Kwame, Eliot, and Getting What You Pay for

photograph by Cave Canem

I hate how liberal I'm going to sound when I say this, but America needs to get over its prostitution hang-up.

The reason I've ended up at this conclusion is Kwame Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick is the disgraced mayor of Detroit, who, so far as we know, did not have sex with any prostitutes. What he did do was have an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty (and, it has been alleged in court, at least three other women, in addition to throwing stripper parties at the city-owned mayoral residence). He then allegedly had fired, and thus ruined the careers of, those policemen investigating both his misconduct and abuses by his security team. When those officers fought back and won a Whistleblower Protection Act lawsuit against the city worth $6.5 million in damages, Kilpatrick (who is black) publicly pulled the race card and vowed to appeal. But in the end, he quietly offered a settlement of $8.4 million.

If that sudden change of heart doesn't make sense to you, it's because, as The Detroit Free Press discovered, the $8.4 million settlement included a secret deal in which all parties agreed to hide the existence of incriminating text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty. In other words, Kilpatrick tried to spend $8.4 million in taxpayer money to cover up an affair. (Well, one could say that the $6.5 million was for the illegal firings - which, remember, he was allegedly responsible for in the first place - and the extra $2.1 million in taxpayer money to be the actual price of silence.)

I first heard about this when Slate ran some of the text messages on its website almost two months ago. Unbelievably, Kilpatrick is still mayor, despite being indicted on Monday with eight felonies, including perjury. The media coverage has been widespread, but certainly not scandalous. There's none of the national moral outrage that was so fervent just two weeks ago.

Eliot Spitzer had sex with prostitutes.