Kwame Kilpatrick ordered to spend the night in jail

I have to admit a certain fascination with the goings-on of Detroit's mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. I began to follow Kilpatrick around 1991 when he was elected as the youngest mayor of Detroit at only 31 years old (he is also one of the youngest serving mayors of any major US city). Having traveled to Detroit in the past I wondered if he could revitalize the old city, get it back on track. Parts of Detroit are fantastic places, others are very much not so wonderful in any way. Detroit is odd in the first place as it is the only major US city to look SOUTH into Canada! Eh?

Over the last seven years Mayor Kilpatrick has not been able to right the wrongs of Detroit. In fact he played into a lot of "white fear" about having a mayor who referred to himself as "The Hip-Hop Mayor". Scandals were soon to follow the mayor including the 2002 Mayor's Mansion Stripper Party, the murder of Tamara Green, personal use of a Detroit PD motorcycle (is that really such a big deal?) and the list goes on.

What I find interesting is the scandal that might take him down was fairly minor: he sent elicity txt messages to a woman who was not his wife. Please join me in a collective yawn here. Are personal extramarrital affairs by elected officials even a story any longer? John Edwards is starting to feel the heat over the same kind of thing but, really people, can't we get past this?

Kilpatrick's undoing, however, might be the alleged hush money he paid to keep things quiet and his alleged rail-roading of those involved with the investigation into the matter. I'm willing to overlook the affair, after all that is between Kilpatrick, his wife and the "other woman". Some of his alleged actions during the investigation can't be overlooked and I think he's going to be in hot water because of it. Now CNN is reporting that the mayor is going to spend a night in jail over violations of his bond. I project things are going to go from bad to worse for the mayor in a very short period of time.

It's a shame it had to end like this. Kilpatrick could have been a hero of the black, white and hispanic communities for righting the very wayward city of Detroit thus providing a blueprint for other troubled cities to follow. Instead he's going to be remembered as another politicial brought down by scandal.

One other odd note: Kilpatrick and I share the same birthday. I suppose hundreded of thousands of other people do as well but I found that factoid interesting.