Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Stillborn Newspaper - 11.30.09

Last week, a new paper called the Detroit Daily Press began publishing. It lasted less than a week. Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry looks at the troubled newspaper business today.

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Newspapers in this country have been in trouble ever since a thing called the Internet caught on big-time, about a decade ago.

Twenty years ago, owning a newspaper was often something like having a license to print money. If you had local products or services to sell, or wanted to get rid of that litter of puppies, a newspaper ad was the way to do it.

The revenue enabled the owners of the newspaper to make a good living, and have money to pay reporters to cover the news of your town, state, and maybe even the world.

Getting the news, was, after all, the reason most people bought, or, better yet, subscribed to the paper in the first place.

Newspapers preferred subscribers. That way they could guarantee to advertisers that so many thousands of people were sure to see their ad every day.

But then the Internet came along, and it suddenly became possible to put your ad in cyberspace for free. That took revenue away from newspapers, big-time. Additionally, most papers started offering most or all of their content online for free.

That was the hip and trendy thing to do in the 1990s. It was meant to be a come-on to get people to buy the printed product, but it had the opposite effect. Nobody buys a cow when milk is free.

These developments put newspapers on the ropes. Ann Arbor's paper closed down. Last March, the two Detroit dailies announced they would deliver the paper only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Otherwise, you could read them online.

But lots of people still can't or won't read papers online. Knowing this, two brothers from Florida named Mark and Gary Stern announced they would publish a home-delivered, seven day a week paper, called the Detroit Daily Press.

This was seen as very exciting, especially to the many out-of-work journalists in the area, who lined up to apply for jobs.

I was skeptical, but hopeful. The newspapers started appearing in convenience stores last week. Home delivery was about to start, and I signed up for a subscription. My first copy was supposed to arrive today. But late last week, after vowing the paper was here to stay, the paper issued this statement. "Due to circumstances beyond our control, lack of advertising, and a lack of distribution and sales, we find it necessary to temporarily suspend publication."

They vowed to return after the first of the year. Nobody I've talked to thinks they will. Journalists seemed stunned. Not, however, Ben Burns, a former newspaper editor and publisher. He says everybody was so in love with the idea of a new paper that nobody asked the tough questions. "What made them think they could sell ads in this market when the longtime dailies and weeklies can't? How are they setting up a distribution and home delivery network? How are they going to be able to afford to cover this vast area, and pay the staff?

For now, it seems that the answer is that they can't. What's saddest of all is that there are an increasing number of us who no longer have access to the information we greatly need.

The information superhighway is a grand thing. But for those who don't have a vehicle, it is a road to nowhere. And it just got a little more gloomy out there for those who've been left behind.

Essay: Holiday Shopping - 11.27.09

Many people set their alarm clocks for the wee hours of the morning today in order to take advantage of all of those shopping deals. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks he knows why people do it… and it’s not necessarily for the sales…

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This morning, people all over this state got up at some ungodly hour, left their warm homes and went to be first in line for holiday bargains. This has always struck me as being about the most unpleasant thing I could do that didn’t involve a catheter.

My idea of shopping is to visit the Internet from my desk. After all, I am absolutely sure that the woman in my life would love a set of Soviet World War II memoirs.

Actually, the last time I did try shopping on this day, someone who was obviously full of the holiday spirit stole two poinsettias out of my cart. Later, a man tried to cut in front of me outside the Honey Baked Ham store, and a woman very nearly ran over me in a parking lot. She then swore at me, perhaps because I survived.

Earlier this week, I drove an elderly lady to Detroit from Ohio, so she could spend Thanksgiving with her daughter. She told me that sure enough, the year before she had stayed over night while the girls got up at four a.m. to enlist for the shopping mall wars.

But then she said something else intriguing. “They thought that maybe if they get there early enough, they might get on TV.”

So that‘s it. Last week, I talked to someone whose teenage daughter had stood in line with a friend to see Sarah Palin in Grand Rapids. I was a little puzzled by that, since I didn’t think the girl wasn’t very political. “It was a happening,” her mother told me.

“She’s a rock star,” she said, meaning the former governor. “Besides, the kids thought TV cameras might be there.”

Indeed they were, though to the presumably great sorrow of my friend and her daughter, they didn’t make the nightly news.

As everyone knows, despite the astonishing rise of the Internet, television remains the dominant medium of our society. That’s what I tell my journalism students, anyway, though lately I think I may have been wrong. In reality, sometimes I think television is our society.

My own mother, who died three years ago, thought my various journalism awards were nice. But she was far more impressed every time I was on TV.

For her, local access cable trumped the New York Times. That’s not to say I am anti-television. I myself have a weekly show in Toledo, called Deadline Now. It is sort of a Meet the Press format, and I like it because it allows me to talk to interesting people. Once, I got a nice note from a woman who lives outside Ann Arbor who told me she loved my show because it helped her sleep at night.

She meant this as a compliment. But possibly the best perspective on our television age was offered by my goddaughter Nora, when she was four. I was on TV in Detroit, and her parents had her watch. “Look! There’s your godfather.’

She looked. “Is he going to jail?” she asked. Her mother laughed. “Not yet.” she said. Nora said, “Oh,” and walked away. Later, she told me that I was normally too silly.

“But on TV, you are boring.” I can’t imagine why a four-year-old wouldn’t be fascinated by politics and economics.

At least she didn’t say that I had a face made for radio.

Essay: Giving Thanks - 11.26.09

On this Thanksgiving Day, Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has some things we should be thankful for…

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Here’s an arresting statistic: If the Detroit Lions somehow win their traditional Thanksgiving football game today, they will have won as many games this week as they have in the last two years.

True, the oddsmakers say that’s a long shot, but if it happens, then Michigan’s long-suffering Lions fans will indeed have reason to give thanks today. Frankly, it’s been a pretty barren year on the sports front in Michigan. The Spartans and Wolverines have had dismal seasons. The Tigers should have been in the playoffs, but blew it. The Red Wings are struggling and the Pistons are worse.

Back during the Great Depression, we depended on these teams to distract us from our economic troubles. In 1935, the Lions, Tigers and Red Wings all were national champions.

But in this recession, our sports heroes seem to be dropping the ball. Perhaps this is all part of some cosmic plan to teach us the virtues of patience. We’ve had a difficult year in Michigan.

For many people, especially the hundreds of thousands without jobs, it might seem like there isn’t very much to be thankful for. But I think there are some glimmers of hope.

Last week I spent some time talking to Detroit’s new mayor, Dave Bing, who coincidentally, lifted the city’s spirits forty years ago when he was a National Basketball Association superstar.

Bing is that rarest of creatures - a truly reluctant politician. He resisted appeals to run for mayor for years, till he finally feared that perhaps he was the only one who could save his adopted city.

I’ve talked to every mayor Detroit has had since the 1960s, and none of them has been as candid or as honest as Dave Bing. He didn’t sugarcoat the situation. There was none of the usual rah-rah about “Detroit’s best days are still ahead of it.” Bing knows his patient is in intensive care, and the future is anything but certain.

His goal right now is to make sure Detroit has a future. He isn’t taking a salary, he isn’t sure if he’ll run for a second term, and he says he won’t run for anything else, ever.

People in the Motor City this month also voted to rewrite their horribly flawed city charter. They voted for new school buildings. And they elected what appears to be a far better and more responsible city council. Detroit and its troubles may seem far away if you live in Grand Rapids or Traverse City or even Ann Arbor or Grand Blanc.

But as long as Detroit is a dysfunctional mess, everyone in Michigan pays a price that’s only partly economic. Who can feel good about coming to or being from a state where the most important city is a postcard for financial and social devastation, political corruption, and violence? The good news for Detroit is that the city’s leaders now admit they have a major problem.

The good news for all of Michigan is that we now realize the auto industry is never again going to be our economic salvation.

We are finally facing reality. Now, the trick is to take our considerable assets, including our formidable manufacturing talents and great universities, and turn them into some version of gold.

We’ve got a lot going for us, and life hasn’t licked us yet. I think today, we should all give thanks for that.

Essay: Being Bold - 11.25.09

Democrat Alma Wheeler Smith is running for governor on an unusual platform. She wants to raise taxes. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry thinks that might not be as politically crazy as it sounds.

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Politicians these days survive bankruptcy, extramarital affairs, and drug and alcohol problems. What they seem to fear the most, however, is that someone will accuse them of raising taxes. Never mind if the highways are falling apart, we can’t educate our kids, and we just broke a promise to help a hundred thousand Michigan college students with their tuition. We can’t raise taxes.

That’s the position of Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, for example.

However, now comes State Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, herself a former state senator. She’s running for governor.

And she has an amazing platform. She wants to raise taxes -- a lot. Raise them on a few of us, that is. She would lower them on commerce, by getting rid of the stupid surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax. She would lower the state sales tax, but sensibly extend it to include services in our service-based economy.

Most of all, she would campaign for a state constitutional amendment to allow a graduated income tax.

Essentially she is an intellectual heir of the famous U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. She’s an African-American woman and a Democrat. He was a white Republican who has been dead for seventy-five years. However, he once famously said “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

Alma Wheeler Smith believes that too. She didn’t always live in a civilized society. She was born in South Carolina. Her twin sister died as a baby, after she was horribly burned and an ambulance crew wouldn’t help her because she was black. The family moved to Michigan, where her father became Ann Arbor’s first black mayor.

His daughter has served in Lansing for many years, and understands state finances. Overall, her plan would raise $6.5 billion dollars, and devote most of it to education, which she sees as Michigan’s hope for the future.

Much of the new revenue would come from a graduated income tax, if she can persuade voters to amend the constitution so we can have one. Currently, we all pay a rate of 4.35 percent. You, me, the convenience store clerk and the state’s richest man.

We all pay the same. Smith wants brackets instead. Those making $45,000 a year or less would pay four percent. Those making up to sixty thousand would pay seven percent.

Beyond that, we’d pay 9.75 percent.

That’s more than double what top earners pay now. But she doesn’t mince words. “These are the people who can afford to pay a little bit more,” she told the Gongwer news service yesterday.

In fact, those paying more would pay less than it seems, because they could claim a federal tax credit. But how does she think she could get people to approve what is still a sizable tax increase?

Actually, she thinks there is a bigger chance of getting support for a larger tax hike than a smaller one. “Citizens are tired of the nickel and dime approach,” she said. They know we have big problems, and need big solutions.

Now, you may think this crazy, but this reminds me of the day John Engler was sworn in as governor. Old George Romney grasped his hand. “Be bold,” he told the younger man.

Engler was bold. He did things everybody said were impossible, and was re-elected twice by landslides. Maybe what voters really want most are leaders who are truly willing to lead.

Essay: Politics As Usual - 11.24.09

A new poll came out yesterday about what people are looking for in a Governor. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks the poll actually shows us what kind of campaign we should NOT want…

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Years ago, I had to stay home one morning to wait for a repairman to come and fix the furnace. While I waited, I decided to tackle the awesome task of sorting out the immense pile of videotapes under my TV set. By the way, videotapes were an ancient recording technology that preceded the DVD.

You may have seen one at your grandmother’s house when you were little. Anyway, I popped in one tape, which turned out to be of a presidential campaign debate from two or three years before.

I think the candidates were Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Anyway, the doorbell rang, and I let the repairman in. He glanced at the TV on his way to the basement.

“Are those guys still going at it?” he said. I suppose that was a logical assumption.

To the average person, it probably seems that what politicians like to do most is run their mouths.

It probably wouldn’t surprise most of us if old candidates got together for old times’ sake and yammered away at each other.

That was a long time ago, however, and we are in more desperate circumstances these days, especially in Michigan.

What we need are leaders with new ideas about how to make this state work, about how to live within our means and pay for what we need, and how to attract new jobs to our state.

Everybody knows this. So I was disappointed and annoyed when I read yesterday about a new poll that was commissioned by a couple of Lansing-based public relations firms. The poll, conducted by Dennis Noor Research, supposedly was meant to find out what we’ll be looking for when we elect a new governor next year.

Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Except that’s not what the poll was really trying to do. It asked questions like this:

“Would you be more or less likely to support a candidate who may have covered up a criminal investigation of Kwame Kilpatrick?”

“Would you be more or less likely to support a candidate who admitted to an extramarital affair while in office?” How about a candidate who shipped U.S. jobs to China? Supported George W. Bush’s agenda? Ran on Jennifer Granholm’s record?

Or finally, my favorite scary question, “Would you be more or less likely to support a career politician?”

Now at first glance, you might think all this is just the usual meaningless silliness of the kind teenagers indulge in, like debating who was worse, Hitler or Stalin.

But that’s not what’s going on here. This poll was conducted so that political consultants could see what forms of negative attack are most likely to stick. So that instead of offering carefully well-thought out solutions to our very real problems, they can try to get their man elected governor by smearing the other candidates.

That kind of campaigning has been horrendously harmful to politics and government. We should demand that any potential candidate pledge never to campaign along the lines suggested by this poll. That might be in their own best interests, too.

For here’s something else the poll found:

Fifty-four percent of Michigan voters said they would be open to voting for an independent candidate for governor. If the major party candidates don’t understand that people are really sick of politics as usual, they may get a very unpleasant surprise.

Essay: Facing Reality - 11.23.09

The University of Michigan’s annual economic forecast got plenty of attention last week for its job loss predictions. But Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry says the real news from the seminar was largely overlooked.

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The University of Michigan unveiled its annual economic forecast for the state last week, and, as always, it got significant media coverage. What bothered me is that most of what I heard or read seemed to miss the real story.

Newspapers tended to start by reporting the economists’ prediction that the state would suffer two more years of job losses. But then they quickly followed by saying that the good news was, to quote the Detroit Free Press, “the worst is over.”

That’s based on the economists’ projections that the pace of job losses is expected to slow - not stop, but slow. They think Michigan will lose only 85,000 jobs next year and a mere 36,000 in 2011. How does someone count that as good news?

By comparing those numbers to those of this absolutely terrible year, when job losses are expected to be almost 300,000.

That’s what passes for good news these days. What was remarkable was that hardly anybody looked back on what the U of M economists said last year. Last year’s predictions turned out to be ridiculously optimistic. They then forecast we would lose only about a third as many jobs this year as we actually did.

The University of Michigan economists also predicted last year that unemployment wouldn’t get much higher than 11 percent, and that Michigan would be adding jobs again by 2011.

I was baffled by those numbers at the time. That was at a point when it wasn’t clear if any of the auto companies would survive.

This year’s forecast looks much more soberly realistic. Though any predictions today about the economy in 2011 are apt to be about as reliable as predictions about that year’s Kentucky Derby.

If you want the broader truth about Michigan’s economy, however, a lot of it did come out in this forecast, mainly stuff the papers didn’t report. Basically, the seminar demonstrated that the way of life we’ve enjoyed for decades is over, and isn’t coming back.

Here’s an example: Thirty years ago, General Motors had 249,000 blue-collar line workers making a good living at auto plants across this state.

When the current round of downsizing ends, the total number of GM workers in Michigan will be 21,300. More than ninety percent of all those jobs have been eliminated, most likely forever.

Last year, for the first time in history, Ford, Chrysler and GM accounted for less than half of all cars sold in the nation. Two years from now, their share is expected to be less than forty percent.

The economists don’t think unemployment will rise much higher, but they do agree state revenues will continue to shrink, meaning at least two more years of huge budget deficits.

Finally, George Fulton, the director of the research seminar which produces the forecast, was asked when Michigan’s employment picture would be more like the rest of the nation’s. “One of the rating agencies said it would take thirty years,“ he said.

He then added that he thought that was optimistic. But there is something positive we can take away from all this. The muscle and manufacturing based economy we were born into is essentially over. Nobody is going to give us something to replace it. We have to invent a new Michigan future, on our own. So let‘s get busy, and decide where to start.

Essay: Getting It Done - 11.20.09

The legislature is still in session, and U of M's annual economic forecast indicates we've got more hard times ahead. Senior Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has a suggestion as to how we might get beyond this.

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Here's the good news. Just in case you didn't think your legislature could get anything done, it is now against the law for the state to produce or distribute any map, drawing, or graphic image of Michigan that leaves off the Upper Peninsula.

No stylized hand logos, no cute little mitten images, nothing. Leave off the UP and you are in BT. Big Trouble, that is. The governor signed that bill into law yesterday, and when I heard that, I immediately gave thanks that my kindergarten teacher is no longer living. If my memory is correct, one of the first things she taught us to do was put our little hands on a piece of paper and trace them.

"See, you've made a map of Michigan," Mrs. Hunter told us. That was enough to convince me that our state was somehow special, a feeling that has stayed with me ever since.

By the way, the governor also signed a law allowing pharmacists to fill prescriptions which out-of-state doctors send them by e-mail. She signed another bill that lets funeral directors off the hook if somebody never shows up to claim cremated remains, and a companion law that said we need to keep a record of these ashes.

And she signed a couple other even more obscure bills. So, it isn't quite correct to say that your lawmakers can't get anything done. They just can't manage the really important stuff, like balancing the budget and coming up with a way to fund education.

They are going to have to work harder at the hard stuff, though. That's the conclusion you'd have to draw if you paid attention to the University of Michigan's annual economic forecast, which was revealed yesterday. In a sense, the news was better than last year's, when the atmosphere might have best been described as controlled panic. The forecasters then urged the federal government to act swiftly to prevent a Great Depression-like collapse.

Yesterday, they said the worst has been avoided. "We were spared another depression, but still had to weather the period that has been dubbed the Great Recession," economist Joan Crary said. And while the recession is technically over, the aftereffects are going to be with us for years, the economists said.

In fact, what's going on now is indeed reminiscent of the Great Depression in some ways. That downturn also lingered for years. Prices went down during the depression, and last year, for the first time in more than half a century, we had deflation, not inflation. The Consumer Price Index actually fell by a third of one percent.

And now, as then, even consumers who have some disposable income are reluctant to spend it, because they fear something might happen to plunge them into financial disaster.

That may be prudent, but economists who just a few years ago worried about the inflationary effects of too much spending, now want the consumer to get out and spend and boost the economy.

They especially need to spend in Michigan. So I have a suggestion for our lawmakers. Go back to work and pass another law requiring all of us to buy a few of the new maps that have to show both peninsulas, and maybe a box of Michigan coasters too.

You'll be able to show your Wolverine pride, and help out our state. And what could possibly be better than that?

Essay: Rearranging the Deck Chairs - 11.19.09

Governor Granholm is asking students to pressure state lawmakers to restore funding to the Michigan Promise Scholarship. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks we need to focus on the long-term problem of school funding…

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Michigan is in a profound financial crisis, and the way state government takes in and spends money is deeply flawed.

Those are statements to which probably everyone would agree.

Much as people on the Titanic would have agreed, on that long-ago April night, that their ship was in trouble. The question then is, once you know what’s wrong, what do you do about it?

The right answer, for those in charge of the Titanic, would have been A) see if you can save the ship, and B) meanwhile, figure out how to save as many as possible of the people on board.

The wrong answer would have been to worry about somebody stealing the spoons. In the case of the Titanic, conditions turned into a chaotic mess after the ocean liner hit the iceberg. In the end, more than two-thirds of the passengers died.

Michigan’s crisis is still ongoing, and is certain to affect more people. Ten million, rather than twenty-two hundred.

What should be clear to everyone is that our leaders owe it to us to do the best they can to get the state through the short term.

That includes both the state’s neediest citizens, as well as its greatest institutions. We especially have to make sure, like our good farmer ancestors, that we don’t eat up our seed corn. Meaning that we don’t destroy our young people’s chance for a future.

But what’s just as important is that our leaders develop a plan to address our long-term needs and problems.

What’s tragically clear is that they aren’t doing either. The ship’s going down, and they are rearranging the deck chairs.

Yesterday, for example, the House Appropriations Committee dithered over a proposal to fund school bus inspections by transferring money from the state police crime labs. The current budget actually eliminated all money for school bus inspections.

Not inspecting the buses sounds like an invitation to sue the state. But then a bunch of sheriffs complained about losing crime lab money, and the committee chair abruptly adjourned the hearing without explanation. When the going gets tough, run and hide.

Meanwhile, Gov. Jennifer Granholm was at Michigan State, trying to get the students mad at the legislature for eliminating the Michigan Promise scholarship program. Earlier, she sent a letter to same effect to 348,000 high school and college students.

However, only a hundred or so showed up at her rally. The rest may have been smart enough to know the horse is out of the barn. The state senate is not going to take this up again this year.

If I had been one of those students, I would have asked the governor, “where were you when it mattered? Why weren’t you here before they passed the budget - which, by the way, you signed?“

Meanwhile, MSU President Lou Anna Simon actually did something. She announced the school will use federal stimulus money to restore some of what eight thousand MSU students would have gotten from the promise grant.

She added, however, that this was only a temporary, one-time solution. What should be clear is this: Michigan’s leaders need to forget about symbolism and slogans.

They need to come up with a long-term plan to fund our state’s essential needs in this time of economic change. The tragedy is that nobody in Lansing seems to be doing that.

And the last of the lifeboats are just about gone.

Essay: China Daze - 11.18.09

President Obama has just left China… and an increasing number of Michigan leaders have been making trips to that country in an aim to boost trade. Michigan Radio’s political analyst Jack Lessenberry takes a look behind the scenes.

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Here’s a little quiz for you: What do President Obama, Michigan Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, and House Minority Leader Kevin Elsenheimer have in common? I’ll give you a hint.

It’s something our governor doesn’t share. Any idea what I am talking about? Here’s the answer. The first three men have been to China, in search of economic advantages for our state and nation.

But our governor has not. To quote Tom Watkins, a former state superintendent of schools and a fellow Democrat, “Gov. Jennifer Granholm still not made a trade mission to China in her nearly seven years in office.” What’s worse, Watkins adds in a recent newspaper commentary, she continues to spout political rhetoric bashing China.

Now, it needs to be said that Watkins has no reason to feel kindly towards Granholm. A few years ago, she forced him out of his job as state superintendent, a job he very much wanted to keep. He isn’t exactly an unbiased observer.

Yet there is plenty of evidence that his criticism of the governor‘s lack of a China policy is accurate.

Indeed, he is far from the only one who finds the governor’s failure to court the world’s largest emerging market baffling. The governor is hardly a stay-at-home type.

She’s constantly globe-trotting in search of new jobs, and claims to have brought nearly 11,000 of them to Michigan since she took office.

That was her fourth trip to Japan, which has less than one-tenth China’s population.

Earlier this week, veteran Lansing correspondent Tim Skubick asked why our “go anywhere, anytime, governor” hasn’t exploited China’s potential for jobs.

“You remember China, the place that makes everything we buy over here? “ Skubick asked, adding “It is a market to be exploited.”

So, why aren’t we trying to do that? Well, as both Watkins and Skubick point out, the governor has been very successful at making political points by bashing China. Three years ago, she repeatedly accused her opponent, Dick DeVos, of shipping Michigan jobs off to China. That’s something the experts agree that this isn’t helpful to Michigan’s long-term economic interests.

In fact, the governor got complaints about this from her own Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

But the governor continues to beat the anti-China drum. During an August fundraiser for Lt. Gov. John Cherry, her chosen successor, she asked “Do we want to be a place where the unemployed suffer while we watch our jobs shipped off on a slow boat to China?”

That isn’t helpful. As Watkins notes, “this type of rhetoric not only fails to create a single Michigan job,” it makes it harder to even begin to do so. Other Michigan leaders have been smarter about this.

Both Wayne and Oakland counties have set up permanent offices in China. Legislative leaders have begun to go there as well. Solid business partnerships in Asia require building relationships.

We haven’t done that. The state does have an office in China - but it is run out of Lansing by a man who told Skubick, “It’s not a top priority.” Even high school students know that China is the world’s biggest and fastest-growing economic superpower.

Michigan is the place most in need of new jobs and industries.

Figuring out our priorities here shouldn’t be that hard.

Essay: The Mayor and the Attorney General - 11.17.09

Some Democrats think former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s legal problems may hurt Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry explains…

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There’s a 1980s Soviet film called Repentance, in which the corpse of a hated political leader keeps showing up in the most inconvenient places. Time and again, they think they have him safely buried, and whoops -- there he is again.

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.