In addition to watching the democratic nomination fight, we've been keeping an eye on the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal in Detroit, highlighting the failure of Black Accountability in that city to call the Mayor to account for his behavior. In this wild political year, the two actually come together. We note with irony that Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm has joined FL governor Crisp in calling for do over contests in MI and FL to settle the dispute over seating the delegates from those states. Granholm is a Hillary supporter and is clearly seeking to aid her candidate to defeat Barack Obama, currently leading in the delegate and popular vote.At the same time that Granholm is actively working to defeat the strong, principled leadership of the African American Senator from Illinois, she is enabling the thuggish behavior of African American Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in Detroit. Kwame has now been proven to be a pathological liar, using his position as Mayor to engage in a torrid affair with his former chief of staff, then destroying the careers of two DPD cops and shelling out $10 million and counting of Detroit taxpayer money to cover it up. Kwame's now documented lying on this issue has brought an older scandal back to the fore, that of the infamous Manoogian Mansion party and its linkage to what appears to be a contract hit on a stripper, Tamara Greene, who reportedly danced at that party.
Detroit City Council has put forward a resolution, tabled for now, calling for Kilpatrick's resignation. The council, under the city charter does not have the power to remove Kilpatrick, but state law allows them to request the Governor do so, and clearly gives her the power to remove Kilpatrick from office on a showing of neglect of his duties, already amply demonstrated in this case.
The Council has failed to pull the trigger on the resolution, tabling the matter until March 18th in order to make some fuller review of the ramifications of this non binding no confidence vote, also known as dithering while the city burns.
Should such request be made, its a certainty Granholm won't remove Kwame, as she is too concerned with keeping Kwame in place to facilitate various economic development projects of the corporate community for which Kwame is greasing the skids. To date she has had only muted criticism of Kwame's actions in office. She certainly has leeway to take independent action of her own to bring some pressure to bear, but is content to let Kwame hold onto his job if he can. In this she is complicit in his dereliction of duty, as is the Detroit corporate community that saved Kwame's re-election campaign with 11th hour contributions, but now is silent on the misdeeds of their bought and paid for Mayor.
Granholm is gladly assisting Clinton to take down a strong black leader like Obama , while enabling the thuggish behavior of Kilpatrick in her own backyard, no matter how badly he abuses the taxpayers of Detroit, who by the way, are her constituents too.
