Sgt. Schultz: “I know nothing! Nothing!”

Don’t you understand? Filner knew NOTHING!

“’The City has a legal obligation to provide sexual harassment training to all management level employees,’” wrote Filner’s lawyer Harvey Berger. ‘The City failed to provide such training to Mayor Filner.’

“Berger also states that Filner never received such training as a U.S. Representative and may not know what indicates sexual harassment.

“’This is not an excuse for any inappropriate behavior which may have occurred, but I have learned that many – if not most – people do not know what is and what is not illegal sexual harassment under California law,’ Berger stated.”

But as I wrote for the U-T San Diego, Filner’s political career has intersected with sexual harassment issues over and over again, making his claims to be ignorant of what was right and what was wrong seem even sillier.

“The ridiculousness of this claim is underscored by Filner’s own history. He went from the City Council to Congress in 1992, succeeding Rep. Jim Bates, who was done in largely by a sexual harassment scandal that centered on his unwanted sexual advances toward his female staffers.

“In the bigger picture, 1992 was dubbed the ‘Year of the Woman’ because of a big increase in females elected to higher office. What triggered this phenomenon? The fall 1991 hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, in which several members of the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee reacted to allegations that Thomas sexually harassed subordinate Anita Hill while chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with scorn and innuendo about Hill’s “proclivities.”

“Then, during Filner’s 20 years in Congress, he participated in House Veterans Affairs Committee hearings on the vast extent of sexual harassment in the military, including a wrenching 2007 session in which it was linked to high rates of suicide.”

Filner: Clinton’s consensual affair with aide ‘indefensible’

“Here’s the clincher: In December 1998, the House debated impeaching President Bill Clinton for having a consensual sexual relationship with intern-turned-aide Monica Lewinsky and for allegedly lying about it under oath. Filner opposed impeachment. But on the House floor, he trashed Clinton’s conduct as ‘reckless and indefensible.’

“So in 1998, Filner understood it was not OK for a boss to put the moves on a subordinate even if the subordinate was receptive. But now he says he had no idea it’s wrong to put the targets of his unwanted advances in headlocks and to urge them to not wear panties while at work.”

Filner’s act is hilarious in how it evokes both “Seinfeld” and “Hogan’s Heroes.”

His contention that he had no idea it was unacceptable to treat the women who worked for him as sex objects to be pawed at whim reminds of the George Costanza moment just before he is fired for having sex with an office cleaning lady on his desk. George asks his boss, “Was that wrong?”

Filner’s contention that he had no idea what he was doing was unacceptable of course evokes Sgt. Schultz (“I know nothing!”) — but his whole behavior also reminds of Bob Crane, the “All-American Pervert” who played Col. Hogan.

Bonus Wednesday discovery: That Filner shares his birthday with … Anthony Weiner.

By Chris Reed

Newly elected San Diego Mayor Bob Filner basically owes his political career to the courage he showed as a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s. It’s the card he plays to cast himself in a better light whenever anyone notices all the different ways he shows he’s a bully with a wide mean streak.

But it’s not a card he can use with Andrew Jones, the no. 2 attorney in the San Diego City Attorney’s Office. The mayor’s 2013-14 budget, released Monday, only targets one agency for cuts: the City Attorney’s Office, an obvious and petty outgrowth of Filner’s attempt to depict City Attorney Jan Goldsmith as his version of Emmanuel Goldstein.

Not only does Filner’s 2013-14 spending plan call for cuts, supporting documents specify whom should be laid off by the city attorney.

Which brings us to the saga of Andrew Jones:

“At least one of the 13 city attorney employees whose job would be eliminated said he felt he was being personally targeted by Filner for standing up to him.

“Executive Assistant City Attorney Andrew Jones, Goldsmith’s second-in-command, said he has shut down meetings with Filner in which the mayor treated attorneys poorly by shouting and screaming at them.

“’He’s (verbally) attacked me in closed session to the extent that at one point he asked if I would sit in the back of the room,’ said Jones, who is black. ‘I, of course, considered it something similar to asking Rosa Parks to sit in the back of the bus. I was extremely offended by it but in deference to my boss I decided not to make a big deal out of it. But clearly he has a problem with me. I’m not sure why.’

“Filner, a longtime civil rights activist, participated in the famous Freedom Rides as a teenager in 1961.”

That’s our Bob Filner. Down here in San Diego, we’re all very proud of him.

OK, maybe not.

But for journalists, there’s no question he is our fodder figure.