Detroit's ex-Mayor Goes to Jail

The New York Times reports on the ex-mayor of Detroit beginning his prison term.

Kwame M. Kilpatrick traveled around town in a black Cadillac Escalade, relished his ever-present entourage of admirers and surrounded himself with as many as 21 bodyguards. But for the next four months, Mr. Kilpatrick must spend 23 hours of each day alone, in Cell 14J-4 of the Wayne County Jail.

That doesn't sound like much of a prison sentence to me, but he already served time, which I imagine was taken into consideration.

Mr. Kilpatrick was jailed more than nine months after the eruption of a scandal that heaped more misery and embarrassment upon this economically depressed city and state. Text messages published by The Detroit Free Press showed that Mr. Kilpatrick had lied under oath when he denied having an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty, and that he conspired with Ms. Beatty to fire police officers who might have revealed their indiscretions. The city settled a lawsuit by those officers for $8.4 million.

Is that what it's all about? He'd had an affair and lied about it? Didn't we learn anything from the Clinton / Lewinsky affair? Doesn't the whole country hang its communal head in shame that we actually impeached a President for nonsense like that, while serious issues abounded.

I think what happens is, when people in power come after you, for whatever reason, they often attack on the moral issue of sexual conduct. The fact that these two men, the former President and the ex-mayor of Detroit were made to answer questions under oath about their sex lives is ludicrous. In Europe, I can tell you, America is a laughing stock over this.

The differences in these two cases are much more glaring than any similarities, however. The ex-mayor, at least according to that NY Times description in their first paragraph, was flaunting his power and abusing his office. Clinton, I don't know, I guess he was just being a Democrat during a time of rising conservative fervor.

Here's the CNN take on it.

What's your opinion? I realize the readers of this blog know a lot more than I do about these things, so I'm interested in your ideas.