Detroit, the City of Love

Forget Paris and Rome, nothing can compare with the romantic passion pouring out of Detroit these days. Spring has barely sprung, but the whole city is like an endless Barry White song with its bad ass bass line just shaking everything up. Love is in the airwaves, in the paper, on the radio. Anywhere you turn, love is there.

Not that there's not a little tension in the air too, this is Detroit after all. As my girlfriend said, "Kwame paid 8.4 million dollars for his damn girlfriend and you won't buy me any jewelry!?"

It's true, when it comes to love, I can't hold a candle to our illustrious mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick. Not only did he commit perjury about his love affair, he also agreed to pay 8.4 million dollars out of Detroit city funds to hush it up.

That 8.4 million dollars could have paid for a lot of other lovin' in the city. We would have loved having more police, more teachers, and more playgrounds. But the way Kwame sees it, if we have to use that 8.4 million of public tax money to keep the heartbeat of love thumpin' in the mighty chest of our hip-hop mayor, well, that's life.

And this is just some of Kwame's love, he is, after all, a big man with a big heart. For instance, just because he loves his girlfriend, it doesn't mean he can't love his wife too. He loves her so much he used $25,000 of public funds to get her a new Lincoln Navigator a few years back. This is a man who just gives and gives.

Of course, Kwame's true love is Detroit itself. He loves it like Lenny loved that little bunny in "Of Mice and Men," holding it in his massive arms, squeezing the life out of it, and absolutely refusing to let go, though every day he stays in office is one less day that Detroit can spend rebuilding itself.

The funny thing is, Kwame's not the only lover loving all this.

Somewhat predictably, Fox News is lovin' it too, because this timely story is right up their alley. In a move torn from their very own insidious playbook, they're intensely covering the story, thereby pouring even more racial overtones into a highly charged political landscape, and if you think I'm being paranoid, note that a Google search of "fox news" and "kwame" pulls up 124,000 results, while the next closest - "ABC News" and "kwame" - brings in just 25,000. (Which, of course, means Robert Greenwald's gonna be loving it too.)

John McCain is undoubtedly loving it, because as long as this scandal plays out, it exacerbates the stereotypes of corrupt Democratic leaders, alienating Michigan moderates away from the party in a state Kerry only won by 3%.

So, if Kwame doesn't resign soon, and if Obama ultimately loses, Detroit's mayor will probably have played a measurable role in the Illinois senator's defeat, leaving not just the race-bating wing of the party, but every single solitary god-fearing Republican out there, absolutely in love with Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Now there's a legacy.

Finally, Eliot Spitzer must be sincerely loving it, because thanks to this scandal nobody's paying attention to his sorry, sordid tale anymore - though truth be told, Detroit would have been way better off with Spitzer. At least he had the decency to pay for his affair out of his own pocket, the taxpayers of Detroit paid for Kwame's.

At 8.4 million dollars, we sure hope it was worth it.