Mayor Kilpatrick's Growing Troubles Only Strengthen His Faith

“Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick says he wants to
shelve questions about his personal life so he can focus on rebuilding Detroit
while his lawyers appeal his defeat in a whistle-blower case.”
(Sunday Free Press,
“Lawsuit alleges mayoral infidelity”).

Yet following on the heels of the $6.5 million dollar judgment against the mayor and the city is a second whistleblower lawsuit, also making an issue of his personal life, including how he bawled out his bodyguard for not "beating down" an NBA player who tried to get hands-on with Kwame's "Chief of Staff," Christine Beatty.

Facing all this, it’s a fortunate thing for the city that the mayor, who calls himself “God’s guy,” feels with all his heart and soul that God “anointed” him to be mayor of Detroit, and that something “bad would happen” to him if he ever “walked away from this blessing.” ("MAYOR VS. THE VERDICT: Kilpatrick brought the decision on himself, juror says”).

That's also why, as a man of faith, all this persecution just makes him stronger.

Surfing the radio Sunday morning for something inspirational, we ran across a live broadcast from one of Detroit’s more successful churches, and who else but God’s Guy himself was in the pulpit delivering the message to an extremely supportive congregation.

An excerpted transcript can give you some idea of just why it's going to take a miracle to remove Kwame Kilpatrick from the Manoogian Mansion.

…[Sounds of a large, spirited congregation in a cavernous space]

MAYOR: I’m here to tell you brothers and sisters….

CONGREGANT.: [Go ahead!]

MAYOR: …that as God’s guy here in this city, if I must suffer the slings and the arrows of persecution, slanders, lies, maledictions and kangaroo courts [Shame!] you won’t hear one word of complaint or self-pity out of me. [Never!] Because I’m God’s man, I can take it. Haven’t I got big, strong, broad shoulders?

FEMALE CONGREGANT: [Help me! ]

MAYOR: And didn’t they do this to Moses, to Elijah, to King David, and even to Mayor Young? So I’ve gotta take it for the sake of the black men in this city so they can know the outcome of this case sends a dangerous message. And that message is…” [Tell it!] …I say that message is, well…

[The message! The message! ]

MAYOR: …So did I mention that I brought the Super Bowl to the City of Detroit?

CONG: [Glory!]

MAYOR: Then the hotel development, the street development, the new houses, the property tax cut, the balancing of a $300-million shortfall when everybody said it was over for us.

FEMALE CONG.: [Hah! Why don't they sue you for that!]

MAYOR: And now all this no-account lying about some kinda woman in a mink coat! What’d I do, anyway? Yes, brothers, I encountered a poor waif late one winter night, her hand clutching her coat against the biting winter wind.

CONG.: [Lord, it was cold!]

MAYOR: And yes, sisters, as a man of God, do you think I was going to forget about all those precious Sunday School lessons at my mother's knee…

CONG.: [Not right now!]

MAYOR: …which is why, when I saw that she was naked [Have mercy!] I visited her--and she took me in!

CONGREGANTS: [It’s in the book!] [Says right here!]
FEMALE CONGRGEGANT: [Help me!]
ORGANIST: [Sound of Hammond B3 quoting first two bars of “Devil With a Blue Dress.”]

MAYOR: And all these false witnesses jabbering about me visiting my own chief of staff alone in her home unsupervised while her husband was away, alone by herself and groaning beneath a load of care because she’d just been pulled over for "speeding" and harassed by police IN SPITE OF WHO SHE WAS--which--as you may recall I mentioned at the time, was the biggest piece of crap I'd ever heard?

CONG.: [That’s all it was!]

MAYOR: Now HOW could I hold my head up to my God or his voters in this city if I should refuse to comfort, console, take pity on, or even lay blessing hands upon my own trusted aide and Girl Friday in her time of loneliness and need?

CONG.: [I wouldn't try it!]

MAYOR: You see standing before you a guy who has never been in trouble. Got pretty good grades. Graduated with honors from college. Graduated law school. Only freshman legislator to chair a committee. Leader of the state House. Became the mayor of the City of Detroit.

And all of a sudden, on the whisper, or word of one person, he's turned into a thuggish, promiscuous, sexual animal almost.

I just think it's a dangerous thing, when you can just say this is who he is, and that's it.

CONG.: [Not even a fair trial!]

MAYOR: And did I mention the Super Bowl?

CONG.: [Well…?]

MAYOR: Brothers and sisters, I stand before you today in God’s house, unashamed, and undeterred, and willing to incur whatever it costs to fight these scurrilous lies all the way to the Super Bowl!--I mean the Supreme Court!

CONG.: [Thank you! Thank you!]

MAYOR: And I’m here today to tell you that I believe with all of my heart and my soul that God anointed me to do this. And I believe something bad would happen to me if I walked away from this blessing.

CONG.: [Don’t you dare move!]

MAYOR: I’m here to tell you that if I walked away, there’s no Executive Protection Force that could protect Kwame Kilpatrick from that strong beat-down of divi-i-i-ine judgment.

CONG.: [Look out!]

MAYOR: And that goes double when you got guys like those backstabbing, jaw-flapping cops Nelthorpe and Harris bodyguarding you!

ORGANIST: [Quotes last bar of "Backstabbers"]

MAYOR: So, in closing, as your anointed mayor, as Carlita’s husband, and as the man who brought you the Super Bowl, Kwame Kilpatrick's message is this: move Detroit forward, keep on believing in God’s guy for the city, (that's ME) and do like I do and don’t ever tempt God by walking away from a blessing when it’s standing there grinning at you. This I will never do, so help me God. Amen.

CONG.: [Amen! Amen! Hallelujah!]

Sunday's offering broke every record.