TheWriteReferee.com

Why Is Kilpatrick So Shameless? It's Never His Fault

I never thought I'd say this, but Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is a visionary. He's carved out a new niche for himself and others to surely follow him within American politics and combined it with America's obsession for reality-based entertainment.

America's Most Shameless Victim. Catchy, huh? Is that the phone ringing? I'll bet it's representatives from FOX -- I want royalties. Even Kilpatrick's former lawyer, James Parkman III, hinted we could see the proceedings at Comerica Park or Ford Field.

The thought struck me today as I looked at Kilpatrick, the man never at a loss for words, never to miss an opportunity to spin everyone's venom and disgust at his behavior as 'them against me', standing mute as he was arraigned on felony assault and obstruction charges today. Today, for maybe the first time ever, it was a judge obligated by constitutional law and not Kilpatrick's free will responsible for the "not guilty" plea on Kilpatrick's behalf. The brightest star to come out of Detroit since Chris Webber, Kilpatrick is the law school grad, the accomplished lawyer, legislator and elected politician who cannot even speak on his own behalf any longer.

So I pose this question: Why is it never Kwame Kilpatrick's fault? To believe Kilpatrick is to believe everyone is out to get him. The term everyone encapsulates a lot of people. It includes the residents of the city, the police and firefighters he empowers, the millions of suburbanites that surround him and the ultimate bad man, that damned media! Kilpatrick's math means more than six million people are against just one man. That's all the people in Lincoln Park and Garden City, from Grosse Pointe to Gibralter. Royal Oak, Rochester and Romeo, too. Woodhaven, Warren and Wixom to boot, plus a couple hundred other communities I omitted from that list.

Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most popular referee in town, but even I don't have six million people trying to run me out of town. Hell, even my wife isn't trying to get rid of me right now...but be patient and give it time.

To believe Kilpatrick is to believe while so many Detroiters are scuffling to keep their houses, jobs and food on the plate of their family's table, they also find the time to participate in 'Get Kwame'. When asked to respond nearly a year ago, Kilpatrick said 'everyone is out to get me!' When that didn't work, Kilpatrick said, 'it's racism!' When it wasn't that, it's was the media's fault. Of late the rally has been 'this is all political!'

Yet when the text messages, testimony and truth said otherwise, Kilpatrick hired 15-20 of the priciest lawyers he could find and paid them to say 'it wasn't our client, Your Honor, honest'. What's the old joke about what happens when a lawyer says he's being honest?

If it wasn't Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty talking about sexual trysts, ruining the lives of honest police officers and hiding facts from the people they report to, who was it? If he did no wrong, saw no wrong and spoke no wrong, why does he need an army of lawyers to say it for him?

Maybe now we know why Kilpatrick no longer has anything to say in his own defense. It's the non-response that speaks loud and clear today.

America's Auto Worker Own Worst Enemy

Today in The Detroit News, an article about the disgust American auto workers in Chicago feel towards higher fuel standards is the ultimate argument for why Americans no longer buy American cars en masse.

Yes, American auto workers want the government to repeal higher fuel mileage mandates. They want their managing partner, the auto companies, to spends billions in lobbyists, to buy off the American Senate and Congress, effectively halting these better mileage standards. They don't care about the customer, fuel costs that have increased exponentially or making quality cars to compete with today's global economy and fuel concerns.

The United Auto Workers (UAW) care about their jobs. That's all they care about. That's all they've ever cared about. I think that's all they'll ever care about. That's why they're a shell of their former selves, collectively speaking.

The only thing at stake here when we speak about criticism of higher fuel mileage standards is union jobs. The consumer is a virtual nobody by all standards if you listen to the rank-and-file of the UAW.  As the unions see it, if the national mandate gets its way, their job gets shipped off to another country, to build a more fuel-friendly car on a more cost-effective platform.

If they can no longer have a $27-35 per-hour job, you can't have an efficient car to combat the growing fuel frenzy. The irony is most unions vote under the Democratic umbrella. It was during the Bill Clinton presidency, himself an iconic Democrat, that the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed. The leadership they help empower helped create a more viable situation for American jobs to become obsolete.

The energy crisis is a legitimate barrier to economic health. In this country it's effect is something to behold. The electrical power grids are completely overmatched. Transportation and manufacturing business models are all built upon petroleum-based fuels, and the cost incurred for petroleum is something we have very little control over. Add credit card debt, the fact that nobody is saving any money in America and the added cost to everything consumable because of energy & transportation costs and one can quickly see that the sooner you become efficient, the sooner you start benefiting from better buying decisions.

To those concerns, the UAW could care less. They're a primary factor in the America's lost confidence in American car quality. That's right -- lost confidence. Americans for too long built too many sub-standard cars. For too long stories of union abuse and waste became commonplace. The car companies signed blank checks in collective bargaining to the unions for too long in the name of gross profits. The sum of the years and years of neglect in public image is lost confidence. Ford is dumping billions of dollars in quality product and it hasn't moved consumer confidence one bit. Chrysler, Ford and General Motors have a long way to go if they think people will look at them in the same light as Toyota or Honda, much less Mercedes and BMW.

Sadly, the UAW isn't helping its own cause much when they open their collective mouth as they've done in Chicago.

-- Curtis LaSalle, freelance writer