The film is supposed to be an allegory about Stalinism. But today, I’m actually wondering whether it foreshadowed the career of Kwame Kilpatrick, the corrupt former Detroit mayor.
We keep thinking he is gone for good. He goes to jail, he moves to Texas, we think we are done, and then -- whoops.
He’s back. Today, he’s supposed to be in Wayne County Circuit Court, explaining why he doesn’t seem to have complied with the terms of his probation.
The mayor is a Democrat. However, some of his fellow Democrats believe his downfall offers a way to derail Republican Attorney General Mike Cox’s drive to become governor.
The thinking goes like this. The theory is that Cox, at the very least, went too easy on Kilpatrick from the beginning, refusing to vigorously investigate the rumors of a wild party at the Manoogian Mansion. According to Detroit’s most famous urban legend, the mayor’s wife showed up to find a stripper named Strawberry entertaining her husband, and then physically assaulted the stripper.
A few months later, in April 2003, Strawberry, whose real name was Tamara Greene, was gunned down on the street.
Now, there is a lawsuit in federal court alleging that city officials conspired to handicap the investigation into her death. Now, you have to keep in mind that nobody has ever proven that any party occurred. All we know for sure is that Greene was shot to death.
But a number of troopers have charged that Cox pushed them to wrap up the investigation before they wanted to. One detective sergeant testified against Cox on the witness stand last month.
Now, you might legitimately ask, “why would a conservative Republican from Livonia risk his career to protect a corrupt Detroit Democrat? Conspiracy theorists note that both men came out of the Wayne County political machine. That much is true. However, now for a little dose of reality. Five years ago, I talked to Cox about his investigation soon after it ended.
He told me the frustrating thing was that you couldn’t ever find anybody who actually said they were at the famous party. He knew very well that Kilpatrick often behaved badly.
But he had concluded the party was urban legend. As for the dead stripper, well, she had what you might call a chaotic life style.
Multiple partners, multiple children, and a history of drug use. There are lots of other reasons why Greene could have been killed.
It is also worth remembering that Kilpatrick finally resigned after Cox filed charges against him for assaulting Wayne County sheriff’s deputies. Next month Cox is going to give a deposition in the dead stripper case, and has asked that it be open to the public.
You never want to say never in the journalism business; smoking guns sometimes do turn up.
But right now, Cox’s enemies are whispering about an alleged cover-up of a long-ago wild party that may have never happened.
If that‘s the best they’ve got, it isn’t very much.
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