‘Sex, Lies and Texting’

What does Kilpatrick have to say for himself? Not much. He's been in seclusion since the news broke, skipping out on an important U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington. First, he and his family fled to their Florida vacation home (where a news photographer caught him giving his wife a conspicuous kiss). After the media flushed him out down there, he returned to Detroit, but hasn't emerged to face the legion of lenses outside his front door. His press office is declining all interview requests, including NEWSWEEK's, and sticking with a statement he issued Wednesday night: "These five- and six-year-old text messages reflect a very difficult period in my personal life. It is profoundly embarrassing to have these extremely private messages now displayed in such a public manner. My wife and I worked our way through these intensely personal issues years ago."

Beatty also is in hiding, but she did send out her pastor to speak for her on local TV. "She's absolutely devastated by what she's been involved in," the Rev. Ronald L. Griffin told WXYZ-TV. "She's not making any excuses. She is devastated and ashamed."

What's next for the mayor? "At the appropriate time, we'll let you know," said his deputy press secretary, James Canning. (In a sad irony, the mayor's chief press secretary is in rehab after pleading guilty last month to bashing his wife's head through a window in a drunken rage. Kilpatrick stuck by him, refusing to fire or demote him.)

The mayor's attempt to spin his dalliance and denial as a long-ago love affair he now regrets does not appear to be gaining him much sympathy. Inspired by another chief executive caught lying about an affair, The Detroit News ran a political cartoon Friday showing Kilpatrick at a podium, pointing his finger self-righteously and saying: "I did not have text with that woman!"

What's most amazing about the texts, though, is that they reveal just how brazenly the mayor conducted his dangerous liaison. During a visit to Washington in 2002 for the Congressional Black Caucus's legislative conference (Kilpatrick's mother is Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who represents Michigan's 13th District in the U.S. House), the mayor and his chief of staff shared a bedroom at his D.C. hotel while his bodyguards stood watch. "They were right outside the door," Kilpatrick texted Beatty the next day. "They had to have heard everything." Beatty responded: "So we are officially busted! LOL." (Text language for "laugh out loud.") To which Kilpatrick reassured her: "LOL LOL! Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see! LOL." Nope, busted is what you read. And no one is LOLing now.

© 2008