"Patriotism," Samuel Johnson famously said, "is the last refuge of a scoundrel." The same can be said for politicians and other public figures who invoke racism after finding themselves compromised by ethical or legal difficulties. Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas introduced "high tech lynching" to the lexicon amid Anita Hill's sundry utterances about Coke cans, pubic hairs, and Long Dong Silver. The latest practitioner of this particular maneuver is Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, the erstwhile self-proclaimed hip hop mayor, who finds himself embroiled in a sex scandal stemming from his extramarital relationship with his former chief of staff and possible perjury charges. In a stirring coda to his state of the city address, Mayor Kilpatrick said:
In the past 30 days I've been called a nigger more than any time in my entire life. In the past three days I've received more death threats than I have in my entire administration. I've heard these words, but I've never heard people say them about my wife and children. I have to say this, because it's very personal to me. I don't believe a Nielsen rating is worth the life of my children or your children. This unethical, illegal lynch-mob mentality has to stop.
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