Edited down from an AP article via Yahoo! News:
A Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post has apologized for sending an angry e-mail in which he called DC councilmember Marion Barry a "crack addict." Tim Page wrote to Barry's aide last week after receiving a press release about the former mayor's views on the financially troubled Greater Southeast Community Hospital.Give me a break. Sorry, Mr. Barry, but when you betray the public trust by committing an illegal act, sometimes the consequences last a lifetime.
"Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new — and typically half-witted — political grandstanding?" the e-mail said. "I'd be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to and including overdose."
Barry was videotaped in 1990 smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room during an FBI sting and served a six-month prison sentence.
In a story published Tuesday in The Washington Post, Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. called Page's e-mail "a terrible mistake" and said he had taken "appropriate internal action." Neither Downie nor Page would disclose what the action was. Page plans to take a previously scheduled four-month leave starting Jan. 1.
Downie also said Barry called him, and that Barry accepted his apology. Barry said he was "outraged" at the e-mail, "particularly coming from a reporter at a reputable newspaper like The Washington Post, not a rag." He said Page "ought to be fired, and The Washington Post ought to run an editorial apology."
It seems now that you can think the truth, you just can't say it.
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5 comments:
Marion Barry remains one of the most provocative figures in DC politics, and his story is a lot more complicated than "he's the crack smoking mayor" - something I didn't understand till I lived in DC and started to understand why he remained so popular despite his misdeeds. Mostly I think he's a pretty sad example of squandered potential. But I doubt he'll ever be off the public stage as long as he lives; he seems to love the camera and there's a significant segment of the local population that will forgive him no matter what he does.
The only word Page should have apologized for is "addict", although a little circumspection would have avoided the whole thing; it's so much easier just to press "Delete" than go off half-cocked.
I do find it odd, though, the power certain deeply flawed people hold over people's imaginations. I guess just like there will always be those who expect politicians to be paragons of virtue there will also be those who prefer it when elected officials are normal and flawed like everyone else.
What's strange is that a professional journalist should send an email that sounds like a particularly nasty YouTube comment, rather than something more thoughtful and - oh, I don't know - writerly...
Sounds like that four-month vacation is coming a couple of days too late.
I do find it odd, though, the power certain deeply flawed people hold over people's imaginations. I guess just like there will always be those who expect politicians to be paragons of virtue there will also be those who prefer it when elected officials are normal and flawed like everyone else.
You really have to understand the history of DC to understand Barry's popularity. You also have to see him up close and realize that although he's a train wreck, he's a highly charismatic train wreck.
For a long time a lot of the poorest people in DC felt victimized - becaause they were. The city was run by southern Congressmen who treated it like their personal plantation. They respond to Barry because he gets that, and when things were like that for generations, it takes a long time for people to get past it.
I'm not saying that is good or bad, just that it is understandable, and a community that's been mistreated for so long is receptive to someone who clearly understands that. So he may be deeply flawed, but he's their deeply flawed guy. And often people will respond to someone who is deeply flawed but clearly has a natural undersatnding of and empathy for their situation.
The tragedy is that they then settle for that, when they should be expecting more from their leaders.
But all those who say, "OMG, how could he have gotten back on the city council after that?" just really don't understand the history and context.
This is not a defense of Barry, just an observation that the people who continue to support him are not crazy or stupid.
I think it's the "settling" aspect that bothers me most, but how do you teach people not to do that? Many an awful situation has been brought about because people have settled, whether it's in a marriage or a government.
It seems like someone's personal life is becoming the main preoccupation of the pundit class, rather than voting record or actual accomplishment, which is sad. "What I do" is all of a sudden less important than "what I say" when, as we all know, words often lie but actions seldom do...
Barry was clearly the mayor DC needed at the time, or he wouldn't have got in. Who knows if his term in office might not have prevented a riot, for instance, especially during the Reagan administration. (I hope I'm not showing my ignorance here. Again.)
After all, his later campaign slogan was "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C." And it worked.
You give them better choices, which are often sorely lacking in DC. And you build expectations of what local government should be doing - something that takes time, and remember DC only got its own elected local government in the 1970s.
Of course, Barry's summer jobs programs, which employed tons of people from Ward 8, certainly helped - and honestly, provided tangible benefits to people.
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