As long as we're talking about sex scandals ...
Eliot Spitzer's political career seems to have just ended abruptly, and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has to be a little thankful this morning that the New York governor has grabbed the political spotlight today. Kilpatrick, like Spitzer, was once considered a future bright light in the Democratic Party. But a sex scandal has also caught up the married Kilpatrick, as revealed in text messages with his lover, who was also his chief of staff, and about which they apparently lied under oath.
The story is even more involved, as our colleague P.J. Huffstutter reported a few days back. There's a dead exotic dancer after a phantom party at the mayor's mansion, charges of a cover-up, multi-millions in legal settlements paid out by what is likely the nation's most impoverished big city, and enough other plot twists to fill a Tom Wolfe novel.
Last night, Kilpatrick delivered his annual state of the city speech, which apparently didn't go well. Some City Council members refused to sit on stage with him, as tradition dictates. Protesters outside the building demanded his resignation. And the local district attorney is still a couple of weeks away from deciding whether to file charges against the mayor over the disconnect between his testimony in a civil case that he was not romantically involved with his chief of staff, and the text messages that indicate he was.
Which makes us wonder whether politicians might want to start thinking about taking vows of celibacy. But then, given the way some of them trash their other vows --to spouses, to the public, and to the laws they promise to uphold -- we doubt it would do any good.
-- Scott Martelle
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Problem with ¨bright light¨dems is at least half of them are
aflicted with acute sexual deviancy,sometimes bordrering
on bestiality. This blemish is often the root cause of a
pathology called liberalism wich also affects republicans
although to an infinitely lesser degree. Beware of any
liberal politician !
Posted by: Always Right | March 12, 2008 at 11:41 AM
What's Kwame Kilpatrick's middle initial ? If (as can be suspected in this era of democratic shocking vice and
revelations) it is another K......Then all past,present
and future scandals would be dwarfed, and Spitzer
could become your real come-back kid.
Posted by: Always Right | March 12, 2008 at 12:59 PM