When Marion Barry returned to work last week, he told his Cabinet that public expectations of elected officials are just too high.
“We ought to be able to have the opportunity to fail like other people,” the Washington mayor said.
This followed a two-week departure in which he sought spiritual revitalization in Maryland, then outside St. Louis, all the while denying a relapse into old transgressions of drugs, boozing and womanizing.
Proclaiming his mental and psychic rejuvenation, he proceeded to nearly refer to an ex-wife, Effi, not his current (and fourth), Cora, as the woman with whom he awakes and praises the Lord each morning.
Well, elected officials should be able to forget what marriage they’re on, just like other people, right?
Barry’s performance, especially in answering softball questions and declarations from his top appointees, was duly covered live by all the local TV stations. A lottery board member gushed in telling His Honor that two constituents had won Powerball jackpots while he was gone!
Of course, a woefully mismanaged, bankrupt, crime-ridden city itself would have struck gold had the four-time mayor stayed on retreat. But he returned, to lament undue expectations among the citizenry when, in fact, his ultimate fraud is creating an environment in which expectations of municipal government are so disastrously low.
His coming out underscored the limits of respectable journalism. The Tribune, Washington Post, New York Times and many others covered the event but, lest they be seen as editorializing, couldn’t quite catch the full flavor. A perfectly truthful opening might have been this:
“WASHINGTON–In a scene fit for `One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ ex-felon Mayor for Life Marion Barry pulled another con Monday, claiming complete recovery from something undefined, forswearing cigarettes and wearing the mantel of New Age self-help guru in urging the overpaid, unproductive workers of the capital to eat more carbohydrates and work fewer hours.
“Barry, who left two weeks earlier to seek `spiritual rejuvenation,’ was surrounded by his lap dog Cabinet as he bashed the media, said nothing of substance about his declining metropolis and proclaimed the joys of 12-step programs.
“Conspicuous by their absence, however, were his wife, known to the local alternative weekly as Cora Masters Lady MacBarry, as well as scam artists playing three-card monte, who would have felt perfectly at home . . .”
Fascinated by the spectacle, a photographer and I decided to check out one of Barry’s first public appearances, at a Hispanic seniors center Wednesday.
With his advance team of two guards in place, but the revitalized mayor 40 minutes late, both the head of the city’s office of aging and the center’s director had to fill time. They did so in unintentionally comic ways.
The Barry bureaucrat read aloud in English comments about the city’s great sensitivity to seniors, with the director then translating them into Spanish.
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Whatever the language, few of the assembled seemed to have a clue as to the bureaucrat’s references to her office getting funds “from the Older Americans Act, as amended,” and “priority areas” such as “disease prevention,” which have been “targeted for continuation.”
And in a moment recalling Woody Allen’s “Bananas,” a Latino official made several announcements in Spanish, which the center’s director began repeating in Spanish before realizing she was supposed to be translating them into English.
Barry then arrived and sat at a table while the announcements continued. He scanned the room, turned to the bureaucrat and, reading his lips made clear, asked whether I was from the press. I apparently did not resemble a Hispanic senior citizen or any recognizable member of the local media, one of whom later arrived.
He finally took the podium and as a pro quickly turned the assemblage his way. “Not an election year so I’m not looking for any votes.” He paused. “Not this year.” A few laughs were heard.
He told the seniors of good deeds he was trying to pull off for them but talked around their prime concern: getting help for a bigger center.
“We’ll commit to do something,” he said. “Let’s find it (a new center). Somebody must have it.”
One senior admonished him for the planned closing of the city’s two adult education centers, which are crucial to many immigrants who want to learn English.
Barry responded in a fashion that underscored both his growing impotence as an executive and his political strategy of playing himself off against a new financial control board. The board, forced on the city by Congress, now effectively controls money, jobs and contracts.
“If I had the power, they wouldn’t be closed,” he said. With true chutzpah, Barry matter-of-factly urged the seniors to “get the names” of Board of Education members and “if necessary, go to their homes and demonstrate.”
A pathbreaking idea: Not only try to run the city but, if any actions are controversial, lead demonstrations against it!
Barry took a few questions and several photos with the female-dominated group of about 50. He wrapped things up after an 80-year-old woman who came to this country from El Salvador stood to proclaim that she was happy the mayor was putting God before anything else.
“Muchas gracias,” said the mayor, who has a consistent record of lots of interests before his elected duties.
With that, Barry hustled out of the center, into his Lincoln Town Car and to the next stop in his latest odyssey of recreation.
Cokie watch
Remember, Cokie and Steve Roberts, “this country’s premier journalistic couple” (according to their publicity materials) will be speaking for cash Monday in Chicago at the Jewish United Fund-Israel Emergency Fund, brought to you by the Real Estate, Building Trades and Home & Contract Furnishings Divisions.
Some news organizations would bar such a paid gig–as they would have when the duo picked up $40,000 from a Chicago bank.
Meanwhile, Baltimore Sun reporter Dan Roderick called to inform that, alas, alack, Cokie will be speaking for free to a Baltimore Catholic women’s college. Such selflessness is to be applauded.
Soliciting fees
Isn’t this special.
An updated brochure from one of several major speakers bureaus not only informs that University of Kentucky basketball coach Rick Pitino is on the market but so is Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.).
“Patricia Schroeder is the longest-serving woman in the U.S. House of Representatives,” declares the brochure. “She has been an outspoken independent voice within the Democratic Party . . . She will retire from Congress at the end of this term and will be available for speaking in 1997,” according to the brochure.
Wonderful.
Many politicians are rather scrupulous in not job hunting while lame ducks, or at least being very discreet about it. Not Schroeder. Any special interest can now call up and guarantee her a fat speaking fee for next year.