Thursday, January 31, 2008

What's happening in Detroit?

Hurt, angry, disappointed, but Carlita Kilpatrick speaks up for her husband. Of course she does.

"Our family has endured the most painful and intrusive week of our lives," she said. "Our most intimate issues have been laid out for all to see, for all to comment on, for all to dissect and analyze."
Viewers were struck by her passionate defense, which also lauded the mayor's stewardship of the city.
The Rev. Jim Holley, senior pastor of the Historic Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church, said he was surprised by her comments.
"I'll be honest, she's some kind of woman," Holley said. "If she could believe in him, then I can believe in him, too."
Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel had a similar reaction.
Cockrel said that, as a woman, she knew how difficult it was for Carlita Kilpatrick to step in front of the camera and mount such a powerful defense.
"Carlita Kilpatrick is an extremely strong woman," the councilwoman said. "My respect of her tonight has grown exponentially."
Carlita Kilpatrick's appearance was reminiscent of one by another first lady, Hillary Clinton, during her husband's run for the presidency in 1992.


So, now please go away and stop investigating all this stuff... I mean, it's nothing new, right?

Mayor Young's girlfriend, a city official named Annivory Calvert, once dragged a police officer down the street with her car after he had suggested that the morning of the Detroit Grand Prix was not a good time to be triple-parked along East Jefferson. "You can't arrest me," she ultimately hollered, according to news reports at the time. "I have diplomatic immunity!" Years later, Mayor Kilpatrick's aide and girlfriend, Christine Beatty, was pulled over for speeding. The officers involved said she asked them, none too gently, "Do you know who the (bleep) I am?" Neither Calvert nor Beatty received a ticket.
Someone I know once boarded an airplane and saw the mayor and his bodyguards taking up the entire first-class section. They were going nightclubbing in New York. Security guards at Comerica Park can tell you how his bodyguards have screeched into the parking lot and brushed through the turnstiles, flashing their badges and growling, "We're with the mayor," who of course is nowhere to be seen.
There were promises of humility and accountability for Kilpatrick's second term. He'd learned his lesson, the mayor said. Then, instead of settling out of court, he and Beatty told what would appear to be blatant lies in a whistleblower lawsuit that cost the city $8.4 million.


See, it's not about sex ... it's about $8.4 million.