DETROIT -- Lily Tomlin once said "No matter how cynical you get, you can't keep up." Naturally, she is a native Detroiter.
So what does a mayor say to the people he represents when he's been exposed for lying under oath and using city resources to have a steamy affair with a subordinate? How do you explain costing the city more than $9 million after you improperly fired a deputy police chief for doing his job and trying to investigate your corrupt behavior?
If you are Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, it is simple. First you disappear for a week. Then you go on television, from a parlor in your church, and address the TV cameras:
"We have paved more streets than ever, we have built more houses than ever, we have developed 75 buildings downtown," he said, clutching the hand of his wife, whose face was a frightening mask of hatred, pain and suffering.
"There has been a lot of speculation about me resigning from office. Let me be clear tonight. I will never quit on you, ever."
Nobody was greatly surprised by that.
But will he be removed?
Will he be prosecuted and convicted -- or even charged -- for what would seem to be an extremely well-documented case of perjury? Will the 37-year-old mayor, a lawyer himself, be disbarred?
Will he be charged with attempted obstruction of justice for firing the police who tried to investigate him?
Will anyone sue to attempt to recover the money he cost the city? In the tangled world of Detroit racial politics, one never knows.
Last week, Michigan learned, thanks to 14,000 text messages somehow obtained by the Detroit Free Press, that the mayor and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, lied under oath. Last summer, the pair indignantly denied under oath that they were having an affair.
They denied that they had anything to do with firing Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, who was investigating rumors of a wild party and a dead stripper at the mayoral mansion.
The text messages show something completely different. They almost seem to have been scripted by writers for Tomlin's old 1960s comedy show, Laugh-In. "I'm sorry that we are going through this mess because of decision we made to fire Gary Brown ... thinking about how we can do things smarter."
"True! It had to happen though," the mayor replied. "I am all the way with that."
Far more of his messages were about sex between the two, in terms graphic enough to scorch the tiles of the Coleman A. Young municipal building where the mayor sometime works.
Evidently it never occurred to either the mayor or his chief of staff that sending blistering messages on city-owned pagers might not be exactly the smartest way to communicate.
However, he seems to be putting a lot of smarts into his fight for survival. The mayor's strategy was clearly apparent during his 12-minute televised appearance Wednesday.
What he intends to do is paint this as entirely a sexual indiscretion, a private matter between himself and his family. Yes, he is sorry for embarrassing himself, he said.
"I want to make a public apology to my wife Carlita ... My marriage has not been perfect, but it has been great."
"I am truly hurting," he added.
Not a word about Beatty, who resigned under pressure Monday. Not a word about the three police officers whose careers he destroyed, or the money he cost the city.
What happens now?
Kym Worthy, the Wayne County prosecutor, has launched a criminal investigation. However, she faces a stiff challenge in the Democratic primary, which is the election that counts.
The day before the scandal broke, the mayor called her and bizarrely told her he was "staying neutral" in her re-election bid.
Will she be willing to risk alienating his supporters?
Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has declined to get involved, saying the ball is in Worthy's court.
Meanwhile, while there were calls for Christine Beatty's head, not a single public official has called on the mayor to step down.
Up to now, the Motor City's most bizarre political scandal involved a now-forgotten mayor named Richard Reading, who conspired with crooked cops in the 1930s to protect the city's numbers racket.
"This is the greatest crucifixion since Christ," he said after he was dragged off to prison.
This seems to beat that.
One postscript. Earlier this week, a Detroit TV station revealed that the mayor spent the weekend of Jan. 18 at a luxury resort with a woman other than his wife.
Beatty's lawyer, Mike Morgenroth, announced that the woman wasn't his client. He, incidentally, also represents the family of Tamara "Strawberry" Green. She was the murdered stripper linked to the famous earlier wild party.
Lily Tomlin was right. You just can't keep up.
Contact Jack Lessenberry at Bucca@aol.com or write to him at 189 Manoogian Hall, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 48202.
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