The mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick
Evidence offered in “Drunks, Drugs & Debits: How to Recognize Addicts and Avoid Financial Abuse” suggests that roughly 80% of serially erratic misbehaviors can be explained by alcohol or other-drug addiction. Unfortunately, since addictive use is often hidden from pubic view by enablers, in ratcheting up or down the likelihood that addiction explains poor conduct, we are often stuck at 80%. This is particularly true among CEOs, doctors, lawyers, other professionals–and politicians.
Most celebrities and professional athletes who misbehave are almost always “outed” by journalists. The fact that such behaviors in celebrities who are known alcoholics are similar to those of politicians, etc., in whom heavy drinking is never reported–and for whom enablers abound–is damning evidence that alcoholism is the driving force in both. Since addiction causes egomania (which compels the addict to wield power capriciously), as well as distortions of perception resulting in bizarre or abnormal conduct, such behaviors indicate a high probability of hidden alcoholism.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is almost universally described as “flamboyant.” He sports a diamond earring and “mayor” embroidered on his French cuffs. He ran up $200,000 in spa treatments and champagne on what he claimed was legitimate city business at a time the city was cutting police officers to plug a $250 million deficit. Only a handful of detailed receipts for hotel rooms, airfares and meals support what appear to be tens of thousands of dollars of travel and entertainment, but in at least two instances alcohol was charged to the city’s credit card in an apparent violation of city policy. While Kilpatrick’s predecessor, Dennis Archer, routinely provided detailed receipts and never stuck taxpayers for any meal over $40, examples of Kilpatrick’s extravagances include a $319 charge at Ozio Restaurant & Lounge (chic Art Deco cigar and martini bar catering to celebrities) and $292 at the Capital Grille (panoramic view of the U.S. Capitol with a wine list sporting more than 800 labels) while attending a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting. Detroit city workers traveling on city business rarely if ever get a dinner paid by taxpayers, but Kilpatrick once enjoyed a bottle of Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial champagne, four Malibu Rum drinks and three shots of Chambord liqueur at Justin’s Restaurant & Bar in Atlanta, the tab for which “far exceeded” the cost of the barbeque shrimp, egg rolls and fritters, all at the city’s expense. While former mayor Archer explained his frugality by saying, “The city really had no funds to entertain anybody” during his eight years in office, which according to the Detroit Free Press “included some of the most prosperous times in recent Detroit history,” it isn’t even clear why Kilpatrick at one point spent $296 on two orders of crab legs, two beers and a tumbler of Glenlivet scotch at Bob Chinn’s Crab House in Chicago.
His personal tastes seem to extend to public ones. His plan for the economic revival of Detroit rests on attracting high-profile and flashy projects, including the 2006 Super Bowl, cajoling General Motors, Compuware and Quicken Loans to relocate their offices downtown, and creating three casinos. In the meantime, high school graduation rates hover at around 25%, homicide rates are nearly 50 per 100,000 (Gotham’s are 7.3 per 100,000; every other measure of violent crime and theft in New York City are also a fraction of Detroit’s) and there seems to have been no attempt to simplify Detroit’s third-world-like Byzantine regulations that require day care centers and hair-braiding salons to obtain 70 building and equipment permits by opening day.
The questionable public antics began early in Mayor Kilpatrick’s reign. His wife, who is rumored to have “unexpectedly” stopped by a party that reportedly* took place in the mayoral mansion in 2002 to celebrate his election, allegedly took a bat to a stripper whom she found consorting with her husband. The stripper was gunned down a few months later and a lawsuit followed, alleging on behalf of her 14-year-old son that the mayor’s office stifled the investigation of her death. Two Detroit police officers, who were summarily fired by the mayor after launching a private probe to investigate rumors of the party and related complaints, won a $6.5 million verdict under a whistleblower lawsuit. A month after he vowed to appeal, Kilpatrick abruptly settled for $1.9 million more than the jury award. Detroit’s unwitting taxpayers will pick up the tab notwithstanding Kilpatrick’s claim that he has “paid back” the $8.4 million through “hard work for the city.”
Shortly after the lawsuit was settled, The Detroit Free Press managed to obtain 14,000 text messages (indicating an extreme case of telephonitis, which is an often excellent if unheralded behavioral clue to alcoholism) from 2002-2003 between Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty. In testimony given by both of them during the lawsuit, each denied carrying on an affair. However, the messages included one in which Kilpatrick wrote, “I’m madly in love with you,” with Beatty responding, “I hope you feel that way for a long time…I am madly in love with you, too!” and reportedly “steamy” dialogue, along with secret meetings and how to conceal their trysts. Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has now charged the mayor with obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct in office. He is charged with attempting to hide the extramarital relationship and official misconduct by coercing and punishing police officials who were investigating the allegations. Both he and Beatty had denied under oath that former Detroit Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, head of internal affairs, had been fired, while text messages sang a different tune. The pair then attempted to hide the incriminating messages, thereby obstructing justice, because they feared Brown would uncover the affair and other “illegal acts” by the mayor’s staff.
Without any further evidence, the odds that alcoholism explains the misbehaviors are on the order of 80%. However, when we learn that since 2002 Washington, D.C. police will no longer provide after-business-hours police protection to Kilpatrick because of “inappropriate partying” because they feel that such “late evening partying…might result in an incident at one of the clubs,” we can safely close in on 100% odds of alcoholism.
Abuse of power is by itself a compelling indication of alcoholism. Combined with ostentatious displays of wealth, lying, adultery and extravagance–especially with other people’s money–the evidence is overwhelming that Kwame Kilpatrick suffers from the same disease that drives another charismatic politician with a similar aura, former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry. It will be most interesting to see whether Mr. Kilpatrick’s future history plays out in similar fashion.
* You’d think it would be easy to ascertain whether or not a party took place. Oddly, while Ms. Greene claimed she was attacked at the party and Detroit cops were fired for investigating allegations of the party, the Republic state attorney general, Mike Cox, found “no evidence” that the party took place. There’s much more to this bizarre (and therefore likely fueled by alcoholism) story at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick.