"The Mayor is LOL LOL! Damn That. Never Busted."

O, I would bet there are guys on death row who are glad they are not Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick right now.

Thursday, January 24, 2008
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick shamed by text messages

They raise questions about trial testimony

David Josar, Paul Egan and Christine MacDonald / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Wednesday night that text messages indicating he had a sexual affair with his chief of staff in 2002 and 2003 were "profoundly embarrassing" and "reflect a very difficult period in my personal life."
. . .
In some of those more than 14,000 messages, Kilpatrick, 37, and Beatty -- both were married at the time -- exchanged sexual banter, declared their love and arranged trysts in motels in Metro Detroit and on out-of-town business trips.



But under oath last summer in a whistleblowers suit filed against the city by two former cops, they both denied a romantic or intimate relationship. They also testified that they didn't plot to fire Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, but the text messages include exchanges about dismissing him.

Brown and ex-bodyguard Harold Nelthrope sued the city, claiming they were unfairly punished because Nelthrope alleged misbehavior by the mayor and his police bodyguards, and Brown investigated those claims. A jury awarded the pair some $8 million, including interest. In a separate but related case, a third ex-cop, Walt Harris, was paid $400,000.

As a Detroit tax payer, I don't care about the mayor's philandering, I'm angry that his arrogance, lies and abuse of office led to those above-mentioned police officers being fired and to the ultimate pay-out in their whistle-blower court case of $8.4 million. I vividly remember seeing Kwame on television calling the fired police officers liars and even saying they were mentally ill.

Not quite.

The complete decimation of Detroit took place in the 1970s and '80s under the reign of Kwame's spiritual father, Coleman Young, a complete and utter gangster who spent his multiple terms as mayor callously enriching himself while sinking the once-great city. I recall in late 2001 when Kwame was first elected. I was happy for him and very hopeful for Detroit. Kwame and I are the same age and I admired how much he had accomplished in his life. But as it has turned out, Kwame has followed in Gangster Young's footsteps. Yes, Kwame brought the Super Bowl to Detroit and many people believe he's made many other gains for the city, but he has also sorely abused his office, leasing expensive vehicles on the city's dime for family members; having family and friends on the pay-roll, though these folks were not expected, nor did they, actually show up for work at the jobs they were being paid to do.

With Clintonian self-righteousness, Kwame vehemently denied rumors of a wild party occurring at his mansion early in his first term. A stripper alleged to have danced at that party was later murdered in a 2003 drive-by shooting. The dancer's family believed that one of the fired police officers who won a whistle-blower lawsuit against Detroit was fired for investigating the dancer's death.

Sordid shit.

Coleman Young slithered out of numerous investigations and ultimately retired as a revered local politician and even went into academia. He made out all right for himself, though the blight of Detroit is his true legacy. Kwame may come out of this scandal still the mayor of Detroit. The difference between him and Coleman Young is that Kwame has in arrogance what Young had in cunning.

Hopefully an example will be made of Kwame. I hope he and his mistress are charged with perjury and prosecuted heartily. And when found guilty, I hope they are sentenced to repaying the city of Detroit the $8.4 million their stupidity and hubris cost it.

1/26 Clarification

When I refer to Kwame Kilpatrick's "Clintonian self-righteousness" I am not aligning myself with right-wingers and their knee-jerk hatred of former US president Bill Clinton. My use of the word "Clintonian" refers to venal, petty deception that causes a crazily disproportionate amount of harm and disappointment -- as well as loathsome self-pity; the sense that when someone is legitimately caught doing something wrong, that they portray themselves as being persecuted. For some strange reason, right-wing conservatives seem to believe that the worst thing a human being can do is be the recipient of a blowjob. I'm not jumping on that bandwagon.

More to the point, a "Clintonian" lie occurs when someone who is the bearer of hope and promise stupidly and needlessly plays into the hands of their enemies.

I also refer to Kwame's misdeeds as "Clintonian" in order to keep them in perspective. Kwame has cost his city a lot of money, brought a shroud of shame to his family and basically ruined himself as a public official. As with Bill Clinton's misdeeds, these do not even approach the gargantuan, egregious, multifarious, malignant sins of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Kwame deserves to be found guilty of perjury, he should resign his mayorship and repay the millions of dollars the city of Detroit paid out for the whistle blower trial and pay-out his actions caused. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (and everyone else who has served in BushCo in the last eight years) should be tried for war crimes and jailed for the rest of their lives.

That's a distinction I think is worth drawing.