Great Moments in Good Timing

David Weigel | September 4, 2008

Barack Obama finally, finally takes a stand on Detroit's natural disaster of a mayor.

Brent Colburn said in an e-mail Wednesday night "Senator Obama believes that Mayor Kilpatrick's ongoing troubles and the serious charges against him have been a distraction that the city cannot afford."

Presto!

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to a pair of felony obstruction charges on Thursday in a sex-and-misconduct scandal and will step down after months of defiantly holding onto his job leading the nation's 11th-largest city.

Kilpatrick is a massively tragic figure, elected mayor at age 31, running on the energy of a freight train, and completely sexually amoral. I've had people tell me about Kilpatrick showing up early to an a.m. meeting, clad in a purple three-piece suit, all while he was apparently setting up trysts with his chief of staff via text message. But then he did stuff like this (the fun starts at 0:56):

Related (because without Kwame dragging down the Democrats, Obama has a better chance of winning Michigan): I have found the first candidate for the Bob Herbertism I was looking for last night, from Jesse Taylor at Pandagon.

Haha, “community organizer”. Barack Obama sold mixtapes out of the back of his Cadillac, that shifty bitch.

If every reference was like that, it wouldn't be so bad.