Detroit Mayor Finally Gets His Due

DETROIT (AP) - Only hours after agreeing to resign and serve time in jail as part of plea deal, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick expressed regret for the scandal that has engulfed the city—and left the door open for a return to public life. Sure, he's a young man, with lots of energy, so why not come on back to the life that has rewarded him so well, all of that power, that privilege, that environment of total freedom from honesty, integrity, the need to uphold the law? Any why is it only now that he's sorry? How is it that the regret comes now that it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury? Why didn't he regret it earlier? Kilpatrick walked into a City Hall conference room Thursday to thunderous applause and thanked his family, backers and staff members for sticking by him during his rocky 6 1/2-year tenure. Thunderous applause? From how many people? Family, I can understand--although I can't understand why his wife would be standing by his side--but how many ignorant others are still under the impression that this is a good, upstanding, honest guy? How could anyone be that foolish, that gullible? "I truly know who I am. I truly know where I come from. In Detroit I know who I am. And I know because of that, there's another day for me," he said in a 20-minute speech on live television. "I want to tell you, Detroit, that you done set me up for a comeback." What does "who I am" have to do with this? He only knows now who he is when he's been forced through the preponderance of hard evidence to admit what everyone else has known for year--that he's a crook? Does he "know" that he's a criminal, that he's a liar and a cheat, a dishonest and manipulative cheat? Let's see if he admits to that... Where is the apology? Where is the contrition for doing something--no, not just something, but an entire, cascading, conspiratorial, years-long range of somethings--wrong? And what has happened to his diction? Nothing like a politician to pander to the lowest common denominator, especially when your back is against the wall. Nothing like a politician to change his stripes to resonate with his target audience. In exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, the Democrat will get four months behind bars, pay the city $1 million in restitution, lose his license to practice law, and cannot run for any elected office for five years. Where is the lifetime ban on running for office? He's getting off lightly. I'll bet he makes another run for office, and the sheep will vote for him again. His resignation will take effect in two weeks and his sentence will be officially imposed on Oct. 28. Under the city charter, any mayor guilty of a felony is automatically expelled from office. "I always said I would stand strong for the city of Detroit," the 38-year-old mayor said in his address. "But sometimes standing strong means stepping down." Uh, if you were going to stand strong for the City of Detroit, how is it you chose to ignore the integrity of your wedding vows for so long? How did you stand strong when it came to firing those two police officers? How did you stand strong when you conspired with your mistress and then lied under oath--committed perjury--to keep your extramarital affair a secret? How did you stand strong by not admitting your weakness and your mistakes up front--like a man--and instead fighting them and refusing them, citing so many bogus, pathetic excuses and blaming non-existent conspiracies for the trouble and pain you've brougth on yourself and others? How does any of this reflect this politician standing strong? He's standing strong only now that he's officially to blame, as he sets himself up as a victim, sets himself up for another run at public integrity in five years or so. Coming after nearly eight months of turmoil and demands that Kilpatrick resign, the plea bargain was met with relief from politicians and ordinary Detroit residents alike. I'm sure they're glad to be rid of yet another lying, self-serving politician who feels that the ethics and morals and laws that apply to everyone else do not apply to him. His departure could also remove a major embarrassment for Barack Obama and the Democrats in Michigan, a crucial battleground state in the presidential election. This is a reach, really. I don't see it. Sure, Obama praised him in the past, foolishlly, but I don't see this as a national or regional presidential election issue. "This gives us hope. He's not a king," said Monica Smith, 24, of Detroit, a college student. "This is a huge victory for the city of Detroit. He was not a role model. He was a thug. I'm definitely optimistic." Good stuff, Ms. Smith. I applaud you for speaking the truth, directly and without subterfuge. Thank goodness he wasn't a king, or he would have had your head chopped off. Ken Cockrel Jr., the 42-year-old president of the Detroit City Council, will take over as mayor. He said people need to put aside the anger and bitterness of Kilpatrick's sex scandal. No, this was not a sex scandal; that's the tawdry secondary issue, one of the things that led to his real trouble. This was about perjury and obstruction of justice, resulting from a sex scandal. This is not as trivial as a politician stepping out when he was supposed to serving the public; this is about a politician who, when caught red-handed, conspired with others to obstruct justice and lied under oath to cover his own selfish actions. "What we're going to have to focus on really is restoring the credibility not only of the mayor's office, but also of the city of Detroit," Cockrel said. "There is going to be a need for a healing period in the city of Detroit." The plea bargain came just one day after Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm convened an extraordinary hearing on whether to oust Kilpatrick as mayor. Why did it take this long for the governor to act? If she had the power in the state constitution, why did it take so long for her to make a move? She's just another politician covering her political behind, not wanting to take a stand until she knows exactly which way the winds are blowing. Nothing like being a leader, eh Governor? "I would hope that Michigan citizens will demonstrate our compassion as a people and pray for the mayor's family," Granholm said after the deal. What a load of complete and total condescending crap. Another politician positioning herself as the Forgiver, the gallant and noble do-gooder, when inside she's giggling with glee. First, God is not going to help these people; he doesn't exist. If he was up there, and wanted to help the people of Michigan out, he would have stopped Kwame from straying in the first place, or would have made him stop after the first time, or after the first coupla-dozen times. Or God would have made him own up to it with his wife, or God would have had him admit his guilt in public. Why would God cause Kwame to lie under oath? What is the divine purpose in causing that to happen, or to allow it to take place? Why would God put Detroit and Michigan through all of this crap--if he really cared about any of this? That's because he's not there, so praying isn't going to do a bit of good, except maybe boost the personal self-satisfaction of those doing the praying. At least she did leave out Kilpatrick in her plea for people's prayers. She may be a good Christian woman 'n all, but she was sure to cut him out of the call for prayers. I'm with her on that. He's beyond that kind of mythical help. The scandal stems from a whistleblower lawsuit filed by two former police officers who accused Kilpatrick of retaliating against them for trying to investigate misconduct by the mayor and his security detail. Questioned under oath in 2004 and 2007, Kilpatrick repeatedly denied having an affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. Observe: the perjury goes back to 2004, a full four years. This jackass has been knowingly breaking the law--the felony law, that is, the obstruction of justice and perjury stuff, not including all of that adultery stuff--for a good four years. And it's taken this long for the process to get to this spot--sad. But the Detroit Free Press later obtained text messages between the two—some of them sexually explicit—and published excerpts. Kilpatrick and Beatty were later charged. So did he really think he could keep this under wraps? Was he that naive? That confident of his own personal power and reach? He got the cops ousted, apparently, but he couldn't keep the press back. Good on ya, Detroit Free Press, for doing your job, and doing it so very well. In addition to perjury, Kilpatrick was accused of misleading the City Council when he secured its approval of an $8.4 million settlement with three former police officers. Prosecutors said he settled to keep the text messages from becoming public. "Misleading?" That's an understatement. On Thursday, Kilpatrick also pleaded no contest to assault, for allegedly shoving a detective who was trying to serve a subpoena in the text-message case. His sentence in that case will be served at the same time as the one for obstruction. This one actually seems to me to be The Establishment piling on, slamming this guy while he's down and/or sticking it to him when it seemed he wasn't being properly dealt with in all of the other legal proceedings. I definitely won't go so far as to say that Kilpatrick's treatment here has been unfair. That being said, if you're under this kind of scrutiny, facing these kinds of legal challenges, the last thing you want to do is get physical in any way whatsoever with a sworn law enforcement official carrying out a formal court action. If you're that stupid, then I guess you deserve the assault rap. Or, if you're Kilpatrick, if you're that cocky and self-assured that you forget the law applies to you, too, then welcome to the dock, you idiot... "I take full responsibility for my own actions and for the poor judgment that they reflected," Kilpatrick said. "I wish with all my heart that we could turn back the hands of time and tell that young man to make better choices, but I can't." Again, where is the apology? This statement here is NOT an apology. He says he's taking responsibility, and note he doesn't address why he hasn't done so earlier. He's taking responsibility now only because he has no other choices, and his denying and delaying are no longer options. And the crap about "that young man," well that was only 5-6 years ago, at 38 now that would still have him well over the age of 30. Sorry, but once you hit 25 or so, the pass that young people sometimes get for being impulsive or rash or inexperienced pretty much goes away. And to call your 32-year-old self a "young man" is yet another subtle way of ducking blame, of avoiding taking responsibility for the actions. You think that at age 32 or so that you didn't know about perjury and obstruction of justice, that adultery was wrong and illegal? You're a lawyer--no, wait, WERE, a lawyer, after all--so these kinds of issues are not in question, and a youth argument is cynical and trite, and shows us you still do think we, the public, are gullible and ignorant, and you still can pull the wool over our eyes. The son of a Detroit congresswoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Kilpatrick was 31 when he was elected in 2001, becoming the youngest mayor in Detroit history. His youth, energy and diamond stud earring endeared Kilpatrick to many fellow blacks, especially young ones. Cool. I'm all for youth and energy, and the desire to remake that with which we're fed up. But power corrupts, and this is where it's led us. But Kilpatrick's first term was tumultuous. He came under fire for racking up thousands of dollars in travel on his city-issued credit card and leasing a luxury Lincoln Navigator for his wife. Ah, the delicious allure of entitlement. I'm entitled to it because... Yeah, so many fall into it, assuming that because the wife works hard as the city's first lady, she gets her own vehicle, too. But a good honest scrub of your ethics will show that it doesn't wash. You're a public servant, and we are not here to serve or bankroll your public grandiosity. The only politicians who get rich in office are those who are corrupt. Under his leadership, though, Detroit landed baseball's 2005 All-Star Game and the 2006 Super Bowl. And Kilpatrick's ability to work with business leaders also has been credited with an overhaul of the city's riverfront and development downtown. Good riddance to yet another self-serving, corrupt politician. There are thousands more where he came from. And he'll be back, too, just wait and see.