes approach was profoundly irresponsible. The vast majority of seminary students dropped out and never became priests and their preparation for sexual socialization was sorely lacking. And those who became priests were woefully unprepared for the super-human demands of celibate life.

Second, Kiesle had a predilection toward young children as a seminarian. He was known to fraternize with small children who were most often under 10 years old. His focus on pre-adolescent kids was noticed by his peers. However, naïve teenagers in the seminary’s asexual bubble had no idea that such behavior was potentially pathological or even abnormal. The adults should have known better.

Third, the priest faculty ignored telltale signs of possible pedophile tendencies by Kiesle for 12 years in the seminary and many more years as a priest. Numerous children were molested by a priest who never should have been ordained in the first place. Once ordained, he was not monitored by priest peers or diocesan authorities to prevent the molestation of innocent children whose lives have been permanently scarred.

Sadly, Steve Kiesle is not the only graduate of St. Joseph’s and St. Patrick’s to molest children or teenagers. The names of many others were reported in a scathing MediaNews exposé from 2008.

We will never know if Steve Kiesle himself might have been saved if the seminary had intervened with appropriate help when he was just a young man.

But we know for sure that his innocent victims would have been spared had he been diagnosed and expelled.

One well known local writer, Ken Kelley, died in jail after kiddie porn was found on his computer. Radio talk show host Bernie Ward is serving time for sending illicit sex pictures of underage children over the Internet.

Nevertheless, thousands of priest child abusers all over the world – in the U.S., Ireland, Germany, the Philippines and elsewhere – were allowed by both ecclesiastical and civilian authorities to roam like predators molesting innocent children.

Buried stories continue to be uncovered like mass graves at a holocaust site. Now, like Watergate slowly winding its way into the Oval Office and engulfing Richard Nixon, two new stories implicate Pope Benedict himself.

First, there is a sickening account in the New York Times of serial abuse by a Wisconsin priest who went unpunished for decades. He continued to molest children while being transferred periodically by higher ups who were aware of his history. Pope Benedict is linked to the chain of leniency.

Second, Europe has just been rocked by new revelations that Archbishop Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict – allegedly did not oust a known child molester when he led the Munich Diocese as a younger prelate.

Last week, Cardinal William Levada, former Archbishop of San Francisco, who was appointed by Benedict to succeed him as Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith – the second or third most powerful job in the Roman Catholic Church – was compelled to stand up to defend Benedict’s record and honor. I know Cardinal Levada well.

Cardinal Levada is a good man. He is genuinely angry at priests who have used the cloth to cloak their secret lives of crime. Unlike some other bishops, he has turned them over to the cops.

Above all, he is a great priest himself who is not only profoundly saddened by the irreparable harm done to innocent victims but also for the collateral damage caused to the reputation of the church.

As a young man, I studied to be a priest before leaving the seminary after college. For nine years, I lived in an all-male seminary environment that produced many extraordinary priests but also failed to cull out the rogue abusers among them.

In fact, some of the priests who later became child abusers were fellow students while I was at the seminary decades ago or attended before or after me. I actually remember some of them as teenagers.

I never witnessed inappropriate sexual behavior by any priest or student during my nine years.

But I was not surprised to learn many years later that particular students I remembered had become serial abusers as priests.

As young men living in a celibate environment without contact with women, there was literally no sex education at all in the curriculum. We were extremely naïve. For me at least, pedophilia was beyond my comprehension.

It was wrong that church leaders did not anticipate that mandating celibacy creates an even greater responsibility for the institution to dismiss questionable prospects for the priesthood.

But the seminary itself had no mechanism to find and remove students with unclear sexual identities or pathological sexual proclivities. Today, that negligence seems criminal – which is precisely what it is.

I strongly believe that most priests live inspiring and exemplary lives while honoring their vows of celibacy.

But some don’t. And the Church has been negligent by not turning over law breaking priests for prosecution by civil authorities.

Whether or not the Church should end celibacy for priests is beyond my pay grade. But going forward, the Catholic Church must put in place safeguards to monitor illicit or illegal behavior by priests.

There must be zero tolerance for graduating suspect personalities from Catholic seminaries or for not turning over pedophile priests to law enforcement.

Harboring criminals is a felony.

UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies, shortly after the 1994 elections. A political postmortem.

Several hundred political junkies and a smattering of candidates mixed freely with academics and media types, all eager to dissect the election.

As the losing gubernatorial campaign manager, I was on the hot seat. My candidate, Kathleen Brown, had lost handily to incumbent Governor Pete Wilson. Wilson’s team of consultants entertained the audience with detailed accounts of their own behind-the-scenes strategic brilliance.

Standing off to one side, the famous pollster Mervin Field listened pensively. George Gorton, Don Sipple and Joe Shumate of the Wilson campaign were openly derogatory of my commercials and strategy as the Sacramento Bee’s John Jacobs, (formerly of the Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner), nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

“I feel like a cadaver at my own autopsy,” I opened. Gallows humor seemed the only credible rejoinder.

Newspapers were rampant with commentary that I had bankrupted KB’s campaign by wasting money on summer television and not saving for October.

Professor Bruce Cain, who headed the institute and who was also one of the state’s leading election pundits, presided over the event, occasionally tossing a sympathetic shrug in my direction.

Which brings us back to Election 2010: Jerry Brown is in trouble for almost the same reasons as Kathleen Brown 16 years ago. He will be massively outspent just like his sister Kathleen and soon will have to choose between two lousy options.

I know, because I’ve faced the same choice.

I was hired late in the 1994 primary season to replace Kathleen Brown’s team. I helped her soundly defeat John Garamendi in the primary only to discover shortly after that we trailed Wilson by more than 10 points – the same place I predict Jerry will be in 60 days.

We faced a Hobson’s choice: Spend money during the summer and perhaps catch up, or conserve money for the October endgame.

Had we held out for October, Wilson would have built an insurmountable margin over the summer. Even an incredible flood of money at the end wouldn’t have closed the gap. As a consultant, I only played to win.

So, I spent money during the summer to stay competitive, hoping to pull even in polls by Labor Day and spur fundraising. I was severely criticized. But had we saved our money until the end, the result likely would have been the same.

Take the last governor’s race between Phil Angelides and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Angelides headed into the summer far behind the much better funded Governor. Phil held his money until October but by then Arnold was so far ahead, Phil’s minor league media blitz fell on deaf ears. Angelides lost by about the same margin as Kathleen Brown.

In early 2010, the story looks the same.

The latest California Poll shows Whitman ahead of Brown by four points, although most papers are calling it a statistical dead heat. The tide of paid media from Whitman – TV spots and radio commercials – has clearly influenced public opinion.

With the mega-money Whitman is pouring into television, I expect her lead to stretch to double digits by the end of the June primaries.

Even with $16 million in the bank, Brown is strapped for money next to the billionaire Whitman. Forced to conserve resources, he will be unable to counter with much paid television in the primary.

Sure, Jerry Brown has more money than his sister or Phil Angelides. But Whitman has unlimited resources.

If Jerry waits until after Labor Day to unleash his attack, Whitman will be out of sight. But if he dilutes his war chest during the summer, he’ll be broke in October.

The lesson is clear: Checkbook Dems need to get Jerry near $100 million or his consultant will be as hunkered down as I was at next year’s IGS election autopsy.