No challengers gives Worthy room to deal
Pay some attention to the fact that two attorneys who previously said they would challenge Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy in the Democratic primary didn't file petition signatures by Tuesday's deadline.
Maybe they took a look at all the publicity Worthy is getting since filing felony charges against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and decided she's not beatable this year.
Or maybe there's some truth to the rumors we've been hearing for weeks that Kilpatrick supporters were discouraging any challenge to Worthy.
The reasoning is that if Worthy feels less politically threatened, she'll be more inclined to make a deal to settle the criminal case against the mayor.
Now that Worthy doesn't have to worry about the political fall-out, the odds of a plea bargain go up.
Don't be surprised if Kilpatrick cops a plea well before the September preliminary exam.
DNC pays price for messing up Michigan
The Democratic National Committee will have only itself to blame if its presidential nominee wins with an asterisk.
Sen. Barack Obama, after winning big in North Carolina and battling to a virtual tie in Indiana Tuesday night, has all but secured the Democratic nomination.
But it might have been a different story if Michigan and Florida had been allowed to hold primaries that counted. Clinton was the favorite in both states, but never got a chance to put them in her column because the DNC insisted on punishing them for moving up their primaries.
With wins in Michigan and Florida, Clinton would likely be ahead in the popular vote, and perhaps in delegates. With the two states on the sidelines, Obama likely wins a contest that Clinton backers are already calling illegitmate.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean made a mess of Michigan and Florida by putting rules ahead of results.
If he couldn't come up with a solution for getting fair and meanignful primaries in those two states, it's hard to see how Dean can keep the increasing bitterness between the Clinton and Obama camps from hurting Democratic chances this fall.
Obama playing too much defense
Barack Obama's denunciation of his own pastor confirms that he's lost control of the conversation about his campaign.
Every time someone puts a microphone in front of him, Obama is either explaining something he said or apologizing for something someone else said.
He's back on his heels, unable to get his offensive squad onto the field.
Obama has had almost no opportunity to talk about the things he wants to talk about.
Meanwhile, his egomaniacal minister, The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, can't seem to stop talking. Wright is enjoying his controversial spotlight way too much.
If he wanted to help Obama, he'd disappear for a couple of months.
Obama has to turn around this thing quickly. He's got to find a way to get back on message and stop playing defense.
Right now, he looks like a badly wounded candidate. And that's a turn-off for voters.
Looking for some rare good news coming out of Detroit?
On Wednesday, Plymouth philanthropist Bob Thompson is breaking ground for a new charter middle school that will be adjoined to the Detroit Science Center and offer a curriculum rich in math and science.
The new math and science school hopes to replicate the success of the first Thompson-built school -- University Prep Academy, which last year graduated its first class of students, sending more than 90 percent on to college.
Credit this second school to Thompson's perseverance. When he first proposed spending $200 million of his own money to build 15 high-quality charter high schools in the city, Thompson ran into a union-fueled buzz saw.
Both Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick denounced him as an enemy to education in Detroit.
Most people would have went back home to the suburbs and taken their money with them.
But Thompson, with the help of lawmakers who found a way around Granholm's attempt to limit the growth of charters, remained committed to giving poor, urban children an opportunity to learn.
Although the political maneuvering slowed him down, Thompson stuck with his vision. Because he did, the students who will enroll this fall in the new math and science school will study in an educational environment to rival anything in Metro Detroit.
Meanwhile, Detroit's public schools continue to deteriorate. Enrollment is down, as are test scores. But drop-out rates are up.
Had Thompson been encouraged five years ago, a lot more students now being cheated of their futures by the failing Detroit Public Schools would be sitting instead in excellent schools.
The self-serving politicians who tried to run him out of town owe those kids an apology.
Terror tour exposes Carter's moral void
Hamas says the visit its leaders received from Jimmy Carter lends the terrorist group legitimacy.
Not likely. But hopefully it confirms Jimmy Carter as a moral relativist incapable of drawing a ine between good and evil.
The former America president is finishing up his Terror Tour today by dropping in on Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, in Syria.
Carter is the most prominent American to meet with Hamas. He says he's doing so because no one else is talking with the terrorists.
There's a good reason for that. Hamas kills innocent people. No one even remotely connected to a the American government has any business taking tee with terrorists.
But Carter has a soft spot for tyrants.
He still enjoys a bit of a following among those who consider him the conscience of the country because he's against just about everything the United States stands for.
But if Carter couldn't hear the screams of all of the innocents Hamas has murdered when he sat down with Mashaal, then he has no legitimate claims to conscience.
At least Obama's an honest elitist
The Democratic presidential contest in Pennsylvania is coming down to this question: Who's the elitist -- Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?
Obama, having weathered the racist rantings of his preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now is taking fire for posing the theory that small town Americans cling to their guns and churches out of frustration with their miserable lives.
Clinton pounced, as you would expect her to, saying the remarks confirm that Obama is out of touch with the common man.
She's right. There's something effete about Obama -- did you see him try to bowl? -- and despite his experience as a neighborhood organizer in Chicago, you get the feeling that the Harvard-trained lawyer never got his hands dirty in that job or any other.
But Clinton is as much an elitist as Obama. She just workers harder to hide it.
The New York senator has seldom looked more ridiculous than she did throwing back a whiskey shot in a lunch bucket bar to emphasize the differences between her and Obama.
Or as she recalled fondly for her drinking buddies how her father took her behind the family's summer cottage -- the one her grandfather built by hand; the one that didn't have heat or hot water -- to teach her how to shoot a gun.
That sounded like another Clinton fairy tale. Does the Wellesley feminist really make a habit of belting back cheap hooch with the boys before firing off a few rounds?
Was she channeling John Kerry trying to buy himself a hunting license?
Neither Clinton nor Obama have any idea what it's like to be an average American. The breed is a curiousity to both of them.
But at least Obama isn't trying to reinvent himself into the common man.
And that may give him an edge on Clinton. Voters are looking for candidates who are genuine, not necessarily ones who pull on flannel shirts and work boots and belly up to the bar.
Obama is an elitist who doesn't pretend otherwise. Clinton is an elitist who has pretended to be so many different things that even she can't tell which one's the real deal.
In Detroit tragedy, council plays the clown
Detroit City Council enjoyed a brief moment on the high ground after Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies.
Council's call for the mayor's resignation won them some fans.
But I knew the empowerment of the worst elected body in America would come back to haunt us.
Sure enough, council quickly got busy proving it's not going to be the life-line Detroit is looking for as it endures the mayoral crisis.
Councilmember Monica Conyers distinguished herself last week by calling President Ken Cockrel Jr. "Shrek," a reference to his size and baldness. That clever exchange made the national news shows.
Council was back at it today, refusing to let the mayor appear before it to make his traditional budget presentation. That's bound to be an item in the national news again. And if so, birthday girl Barbara-Rose Collins will look special sitting at the table in her tiara.
Council, in voting to ask for Kilpatrick's head, cited the damage he's done to the city's image.
But I can't believe its possible to damage the image of a city that would elect this bunch to lead it.
Indiana's got the numbers on Michigan
I heard Gov. Jennifer Granholm on WJR's Paul W. Smith show this morning poking fun at Indiana's billboard campaign to recruit Michigan's jobs and residents.
Compare the economic performance posted by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, to what Granholm's done, and you wonder where the punch line is.
Like Michigan, Indiana is a manufacturing state, heavily dependent on the automotive industry.
Yet Indiana's unemployment rate is 4.6 percent, below the national average, while Michigan's is 7.2 percent, the highest in the nation.
Manufacturing employment dropped 5.9 percent in Michigan over the past year; the decline in Indiana was 1.8 percent.
Both states suffered a drop in new housing starts, but in Indiana, the decrease was 8.6 percent, compared to 31.7 percent in Michigan. Over the last decade, Indiana has had an 8.1 percent gain in population, compared to 2.9 percent in Michigan. Last year, Indiana continued to gain residents -- .7 percent -- while Michigan dropped by .3 percent.
The poverty rate is lower in Indiana; the return on federal tax dollars is higher.
And the tax burden in Indiana is nearly $500 less per resident.
Indiana has good reason to see Michigan as a fertile recruiting ground.
Council should consider impeaching Kilpatrick
It might be interesting if Detroit City Council explored its authority to remove Mayor Kawme Kilpatrick from office for misconduct.
The City Charter is somewhat murky on the council's power to hold the equivalent of impeachment hearings. But it does seem to open the door.
The charter allows for the removal of an elected official by the council if that official "violates any provision of this Charter punishable by forfeiture ..." Grounds for forfeiture, or removal, is established as a felony conviction or a violation of city ordinances or charter provisions.
Council is given the responsibility for judging the grounds for forfeiting office, and the charged official is entitled to a public hearing before the council.
Under the standards of conduct section of the charter, elected officials are prohibited from any actions that "create the appearance of impropriety."
While legal experts are unsure whether that provision gives the council the option of removing an official whom it deems has behaved inappropriately, they're also unsure that it doesn't.
Council should test the charter for itself. At the very least, it should ask for an independent legal opinion on the intent of the charter.
It would seem that Kilpatrick, charged with eight felony counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office, has met the requirement of creating the appearance of impropriety.
Council members earlier passed by a 7-1 vote a toothless resolution calling for the mayor to resign, saying at the time they had no power to remove him. It was an important symbolic gesture expressing their anger and disappointment with the mayor.
But they may have more authority under the charter than they realize.
Dem feuding boosts McCain
I'm rethinking the notion that a prolonged Democratic presidential nominating campaign hurts Republican John McCain by keeping him out of the national spotlight.
The spotlight hasn't been all that kind to Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The longer their contest goes on, the more negative issues they have to deal with. Every week, it seems, one or other has to disavow a campaign staffer or supporter for inappropriate remarks.
McCain, in comparison, is looking very mature and presidential.
Clinton today turned the heat up on Obama another notch at a rally in Detroit. She implied her opponent is against voting rights because he's resisting a do-over of the Michigan and Florida primary votes. Those are incendiary words for Obama's African-American base.The Clinton appearance was at the AFSCME union headquarters in downtown Detroit. The crowd was overwhelmingly white, middle-age and female, not what you'd expect at a union-hosted Democratic hoedown in Detroit.
The growing racial and gender divisions in the Democratic contest will be very helpful to McCain.
If the Democratic establishment allows the party's superdelegates to deny Obama the nomination, the chances of his supporters sitting out the November election are great.
McCain is the perfect candidate to exploit the Democratic discontent. Democrats don't hate or fear him enough to mobilize the party's stragglers to turn out and defeat him.
An election that once looked like a sure thing for Democrats may be lost even before the party gets to its Denver convention in August.
