The texts didn't stay destroyed for long. And once they came out in the Free Press, they quickly became a national punch line. Jay Leno lampoons them regularly. The Daily Show did a four-minute send-up, complete with a white-suited R. Kelly impersonator. (Beatty praised the mayor in one text for singing an R. Kelly song to her.) As Jon Stewart read from the texts to the beat of Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet," the impersonator offered commentary like "That's some textual healing." One example: "I'm in your room. Are you in route or still hanging?" Beatty texted Kilpatrick from a Washington, D.C., hotel in 2002. The mayor responded: "At Ben's Chili Bowl," to which the Kelly clone crooned: "Ben's Chili Bowl, a place for love."

That kind of ridicule finally forced one prominent businessman out of the shadows: Dave Bing, former Detroit Pistons star and now a successful developer and auto parts maker. "It's way more than a distraction. It's embarrassing," Bing told the Free Press last month. "We're the laughingstocks of the country." Bing, who didn't respond to interview requests from NEWSWEEK, called on the mayor to "do what is best for the city." But Bing has one key demographic difference from most of his fellow CEOs: he's black. He urged his business colleagues not to fear the race card. "There are a lot of people who are afraid to speak up, primarily the white business community, because they will be colored a racist because they're coming out against a black man," Bing told the Detroit News. "That's a mistake. I don't think race has anything to do with what we're going through. It's about right and wrong. It's about accountability. It's about leadership."

But not a single Detroit business leader has stepped forward to speak against the mayor since Bing issued his challenge three weeks ago. In fact, Kilpatrick's people say he is still working closely with Detroit's top execs. "He is continuing to hold meetings with business leaders at least weekly," says his press secretary, Denise Tolliver. "He is not going to resign. That is very clear."

Right now the only CEO with much to say is a Kilpatrick supporter. "To me, the only thing he's guilty of at this point is having some kind of relationship outside his marriage with his chief of staff," Peter Karmanos Jr., chairman and CEO of business software maker Compuware Corp., told NEWSWEEK. "It's not a crime to have an affair. It may be against some people's morals, but it doesn't affect his ability to do business one bit." Karmanos publicly scolded Kilpatrick after the scandal broke, saying he needed to "grow up." Now he is taking a conciliatory tone. "With all the talent he has," says Karmanos, "it would be a shame to see it wasted because he acted in an immature and improper fashion."

That charitable view does not appear to be widely shared in the Detroit business community. But "white fright" is keeping the private whisper campaign against the mayor from going public. Last week many Motown execs read with horror the argument Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson made against having Gov. Jennifer Granholm remove the mayor. "Nobody wants a white woman in Lansing to decide the fate of a black man in Detroit," she reportedly told Kilpatrick. The same could be said of the men who run Detroit's big businesses. And that's why most of them will keep their mouths shut.

With Mary Chapman

© 2008