Posted on 03/16/2008 2:11:48 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Stunning closing to speech also may haunt Kilpatrick
DETROIT — The swift resignation of New York's governor, Eliot Spitzer, just days after he was linked to a high-priced prostitution ring, has put new pressure on the embattled mayor of this city, Kwame Kilpatrick, with critics calling for him to step down quickly.
"Lying under oath, I think most people would think that's more serious a crime than hiring a prostitute," the Michigan attorney general, Mike Cox, said last week. "Eliot Spitzer, whether you like him or not, did put the state of New York above his own interests. But the mayor thinks he's bigger than the city of Detroit."
Kilpatrick has vowed repeatedly over the last several weeks he will not quit, despite publication of text messages showing that he and his former chief of staff lied under oath when they denied having an extramarital affair, as well as allegations that the city agreed to settle a lawsuit for $8.4 million primarily to hide the affair.
A Kilpatrick spokesman, James Canning, said the Spitzer scandal should not play into anyone's opinion of the mayor.
"You cannot compare these two situations," Canning said. "Mayor Kilpatrick was elected by the citizens of Detroit to lead this city forward, and he will continue to do so."
But support for Kilpatrick seems to have further eroded since Spitzer announced Wednesday that he was relinquishing his post and after the mayor ended his annual State of the City speech here on Tuesday night with a stunning, unscripted invective denouncing the City Council president and depicting local news media outlets as a "lynch mob." The outburst in the final six minutes of Kilpatrick's speech included his using a racial epithet during the live television broadcast.
That evening, one of Detroit's most senior news anchors, Carmen Harlan of the NBC affiliate WDIV-TV, rebuked the mayor in a rare editorial commentary. "The Kwame Kilpatrick rollercoaster," Harlan said, borrowing from a quotation from the speech, "has to stop."
The Detroit Free Press broke the story of the scandal involving Kilpatrick when it published the damaging text messages in late January. In an editorial on Thursday, the newspaper said the mayor should learn from Spitzer, though it did not specifically call on him to resign.
"Spitzer's forthrightness, and his refusal to engage in self-victimization, blame casting or excuse-making is far too striking to go without notice in Detroit at this time," the Free Press editorial said. "Even if you divorce Spitzer's ultimate action — his quick resignation — from the comparison, you find too many disappointing ways in which he has been honest where Kilpatrick lied, shown integrity where Kilpatrick eschewed candor, and acted with courage where Kilpatrick has shown cowardice."
Cox, the attorney general, who in 2005 admitted to and publicly apologized for his own extramarital affair, also said that Kilpatrick could "no longer be the mayor."
Kilpatrick's speech-ending tirade "was the last straw," Cox said, calling it "the severing of his credibility." The mayor, he said, "is not only hurting the city of Detroit, but the whole state of Michigan."
Cox accused Kilpatrick of trying to portray himself as the victim of racial persecution to pollute the potential jury pool in the event that he is charged and tried.
For the first hour of his sixth State of the City speech, Kilpatrick made only indirect references to the cloud he was under. But he veered from the final page of the prepared text to state that in the last month he had received threats against him and his family. He accused local news media of carelessly provoking such reactions.
"I don't believe that a Nielsen rating is worth the life of my children or your children," Kilpatrick said, prompting a standing ovation from the invitation-only audience of his supporters. "This unethical, illegal lynch mob mentality has to stop."
A cesspool on the order of New Orleans brought to you by the same cast of characters.
Yes he did. It was part of a 5 minute race-baiting claim that he was the victim of a lynch mobbing. He is an embarrassment to our state. But Detroit has gotten what it deserves. And it’s all too possible that he’ll survive this scandal as he has others.
Apparently not if the initials of your name are Bill Clinton.
By the way, it’s going to be fun to watch Hillary and Obama try to avoid him if there’s a revote in Michigan.
In other words, OJ didn’t do it!
Not if you talk to the defenders of Bill Clinton>
Kwame and Detroit. It reminds me of one Teddy Kennedy and the whole state of MA.
If some TV show had this guy and gal as the mayor with his
“girlfriend”, wouldn’t there be screaming about “racial stereotyping”?
Kwame K "“Today we’re not just burying the N-word, we’re taking it out of our spirit,” said Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. “We gather burying all the things that go with the N-word. We have to bury the ’pimps’ and the ’hos’ that go with it.” He continued: “Die, N-word, and we don’t want to see you ’round here no more.”
..unless it's politically expedient to do so...well for me anyways..
Phocking hypocrite.
Perhaps I’m blind, but I could not find the party affiliation of this “embattled mayor” in the article.
I’m so used to seeing something like, “...the slimy Republican mayor...” in the first paragraph of a story like this.
Please don’t tell me he’s another Dem, and that the editor somehow forgot to tell us!
Clinton -> Cisneros -> Spitzer -> Kilpatrick -> Newsom
Washington, DC -> San Antonio -> New York City -> Detroit -> San Francisco
Anyone infidelity -> Mistress infidelity -> Prostitute infidelity -> Aide infidelity -> "Other (wo)man" adultery
Send best friends out to lie for you -> Lie to best friends for job -> Use best friend's name as cover -> Kickback contracts to best friends -> cuckold best friend
Defend the Constitution -> Nominate to President's Cabinet -> Resign -> Fight -> Ignore
-PJ
This chocolate bunny is beginning to melt.
He can be recalled, but probably won’t. You get the kind of government you deserve.
I've been in the suburbs for about ten years and the number of times I've actually gone into Detroit during that time - Three, two of which were to attend the Auto Show. It is just not worth the risk and hassle.
Hillary’s fix is in. Kwame Kilpatrick is a superdelegate and an Obama supporter. Hillary is going to knock off or use the threat of knocking off any superdelegate that doesn’t support her. She will promise immunity deals with escort services, ex-lovers, you name it, to blackmail her way into the Whitehouse. Client 9, a New Yorker subject her immediate mafia network, was Example 1. Her timing is precise.
You can always track a RAT to the lowest denominator.
Big time Democrat. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Kwame M. Kilpatrick (born June 6, 1970) is the mayor of Detroit, Michigan. Elected at age 31, he is the youngest mayor in the history of Detroit, as well as the third youngest current mayor of any major U.S. city (after Luke Ravenstahl of Pittsburgh, and Adrian Fenty of Washington, D.C.). Kilpatrick briefly addressed the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He is currently Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and its representative to the Democratic National Committee.
Kilpatrick served as the leader of the Democratic Caucus when elected to the Michigan State House of Representatives, making him the first African American to hold a leadership position in the Michigan Legislature.
The mayoral terms of Kilpatrick have been plagued with controversies which have included his alleged marital infidelity with his chief of staff, lawsuits, and an investigation of perjury. If found guilty of felony perjury, Kilpatrick could be disbarred, sentenced up to 15 years in prison, and forced to resign as mayor. The controversies have prompted a call for his resignation, an ethics probe investigation, and a recall election campaign to have Kilpatrick removed from office.
Personal life
Kilpatrick grew up in Detroit and attended Pelham Middle School and Cass Technical High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science in political science and a teaching certificate from Florida A&M University where he was captain of the football team and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.[2][3] He holds a Juris Doctor from the Michigan State University College of Law, but has never practiced law.[4]
Kikpatrick taught at Detroit’s Marcus Garvey Academy as one way of helping under-privileged children. He started the school’s first basketball team and Boy Scouts troop.[5]
His mother, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, represents Michigan’s 13th District in the United States House of Representatives, and serves as the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus in the 110th United States Congress. Kilpatrick’s father, Bernard Kilpatrick, served as Chief of Staff to former - Wayne County Executive Edward H. McNamara.[6]
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