Vic Socotra

05 September 2008

The Lush Life

Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick with his wife Calrita Yesterday
(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

I was doing something else when the word came over the clock-radio on my desk high over North Glebe Road. The sound quality is kind of crappy, but I had been informed that listening to the radio on the Internet could be grounds for immediate termination from the Company, so I grudgingly complied.

I thought the rules were supposed to discourage employees from streaming internet television shows or pornography to their screens, not classical music or weathe r updates, but that is the nature of things in a society where technology so far outstrips our ability to make rules to control its use.

Accordingly, I suppose it is better to be cautious in these matters. Don’t want to break the rules. There are consequences.

It was a little eerie when the NY Times sent me a “breaking news” alert to my office address. I think that is OK; it doesn’t stream or move or have unsettling images. Just at the time the text message hit my computer I could hear Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick of Detroit reading a prepared statement on the clock radio.
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I could tell it was not something that he wanted to do. His rich deep voice said the words that must have been on a paper in front of him with a certain delicacy. He said he was guilty of a bunch of stuff, and that he was really sorry.

He was actually sorry he got caught, but that is the problem with trying to live the lush life on a largely symbolic salary.

He said he lied to the grand jury when they asked him about the nature of the relationship with his former chief of staff; apparently they had some compromising text messages, and the awful prospect of having to talk to the family about it made lies the preferred option.

Of course he was corrupt, too, which is the peril of public life. There is so little direct money in it that the temptation to siphon off a little of the river of Taxpayer’s money going by becomes irresistible.

Power is such an attractive thing, and it lends a certain sense of invulnerability. I cannot help but think of John Edwards and his great hair in that regard, running for President while dallying with a volunteer staffer. He said later, when he had to explain, that he just had been sucked into the notion that he was able to do anything he wanted.

Apparently the Mayor’s plea bargain with the government required him to read the statement, which is a humiliation. They are going to give him a couple weeks to clean out the desk and turn over the responsibilities of his of his office to the Chairman of the City Council. Then he reports to jail, which seems a civil enough arrangement.

It was weird to hear the blunt nature of the words. He had sought to obstruct justice, he said, and deliberately misled the Judge. We rarely hear a politician telling the truth, particularly in the last few months prior to a general election.

I wonder if we should just be honest about our elected servants, and life at the top of the heap. What they have to do to stay there while making those paltry salaries is the root of the problem. Rep. Charles Wrangle (D-NY) forgot about a house he owned in the Dominican Republic, the Times said this morning. He has a lot on his mind, according to a press release from his office.

Maybe we should pay them the sort of lavish salaries that the CEO’s in private life make. I know a few Congressmen, and their paychecks are puny, considering the importance of what they do.

I saw one of them on the television last night at the convention, standing next to his vivacious wife. The honest legislators live paycheck to paycheck like all the rest of us. I knew Randy Cunningham, and his dodge on the sale of his house is what started his downfall. A government contractor paid him a lot more money than it was worth, which was a fairly clever dodge, but unfortunately a matter of public record.

Republican Senator Ted Stevens of the Great State of Alaska had about a quarter million dollars worth of contractor-provided goodies in his house. Considering how important he was in the allocation of trillions of dollars, it is a little pathetic, don’t you think?

We should have built him a castle at public expense. It would have been cheaper than the Bridge to Nowhere. A lot cheaper.

It may wind up being his downfall, though that is uncertain. Many things can be overcome. Senator Obama’s sweet deal on the lot next to the house that a state legislator could not really afford seems to have passed into campaign static. It still shows how complicated it all is.

Senator McCain never had more than a couple nickels to rub together in his Navy career, unless you count the paychecks that piled up while he was doing hard time in Hanoi. I think his first wife had a chance to cash them, though, and many of the guys he was with got out of the cooler to find they had nothing.

For Senator Mc Cain, it took the fortuitous marriage to his second wife to solve his problems.

By the way, Cindy looked pretty darn competent as she stood on the podium last night to introduce the Senator. Considering how well the two prospective First Ladies have done on the stage, I wish we could have voted for them directly. I think they have a better ideas of what it costs to try to hold things together on a public salary.

They have been ribbing Senator McCain pretty hard for not knowing how many homes he owns, though truth be told, it is Cindy’s money that made it all possible, and frankly makes the Senator incorrupti ble. He can’t be tempted by the public’s money, since he doesn’t need it.

That seems to be something we might want to take a look at that. Suppose we set up a fund for the politicians, so they could live like John Edwards if they hit the jackpot on election day.

Even if you set aside a billion or two for them to have fancy houses in the best neighborhoods, it would be a net savings to the treasury. With their creature comforts taken care of, they might not have to generate all that pork to steer to people in order to keep the donations coming.

It might tend to keep their hands out of our wallets, too. Human nature being what it is, though, I doubt it.

You could always get a little more.

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