Kwame vs. Kwame: Winners and losers

There's now a pair of Kwame's in Detroit. One is an overpaid, lazy disappointment. The other...Hell, I'm talking about both Kwame's, the Pistons' Brown and the city of Detroit's Kilpatrick.



Let's break down the winners and losers in a battle between an underachieving and immature NBA center and an unethical and under indictment big city mayor.

Welcome to the Kwame vs.Kwame showdown!

Kwame Brown: Skipped college, entered the NBA out of high school. Showed flashes of brilliance early in his basketball career, then backslid to the point of being considered one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history.



Kwame Kilpatrick: Played football in college, then went into politics.Showed flashes of brilliance early in his political career, then backslid into a cesspool of corruption.



Loser: Kwame Brown. Brown has managed to enrage the fans in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Memphis, and soon, Detroit. Kilpatrick is 2 cities behind, though you could argue he has an entire state pissed at him.



KB: Somehow got Joe Dumars to sign him to a 2 year, $8 million contract to sit at the end of the bench. I can only guess there was some sort of blackmail involved.



KK: Stuck the already broke city of Detroit with a $9 million dollar lawsuit verdict after the courts agreed Kilpatrick tried to ruin the careers of 2 Detroit policemen who were investigating his antics.



Loser: The citizens of Detroit, as Brown is an anchor on the Pistons, and Kilpatrick's legal bills are skyrocketing thanks to his perjury indictments. The city may not be footing all of the bills, but no businessman in their right mind would even think about investing in the city. Maybe Brown, and his freshly minted $8 million, will...



KB: While a Laker, Brown was accused of rape during the 2006 playoffs, but was ultimately cleared of all charges.



KK: A serial adulterer, having hit on/slept with strippers, hookers, his chief of staff and any other woman within the Detroit city limits. Basically sleeps with everyone BUT his wife.



Loser: Women everywhere.



KB: Threw Ronny Turiaf's birthday cake at a fan.



KK: Involved in the "alleged" murder of a stripper at the mayoral mansion.



Loser: Tamara Greene.



KB: During a tight playoff series against the Chicago Bulls in 2005, Brown told the Washington Wizards he had a stomach virus, and was too ill to practice. Brown was later seen happily having dinner at a Chinese eatery. As it turns out, Brown lied to the Wizards, later claiming he was too pissed off at Gilbert Arenas to play. He was suspended for the remainder of the playoffs, then traded to LA soon after the season ended.



KK: Testified under oath he was not having an affiar with his chief of staff. Mounting evidence, including 14,000 text messages, says otherwise. A jury found Kilpatrick's testimony totally unbelievable, and awarded $9 million in damages to the 2 police officers he willingly slandered.



Loser: The truth.



KB: Was one of the centerpieces in one of the most lopsided trades in NBA history, as the Lakers traded Brown, several of benchwarmers and a couple of draft picks for All-Star Pau Gasol. The Lakers, led by Gasol, went on into the playoffs, while the Grizzlies spun into irrelevancy, finishing 22-60. The Grizz thought so little of their prize pickup, they let him walk in free agency. Memphis essentially traded Gasol for a couple of low 1st round picks.



KK: Arrested on assault charges when he shoved a police officer who was trying to serve a subpoena on his good friend, Bobby Ferguson. This is the same Bobby Ferguson who received preferential treatment and confidential information regarding his competition when bidding for city contracts.



Loser: Justice and fair play.



KB: Brown's draft day attire...

KK: Kilpatrick every day of the year...

Loser: Good taste.



I think the decision is clear. The loser in the battle of Kwame vs. Kwame is...You, me, everyone in Detroit and it's suburbs.



Buckle up folks, as it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Pros and Cons: Dave Bing for mayor of Detroit

Dave Bing is seriously investigating throwing his hat into the political ring, and running for mayor of Detroit. Personally, I think it makes too much sense to not happen. I just fear for Bing's sanity, jumping into the nasty muck and mire that is Detroit politics.

Who would you want to run Detroit?

Classy Mr. Bing?

Or big pimpin' King Kwame?

With Bing going public with his investigating a mayoral run, it's a good time to do a list of pros and cons. Let's determine, once and for all, if the former Piston is the city's savior, or just an older, basketball playing version of Kwame Kilpatrick...

Pro: Someone as respectable as Bing running the city of Detroit would greatly help in fixing Detroit's reputation.
Con: Detroit's reputation is so low, a skateboard riding dog as mayor would make the city look better.

Pro: Bing is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, and he used that status to great effect in building his business into a multi-million dollar operation.
Con: Kwame Kilpatrick is an ex-jock as well, a former college football player, and we saw how well that worked out. Hizzoner still has that sense of "I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT" entitlement that too many athletes use and abuse.

Pro: Bing has the business acumen to draw new economic entities to Detroit.
Con: Who wants to come to Detroit with so much controversy surrounding the city? Seriously. I'm extremely pro Detroit, but with the mayor facing felony charges, and now city council being investigated for corruption, the stench could linger for years...and years, and years, and years...

Pro: The respect people have for Dave Bing would go a long way in cleaning up the city.
Con: People may think Dave Bing is "Insane with a capital I," in wanting to run Detroit.

Pro: Bing has more class in his pinky finger than King Kwame, the serial adulterer, has in his entire body.
Con: Former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer was a pretty classy guy too, and he ended up walking away in utter disgust than run for another mayoral term. He had more than his fill of dirtying his hands in Detroit politics. The same could happen to Bing, while Kwame seems to revel in the city's dirty dealings.

Pro: Bing could make his Hall Of Fame teammate Bob Lanier his running mate. Hell, make him police commissioner!
Con: There is no con to Bob Lanier, he's a bad, bad man. (Just ask Kareem Abdul Jabbar!) Would you want to mess with The Dobber? You'd end up with a size 22 Converse All-Star where the sun don't shine.

Pro: Everybody likes Dave Bing, ex-Piston and current businessman. He has no enemies.
Con: Everybody will have an issue with the mayor of Detroit, be it Bing or the skateboarding dog. Politics is all about having, then dealing with, enemies.

Pro: The suburbs would love Dave Bing as mayor. He could undo the Coleman Young style politics King Kwame's embraced, pitting a mostly black city against the mostly white suburbs.
Con: The residents of Detroit hate anything the suburbs approve. Which is why I'd be scared to death that King Kwame would be re-elected, instead of moving forward with Bing, just to spite the suburbs.

Pro: Bing would clean the city of Kwame's cronies. Most of whom do nothing of import, and permeate every sector of Detroit public services. The city needs an enema, Bing's just the man to give it.
Con: There's so many cronies to eliminate, Detroit's unemployment stats would skyrocket.

Pro: No more stripper parties in the Manoogian Mansion...Not that stripper parties are a bad thing. (Just ones that end in someone's murder)
Con: Bing would be more discreet with the extra-curriculars, which at his age (64) wouldn't be quite so strenuous or amorous as King Kwame's. Say playing bingo or hitting the early bird senior specials at Denny's.

Pro: Dave Bing is already one of the best ambassadors the city has, and he could do even more in public office. He could add the term "Detroit's savior" to his already long list of accomplishments.
Con: There is no con to Dave Bing. He's as honorable as they come, and would put the needs of Detroit first, unlike the current administration. King Kwame is out for King Kwame, first, last and always. He placates his own wants and needs, such as traveling the country like a rock star, and having a security detail with a bigger roster than the Lions, than taking care of a needy city.

After going over the list, I've made a decision...

TWFE endorses Dave Bing for mayor of Detroit! Let's make it happen, folks.

Pros and cons: Should Kwame Kilpatrick stay or go?

As it's pretty damn slow on the Detroit sports scene today, and I've milked it for all I could in my earlier posts, I wanted to touch on the Kwame Kilpatrick "situation" one more time. As Detroit's mayor is back on the job, even if he's not answering questions,I thought it might be fun to break down Kwame's pros and cons.

Kwame was unable to answer questions from the media,
as he was too busy conducting interviews to find his new Chief of Staff...

Trust me, it wasn't as easy as you might think, as it was much easier to come up with the cons...

Let's break down the Kilpatrick administration, shall we?

Pro: Kwame wears nice suits.
Con: If you are a first round NBA draft pick.

Pro: Kwame loves Detroit sports.
Con: He scores more often than the Red Wings and Tigers combined.

Pro: The Super Bowl went off without a hitch!
Con: Thanks to former mayor Dennis Archer laying all the groundwork! Kwame just took all the credit.

Pro: Kwame's administration has provided plenty of jobs...
Con: For his 150 man deep security entourage. For the rest of the city? Not so much.

Pro: Kwame travels all over the country to pump Detroit as a destination.
Con: He also brings along his mistress, and pumps her. Long and hard.

Pro: Kwame's serving his second term in office.
Con: His mistress is in her second trimester.

Pro: Despite his numerous peccadillo's, many of Detroit's voters still like the mayor.
Con: They liked Coleman Young too, need I say more?

Pro: He said he was sorry!
Con: Being sorry won't pay back the $9 million lawsuit settlement.

Pro: Kwame's wife stands by her man...
Con: Because she sure loves her Cadillac Escalade bought on Detroit's dime.

Pro: Kwame's former mistress resigned as chief of staff.
Con: Only to be replaced with his buddy, who's as responsible with his money as Pac Man Jones in a strip club.

Pro: All of Kwame's friends had a great time at parties thrown at the Manoogian Mansion.
Con: Save for that stripper that knew a little too much...

Detroit fishwrap comment of the day - Kwame Kilpatrick edition

I'm going to step away from sports for one post, much as Drew Sharp pulled a Little Fella and tried his hand at social commentary in today's Freep. His target? Detroit's embattled mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick.

Today's COTD is from the comments of Sharp's take down of the mayor. A Freep reader called midnight rider posts the following thoughts about a big city mayor under siege.

Time Magazine had it right back in 2005 by naming Kwame as one of the worst mayors in the US.

Here's the exerpt- The Nation's Worst Big-City Mayors (in alphabetical order):

Kwame Kilpatrick- Detroit: Equally at home in senior centers and hip-hop concerts, Kwame Kilpatrick, 34, inspired Detroit voters with his energy and determination when he rode into office three years ago. But a cherry red Lincoln Navigator has put a big dent in his reputation. After weeks of denying it, the mayor admitted in January that the city paid $24,995 to lease just such a car for his wife. That outlay showed what Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing Magazine, calls ?a tin ear for symbolism,? given that Detroit?s $230 million budget deficit has prompted the mayor to eliminate 3,000 city positions and end 24-hour bus service, TIME reports. He denies and then apologizes

I was born and raised in Detroit and watched the fall of the inner city and neighborhoods. Coleman Young poured money into projects like the RenCen and Hart Plaza while neighborhoods, parks and city services went to hell. Seems like we have second coming of Coleman with Kwame. Detroit is the laughing stock of the US- What a joke!

This comment parrots my opinion of the quandary Kwame finds himself in. His screw-ups just confirm the prejudices outsiders have about Detroit, and it's citizens. The state, all of southeast Michigan, and Detroit, are now a laughing stock.

You'd think the controversy was a movie of the week. The honorable (term used loosely) mayor cheats on his wife with his chief of staff, fires the deputy police chief, amongst others, in covering up his actions, lies about his infidelity while under oath, ultimately costing Detroit $9 million in cash the city doesn't have, in a court judgment awarded to the unjustly fired cops. The mayor is now under investigation for perjury.

The whole sordid story breaks in the Free Press last Wednesday, Kilpatrick goes into hiding for a week, and breaks his silence in a woe-is-me-I'm-so-sorry TV speech last night.

You can see the STEAM rising from her ears. That is one pissed off wife...

Yet many Detroiters are defending Kwame. They blame the media for exposing the mayor to be a corrupt, immature, incompetent public servant. Typical cloistered, short-term, Detroit-style thinking. I should know, as I lived in Detroit for close to a decade. (Don't look at me, I didn't vote for the philandering mayor) Yes, this small town, white bread country boy got to put up with the city's bullshit on a daily basis.

I left Detroit about 2 1/2 years ago, but I didn't bail out on the city because I was driven away. My life changed, and my physical ailments meant I had to downsize my life considerably. Ultimately, I moved back home. If I had the ability, I'd still be living in the city.

Honestly, I LOVED being in the D. I lived in a very safe, full of families, racially mixed, middle class neighborhood. Yes, Detroit has those, it's not all slums and ghettos, despite people who NEVER lived in the city would have you believe. I never felt threatened or out of place. It was great being a short drive from all the cool downtown areas of Detroit, and believe me, there are plenty.

I'm amongst the first to defend Detroit. But to see what's going on now disgusts me.

The longer this used car salesman disguised as a mayor stays in office, the more we'll see of the suburbs (ie: whites) vs Detroit (ie: blacks) issues we had for the near entirety of Coleman Young's tenure. Hizzhonor drew the battle lines back in the 70's. Dennis Archer did his best to bring the area back together, with a fair amount of success. Unfortunately, Kilpatrick is doing his damnedest to create that schism between the suburbs and city again.

After watching his speech blaming everyone but himself this morning, I found Kwame's use of religion as a shield deplorable. Paraphrasing, "This is between me. my wife, and our God." Bullshit. Total and utter BULLSHIT. Not when your infidelity, then covering it up, cost an already flat broke city $9 million!

Yet, after all the lies and criminal actions, he has the absolute gall to take the moral high ground, and give the speech from a church? A CHURCH? Talk about pandering to your populace. That's all Kwame's speech was, pandering to the voter's heartstrings, their faith, and their us against them feelings when it comes to the media and suburbs.

As someone who's marriage was broken up by my wife's infidelity, I have absolutely no respect for those that do cheat on their spouses. I hold them in even more contempt when adultery is committed by someone who claims to be religious. So to say I have NO respect for Kwame Kilpatrick is an understatement.

Cheating is bad enough, though as morally repugnant as you may find it, it's not against the law. But to then lie about it under oath? Committing a felony? Trying to ruin the lives of innocent police officers? Costing your city MILLIONS? There is no defending his actions. You just can't do it.

The more I think about Kwame's past actions, his current blame everyone else attitude and what his farce of an administration is costing, not only Detroit, but southeast Michigan as a whole, in money and reputation, the more pissed off I become.

I hope Kilpatrick is brought up on perjury charges, and they throw the fucking book at him. But why do have have the nagging feeling that his former chief of staff, whom has resigned in disgrace, will ultimately be the culprit thrown under the bus, and the Teflon mayor will walk away relatively scot-free?

It's the Detroit way...