I’ve been in Ann Arbor for a month now, and I have been subscribing to the Detroit Free Press, mainly because I believe in the importance not only of reading a daily newspaper, but I think a major city should have one. I don’t mean to sound like a East Coast snot, but I think it’s fair to say that the Free Press is not as good as the Philadelphia Inquirer. That may reflect a difference between the cities. Detroit is in worse shape than Philadelphia, and that’s an understatement.
As for regional news, I have been treated to huge front page headlines every day about Kwame Kilpatrick’s sordid scandal and coverup. My immediate reaction was that they were beating around the bush by dwelling at length on every squalid detail, and that the man should have simply resigned, or been forced to resign. Nearly everyone wanted him to resign (even the political allies who put him in), but he was just too pigheaded or egotistical, and he clung to power.
In a word, I thought it was all pathetic, and I refrained from writing about it here, mainly because it seemed almost boring, and I would have sounded like a condescending newcomer putting down my new greater metropolitan area when it is in dire need of help from somewhere. Plus, what could I — a small l non-conforming libertarian Republican registered as a Democrat — possibly add which would be of any help? They don’t need my help; they need a miracle, and I’m no miracle worker, but an often pessimistic worry wart who often resorts to comedy as an antidote to gloom. Making fun of Kilpatrick strikes me as a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
In addition to all that, I’ve been extremely busy, and have not had time for blogging in the style to which I became accustomed over the years. (Plus, it’s not as if there aren’t more important things to blog about….)
Now that he’s officially out, though, I thought it might be a good time for a post-mortem comment.
I won’t recite the details of the drama; today’s Free Press covers most of it in a piece titled “Kilpatrick’s rise and fall: Detroit’s mayor an example of the best — and worst — of city” — a story which appears on page 7A of today’s paper.
The front page of today’s Free Press looks like this:
(Just ignore Coco’s appearance, OK? I apologize for the fact that she hasn’t had time to put on her lipstick.)
The entire front section is devoted to article after article (with numbing detail after numbing detail) about the mess. The front page lead story begins with this:
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick — who once said God chose him to lead his hometown and pledged to Detroiters “I would never quit on you” — resigned Thursday, bringing an ignominious end to what once seemed like a career without limits.
In a standing-room-only Detroit courtroom, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges in his perjury case and no contest in his assault case, ending his steadfast refusal to resign amid a scandal that only grew in intensity over the past eight months.
“I lied under oath,” Kilpatrick told Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner, almost echoing the Free Press headline in January that sparked the mayor’s text message scandal.
Under the terms of his deal, Kilpatrick will spend four months in jail, forfeit his law license and his pension from the state Legislature, pay up to $1 million in restitution and serve 5 years of probation. He will leave office Sept. 18 and has promised not to run for office while on probation.
Until he leaves, Detroit will be run by an admitted felon.
God chose him? I thought only the “Christianists” talked that way! And aren’t “Christianists” supposed to be Republicans? If you were from out of town and didn’t know any better, you’d have to slog through the paper to page A7 to discover that the crook was in fact a Democrat.
But whoa! I see that I’m not the only one to be playing “Name that Party.”
And because I so hate to bore readers, I thought I’d try a new name.
UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all — especially “name that Christianist” game players.
Not to dwell on Coco’s lipstick issue, but I was going to consult a leading expert about the right shade, and I just never got around to it….
Comments
26 responses to “Time to play “Name that Christianist”!”
I mentioned this to Glenn the other day. I think it’s time to call a moratorium on “Name That Party,” at least when local papers are concerned. Do you really think there’s a single person in greater Detroit who *doesn’t* know Kilpatrick’s affiliation? It’s totally unnecessary to include that information.
Now, if the story ran in an out-of-town paper, yes, you’d want that up-front. Indeed, my local Lansing State Journal covers the story today, and identifies Kilpatrick as a Democrat at the start of paragraph 3.
But in Detroit, everybody knows: grass is green, the sky is blue, and local politicians are all Democrats. Goes without saying, so why say it?
Gene Dillenburg
Lansing, Michigan
(Go, Spartans!)
Given that Andrew Sullivan is all over the “Christianists”, I’m sure that he’ll cover this!
(well…)
I mentioned this to Glenn the other day. I think it’s time to call a moratorium on “Name That Party,” at least when local papers are concerned. Do you really think there’s a single person in greater Detroit who *doesn’t* know Kilpatrick’s affiliation? It’s totally unnecessary to include that information.
Now, if the story ran in an out-of-town paper, yes, you’d want that up-front. Indeed, my local Lansing State Journal covers the story today, and identifies Kilpatrick as a Democrat at the start of paragraph 3.
But in Detroit, everybody knows: grass is green, the sky is blue, and local politicians are all Democrats. Goes without saying, so why say it?
Gene Dillenburg
Lansing, Michigan
(Go, Spartans!)
Gene. That would be fine if the same applied to republicans, which it does not.
Got the point, now?
I really love the little cat face on the bottom of Coco’s bowl!
Eric,
Your “belief” in the need to read a local daily newspaper is the most “Christianist” statement of faith in a higher power in this whole post.
As a former newspaper journalist, I can tell you for certain that there is very little “news” in a newspaper, and there is no need to feel compelled to read one every day, let alone subscribe to one.
Please don’t tell me you also watch the local six o’clock news programs out of some belief in a need to watch one. I worked for six months at an NBC affiliate’s news outfit and quickly concluded I never needed to watch local television news ever again, and I haven’t. That was 1990.
Over from Instapundit. This morning’s Boston Globe had the resignation on page one, below the fold, and then took it to page A2. The rather longish article didn’t mentioned his membership in the Democratic Party until the last sentence. It never mentioned that his mother is a US Congresswoman from Michigan. But, I live in Baja New Hampshire and maybe the later editions had the news up higher.
Regards — Cliff Krieger
Heh. Lied under oath? What’s the big deal? Clinton did that and skated. Now that’s racism: Clinton can do it, but Kwame can’t. Where are the dem defenders?
NPR had reports on Kilpatrick yesterday and this morning. I listened closely and never hear the word “Democrat”.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94312312
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94271285
There should be a moratorium on “Name that Party”. It’s too darn easy to play.
As an Ann Arbor native (albeit now a Texan), may I suggest that the Ann Arbor News is at least as good a newspaper as the Detroit Free Press. It was back in the 1970s when I last lived there.
Also, of the two Detroit papers, the Detroit News always seemed to have better news coverage than the Freep. (Although the Freep had better funnies — which was more important as a child.) In fact, that is the website I go to when I want to find out what is happening in my native land.
Those messy details don’t really come up when you’re writing about your friends.
Do you really think there’s a single person in greater Detroit who *doesn’t* know Kilpatrick’s affiliation?
Do you think there’s something called the “Detroit Wide Web”?
I’m not from Detroit, and I’ve only spent 4 days in Michigan (mostly in Ann Arbor). But really – a black politician from one of the worst-run cities in America doesn’t need to be identified by party, because it’s obvious he’s a Democrat. And with a name like “Kwame”, I don’t even need to see a picture to know he’s black.
If the story was about the Mayor of Ann Arbor, then it would be important to include the party affiliation.
“And aren’t “Christianists” supposed to be Republicans?”
Minorities, especially African-Americans, get a pass on religion (among other things). They’re oppressed and need the opiate of the masses, dont’cha know!
My only question is does anyone who is not on the Left or Democrat ever object to playing “Name that Party”? Can you give me an example of one? If not, why not?
I find it more than amusing that Democrats (and Dem supporters) really, really don’t think it’s important to identify Democratic malfeasors as Democrats.
Anyway, I moved to Michigan from Illinois about a decade ago, and there isn’t that much difference politically.
However, a friend from Iowa said that while she was in Iowa she felt like she was the farthest Left person in Iowa, but now that she lives in Ann Arbor she’s pretty sure she’s the farthest Right person in Ann Arbor. I’ll have to tell her about you, Eric.
;->=
Welcome to what we fondly refer to as “The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor.”
Another Ann Arbor native, and I have to say the best local newspaper in the area is… the Observer.
The Freep and the Snews are both paradigms for lazy reporting and bad overall writing. I’d read them anyway, just to get the local news, however for anything else, you’re in trouble.
I am sure he was set up by Karl Rove to go down in an election year so that he could scare America into not electing a black man as President. I am sure the Republicans will point to Kilpatrick and say “See what happens if you elect the black man?”
Perhaps instead of caring who a black man might have slept with, we should care more about how Bush’s economic policies have destroyed Detriot and the rest of Michigan.
Forget the lipstick, that dog looks like some kinda hell hound with the glowing eyes and all. I’d check the want ads for an exorcist.
As a lifelong resident of SEMI, I’d say that the Free Press may have better writers, but liberal ideological bias permeates everything in the Freep. There’s not a single right of center columnist. The Detroit News, I think, has better sports coverage and a better comics section (well, it has Zippy, all the difference in the world), not to mention an editorial page that won’t make you spit out your morning coffee.
Before he went to Washington, the late Tony Snow ran the DetNews editorial page.
Moose,
The only problem with your scenario is that the party that originally sparked the scandal because the Detroit PD had to do an internal investigation of possible abuse of overtime and other actions of the mayor’s executive protection unit, i.e. his DPD bodyguards, took place years ago in 2003 if I’m not mistaken.
Karl Rove may be smart but he would have had to have been a fortune teller to figure out that five years later Obama would be the Dem’s nominee.
Play the race card all you want, but virtually all the players in this scandal, Kwame, Carlita (she’s rumored to have beaten a stripper she discovered in a compromising position with her husband), Prosecutor Worthy, the two whistleblowing cops, the Wayne County sheriff, etc. are black.
I think it’s time to call a moratorium on “Name That Party,” at least when local papers are concerned. Do you really think there’s a single person in greater Detroit who *doesn’t* know Kilpatrick’s affiliation? It’s totally unnecessary to include that information.
Now, if the story ran in an out-of-town paper, yes, you’d want that up-front. Indeed, my local Lansing State Journal covers the news today, and identifies Kilpatrick as a Democrat at the start of paragraph 3.
But in Detroit, everybody knows: the grass is green, the sky is blue, and local politicians are all Democrats. Goes without saying, so why say it?
Lansing, Michigan
(Go, Spartans!)
To answer the question, I object to “Name that Party” and I’m a Republican.
OK.
Well, actually I don’t. We’re still looking for the One Kind Republican to object on the behalf of Democratic crooks everywhere but since we’re all heartless it may take a while.
Name That Party is supposed to get harder very soon in Seattle. The local establishment wants to make the county elections “nonpartisan.” This will make them ever so much more fair and objective — they actually manage to say this with straight faces. They already have that system in municipal elections, the result being that almost nobody knows that the city council is jammed with Green Party stalwarts.
Ugh.
Ann Arbor? Good God, man. What did you do wrong.
Go to Zingermans. Is Loy’s Double D Pizza still in business? I remember it fondly.
Ah, but Bozoer @4:07pm, how do you know he CAN’T? Underestimate the dark powers of Sith Lord Rove at your peril, youngling.
Somewhere, Rove is smirking under his hood and cackling, “Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it…”
(Yeah, I’m still trying to find the “sarcasm” tag in HTML.)
I often neglect to put in the sarcasm tag.