Cheeks of Clay

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick won't reveal if she voted to oust fellow Congressman John Dingell from a key leadership post,despite claims she did so as payback for him calling on her son to resign as mayor.

Her offices were flooded Friday by upset callers accusing Kilpatrick of contributing to Dingell's removal as House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman. Detroit radio shows -- one of which called her "Delilah" --urged listeners to call the congresswoman's offices in protest. Dingell lost control over the committee that sets automobile policy by a secret 137-122 vote Thursday.

“Only the congresswoman knows how she voted,” said Keirana Barrett, a Kilpatrick aide. “We wanted people to understand the process. This is a secret process.” (“Cheeks Kilpatrick mum on Dingell vote”).

At least the Democrats have found some use for the secret ballot--they can use it to hide their vindictive political votes--even if they aim to deny secret ballots to American workers having union membership shoved down their throats. For more on this hypocrisy check this out.

Kilpatrick, by refusing to disclose whether she did or didn’t vote against her congressional colleague from Michigan, has given common-sense Michiganians like us all the reasons we need to believe she really did. (And Dingell even backed her in her recent re-election). Not only that, she voted against the interests of her own state and community. Whatever problems we’ve had with Dingell here, he at least looks out for the auto industry, and, given a choice between him and Waxman, there’s simply no way that Waxman is a better choice for Kilpatrick’s poorly served constituents than Dingell would have been.

The most her statement defending her secret vote would give away is that “As the only appropriator from the State of Michigan, I am committed to advocating for health care and environmental justice for all Americans.”

Inspiring, no? "Environmental justice," is meant to signal she voted for Waxman’s extremist, anti-auto industry approach. Why not just say so? Could political blather get any more cynical than that?

It's an understatement to say that Rep. Kilpatrick is not a class act. She made an embarrassing spectacle of herself during her son’s re-election, (“Don’t let nobody talk about y’all’s boy!”), playing the role of an outraged ghetto queen, trying to sell the image of her son as a racial champion entitled by racial justice to office By Any Means Necessary. Later, she vowed to appeal the whistleblower verdicts against Kwame "no matter how much it costs the city." And now, she's voted against the economic interests of her own city and state just to even the score with a supporter who dared to question her son's divine right to rule, and then hidden behind the secrecy of the "process" to hide her shameful action.

I don’t begrudge any mother sticking like glue to her offspring, no matter how bad he is, even after he’s been thrown out of office and gone to jail. But Cheeks Kilpatrick has always behaved as if everyone in Michigan owes this bum loyalty. I suppose teaching him that he deserved that when he was growing up helped make him who he is today. After it was evident Kwame wasn't going to survive in office, Dingell made a prudent request that he step down. And now, because Dingell talked about y'all's boy, Kilpatrick is now using her office to settle the score, and to hell with her voters and Michigan.