A Motown Classic: "Textual Healing"

What can I say, gentlemen? We have all been bested, out-playered, out-Don Juanned, and out-Max Julienned; and just two weeks before Valentine's Day at that.

We have been shown that the way to make love is not through actual physical contact, or through serenade, or even by proxy, a la Cyrano De Bergerac. No, the way you get your freaky deak on in the 21st century is through text messaging.

At least that's what the venerable Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has allegedly shown us in a WTF, FUBAR, YGTBKM, LMAO, and a ton of other text acronyms and emoticons, scandal broken by the Detroit Free Press (credit where credit is due).

If you haven't heard, the stuff has hit the fan in Motown and I'll explain it in a few bullet points:

+ Kilpatrick, the City of Detroit and its former police chief went to court in a whistleblower lawsuit filed against them by two of the mayor's ex-bodyguards, who accused Kilpatrick of retaliating against them for investigating improprieties they said were committed by his security detail. One was fired, the other's name was leaked to the media as the source of the allegations (sorta Valerie Plame style). Michigan law protects people who choose to blow the whistle on public officials. A jury awarded the two ex-cops $6.5 million. The trial cost the city $9 million.

+ In the lawsuit, the ex-bodyguards also accused Kilpatrick of cheating on his wife with his chief-of-staff and several other women while both in and out of town. But both Kilpatrick and the city exec, Christine Beatty, testified under oath that they have never had any kind of romantic relationship.

+ But before you could say "First Amendment," the Freep uses Freedom of Information Act and other legal means to get hold of text records that had come up in the trial earlier. The newspaper got hold of 14,000 text messages sent in 2002 and 2003 that came through on Beatty's pager -- which was city owned, thus available for public investigation. A FOIA request is not just for newspapers. Any citizen can use one to get hold of things that are public record.

+ The dialogue in the messages provides evidence that they did in fact have a romantic relationship, although they testified that they did not. A lie under oath constitutes perjury, which could get them both 15 years behind bars under Michigan statute.

Now for two city officials to send text messages to one another is no big deal, but the Freep's investigation turned up messages like this:

***This is one of those little things I had to tell you. Last night when I was laying on your shoulder in the car and you held my face and sang whatever song it was, that felt so good. It was just one of those little moments when you just made me fall some more.

***OK, I'm feeling like I want another night like the most recent Saturday at the Residence Inn! You made me feel so damn good that night. As you can see I can't let it go! ...

***I feel that we can do that in WV [West Virginia] just relax together. I need you soooo bad. I want to wake up in the morning and you are there. Make it happen. Love ya.

Oh, it gets deeper. Here's a huge page with more stuff and more explicit messages, even though the Freep's editors have said they held back on the most racy stuff.

Needless to say, you've got Kilpatrick on television, unable to defend himself, but apologizing (although he can't say what for due to legal reasons), and half the town calling for blood. Not that I'm defending anyone, but I'm a native Detroiter. Love the place and no matter where I go on this planet, it will always be my home.

Let's get candid for a sec.

A decade ago, during the Lewinsky/Blue Dress scandal, I did not hear that same lynch mob waiting for Bill Clinton with a broomstick and some Vaseline. Instead he earned that stupid "First Black President" moniker (damn, I hated that).

So now, the mayor of Detroit gets into the same kind of trouble and people from 8 Mile to Jefferson and from Beech Daly to Alter Road have become political paddyrollers, obsessed with where Kilpatrick lays the pipe. But the pressure should not really be on the mayor's office but rather on Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has said she will launch an independent investigation.

Worthy, who is an elected official, needs then to do her job and swoop down if it turns out the evidence she finds is the same as what the Freep found -- and Detroiters should demand to know what she knows, when she knows it.

All in all, I'm not telling Detroiters not to be pissed, because they should be, but observing Rule of Law where public officials have apparently failed is paramount for anyplace that considers itself part of a democracy.

Okay, let's be silly again. Below is Kilpatrick's televised apology, which is the best interruption of your regular programming since they shot Buckwheat.