Today’s Oregonian carries a blistering editorial sticking up for Tom Potter’s leadership, after cops’ union head Robert King accused the mayor of betraying his police officers by talking about the Chasse incident during his State of the City Address. Says the O:

Some officers want him to shut up and salute. When he opens his mouth about the Portland Police Bureau, apparently, he’s just supposed to smile and say something nice. Instead, Potter has a tendency to speak his mind.

Ouch! In Potter’s address on Friday, January 19th, he told city club: “I want the Chasse family to know, and our community to know that real change is happening.” But Robert King called him out in a letter written this Tuesday, timed to coincide with that afternoon’s attendance at the racial profiling committee:”Instead of providing leadership to broaden people’s understanding of what we do, you followed the lead of the media and their single-minded focus on controversy,” he wrote, adding that Potter has “tried and convicted the police of racial profiling.”

Potter is being tugged left and right, what with trying to please the cops, and satisfy the community he is taking his police bureau to task over Chasse’s controversial death, and racial profiling. The question is, do you think Potter has shown leadership on these issues, as the Oregonian suggests, or is he merely trying to keep everyone happy, including the media, by making the right comments at the right time? Is he really leading, or going through the motions?