Kwame Kilpatrick says he's the victim of Jewish conspiracy

Kwame Kilpatrick, who disgraced himself by committing perjury while serving as mayor of Detroit, has published a memoir in which he tries to both restore his reputation both by claiming to have undergone a religious conversion and to cast blame for his problems on other people.  That these two goals contain intrinsic contradictions does not appear to matter to him.  Neither do the legal implications of the book's purported revelations.  He claims in his book that his guilty plea and the statements he made under oath in his plea colloquy were false.  By recanting his plea in this manner, Kilpatrick paradoxically would have his readers believe that he didn't commit a crime until he admitted to committing a crime.  He wants you to believe that his admission of perjury was perjury.

According to an AP report (read here):

"I stood before Judge David Groner, who requested my plea. `I lied under oath,' I said, `with the intent to mislead the court and jury and to impede and obstruct the fair administration of justice,'" Kilpatrick writes. "For the record, I lied when I made that statement. The real reason I lied under oath was because I didn't want my wife to know I cheated. But be clear. There was absolutely no justice to obstruct in the whistle-blowers' suit. The case was manufactured. I was just cornered."

Kilpatrick will be released from prison shortly, but his future seems to promise further troubles of his own manufacture.  He faces two years of probation and likely prosecution for 19 counts of tax fraud which could put him back in prison for decades.  (Read here.)

He's in a difficult position, considering that he has admitted lying under oath, then recanted that admission with another admission of lying under oath.  Both in his book and via leaks to friendly reporters, he now tries to smear whatever scapegoats are convenient.  That brings me to this.  Kirkpatrick now blames a conspiracy of Jews for his troubles.

According to the Michigan Citizen, Kilpatrick's extensive legal woes derive from his having cut municipal funding for an organization called Jewish Vocational Services.  After this, says the Michigan Citizen, Kilpatrick participated in a Nation of Islam ceremony honoring Louis Farrakhan.  Kilpatrick and his supporters at the Michigan Citizen seem to argue that these acts so angered the local franchise of the Elders of Zion, that they instructed law enforcement authorities to focus their attention on Kilpatrick.  If not for this Jewish conspiracy, he complains, he would have gotten away with the crimes he has admitted to having committed.

Here's how Zenobia Jeffries of the Michigan Citizen puts it (read here) :

There’s always been somewhat of an underlying question in the midst of the Kilpatrick scandal: Who the hell did he piss off to bring this level of scrutiny?

This question could be answered in Kilpatrick’s account of visits by Detroit attorney Reggie Turner on behalf of the area’s powerful Jewish community. Kilpatrick’s General Counsel Sharon McPhail angered many organizations when she set out to improve the placement rates for groups receiving Workforce Development funds. She required recipients to reapply for their funding and submit detailed strategies to improve placement rates.

The Jewish Vocational Services, who received $25 million from the city in workforce funds, had only a two percent placement rate. They were cut.

According to Kilpatrick, the February 2007 Savior’s Day, an important event for African Americans, at Ford Field with Nation of Islam national leader Louis Farrakhan was also an offense to the Jewish community.

As local reporter Jeff Watrick points out, the Michigan Citizen can hardly claim to report on Kilpatrick without bias. (Read here.)

Catherine Kelly, the Citizen’s publisher is married to former Kwame Kilpatrick aide and long-time Bernard Kilpatrick BFF Michael Tardif. Team Kilpatrick sticks together when it comes to “resurrecting” their golden child’s reputation.

As nauseating as all this is, it gets worse.  According to the Michigan Citizen, Kilpatrick's book documents his journey to redemption, implying that he has undergone a religious rebirth.

Kilpatrick's book also claims that his "enemies" had a broader agenda than what he cited to the Michigan Citizen, and that this presents an ongoing problem for Detroit.

"When I perjured myself, I gave my enemies a lane. And they turned that lane into a highway," Kilpatrick writes, according to an advance copy obtained by The Associated Press. "My intent entering office was to empower Detroiters, and my actions heading into my second term suggested that we had the ability to do it. And that threatened too many people's bottom line. Their bottom lines for me, then, became simple. Get rid of me. And they're not finished."

By shamelessly promoting bigotry and by wrapping his hate speech in a cloak of religious redemption, Kwame Kilpatrick has done what few thought possible.  He has brought further, greater disgrace on himself.