Is there hope for the American electorate? According to one news report, Michigan Rep. John Conyers – you know, the congressman who doesn’t read the bills he votes on – may not get re-elected in 2010.
The story was on the BlackAmericaWeb.com Web site (Full disclosure: I’ve written a weekly opinion column there since 2003.), with an intriguing title: “The word missing from CBC circles: Scandal.”
The CBC stands for Congressional Black Caucus, a collection of the black members of Congress who formed the group to better serve, at least in theory, the needs of America’s black citizens.
I’ve noted in the past, and will continuingly note, that the late Harlem Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, D-N.Y., had more effect alone than the CBC has had or ever will have as a group, but they continue to believe they serve some useful purpose.
That may be why the dreaded “s” word referred to in the BlackAmericaWeb.com piece is kept on the down-low. A few paragraphs from the story are worth quoting.
“As 12,000 black professionals mingle this week during the Congressional Black Caucus’ 39th annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C., there is one word that few dare to utter out loud: Scandal.”
The story then quotes someone identified only as a black professional who works on Capitol Hill (translation: A staff member of a CBC member who doesn’t want to lose his or her job) as saying no one mentions the “s” word.
“But privately,” the story continues, “many who are attending the 70 workshops and evening receptions are whispering about two high-profile and outspoken black congressional leaders who are running for re-election at a time when the media [are] hounding their embattled family members.”
That family member would be, in Conyers’ case, his wife, Monica, who was quite a piece of work when she served on the Detroit City Council. I remember one news story in which she got into a contentious, name-calling quarrel with a fellow council member, and a follow-up session when a 13-year-old middle schooler chided Conyers for her inappropriate conduct. But the congressman’s missus had bigger problems.
She pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and graciously consented to deprive Detroiters of her misgoverning last June, when she resigned. The other CBC member in dire straits is Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother of the now-notorious Kwame Kilpatrick, former mayor of Detroit and convicted perjurer.
Kilpatrick’s situation is a bit different from Conyers; he can be accused of poor judgment in choosing a wife, and voters might give him the boot from office for it. But does it seem fair to hold a mother accountable for the actions of her son?
It does when the mother not only doesn’t disavow those actions, but also brings up the perjurer’s name, as the story suggested she did. The reporter quoted an unnamed congressional aide – another staff member of another CBC member who wants to stay employed, no doubt – who asked “why does Carolyn continue to invoke Kwame’s name during her public appearances?”
Because she feels it will get her re-elected, that’s why. But voters in her district aren’t as clueless as she thinks; according to the BlackAmericaWeb.com story, a recent poll showed Carolyn Kilpatrick would get only 27 percent of the vote.
Thank heavens someone in Detroit still has a sense of shame. A rehash of what Kwame Kilpatrick did might be in order. As mayor, charges were made that he fired two high-ranking police officers who were investigating allegations of, to put it mildly, a wild party at Kwame Kilpatrick’s home.
When questioned under oath, the then-mayor denied all. He denied having an affair with one of his staff members, too. That was before steamy text messages between the two came to light. Really, are some folks so stupid they don’t realize stuff like that can be TRACED?
At any rate, Kwame Kilpatrick and his lovemate – not his wife, by the way, but that’s no big deal in this anything-goes day and age – were nailed. But he fought on, even at one point suggesting the dreaded white racists were out to get him.
Kwame Kilpatrick had the audacity to compare himself with Dr. Ossian Sweet, a black Detroit physician who, in 1925, had to use a firearm to defend his home against some real racists who were trying to drive him from his house.
Michigan voters would be doing themselves – and the nation – a world of good by banishing John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick from the halls of Congress forever.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
