So...Denver elected a new mayor this week. Do you miss John Hickenlooper yet? Any chance he can do double-duty?
I'm not going to throw Mayor-elect Michael Hancock under the bus until the full story is revealed (if it ever gets revealed). But as we learned with the Anthony Weiner case, if a story looks bad, smells bad and on the surface doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, then there's probably something pretty unseemly going on. Sometimes it's not raining--you really are just getting pissed on.
When Hancock says, "There are very good reasons why my phone number would be [on the call list of a prostitution service] that I'm not prepared to go into now," you do wonder what exactly those very good reasons would be. I am 100% sure that if someone pulled up my cell phone records, there wouldn't be any escort services showing up on the list of either outgoing or incoming calls. Unless my phone number got cloned somehow, but then my bill would be a lot higher than it is and I would investigate it. Mayor-elect Hancock isn't even saying this. If I understand him correctly, he's not denying that he called these numbers, but he is saying he was framed. He won't allow The Denver Post and 9News full access to the phone records, but he maintains (for now) that he didn't hire prostitutes from this service between 2004 and 2006.
Kind of sounds like, "I did not have sexual relations with this woman." Until he did, if you know what I mean? I guess sometimes, Sex Happens.
Full disclosure: I voted for Hancock twice, both in the initial election and the runoff. I also seriously considered James Mejia, Chris Romer and Doug Linkhart. Ultimately, I probably considered Romer the least, because it felt too much like he was trying to ride into the mayor's office on his Daddy's coattails, because he was the only candidate in the campaign to consistently go negative and because he didn't seem to have very well thought out answers to some of the questions about his vision for the city that some of the other candidates had. Would he have been a bad mayor? Probably not.
I voted for Hancock not because he is a fellow African-American, but because a) I liked his personal story and b) I preferred somebody who knew the inner workings fo Denver's city government first hand, which Hancock certainly would, based on being the City Council president. Would Michael Hancock be a bad mayor if he actually gets to serve? I question his judgement and his trustworthiness, of course, but since being honest and being judicious with where you put your penis doesn't seem to disqualify any men from elected office, it also is probably not an indicator of how effective Hancock could be at managing the city's machinery.
Does anyone else think we would have fewer controversies like this if we had more women in elected office? I mean, I think Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are dangerous idiots, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to worry about the unnecessary distraction of a sex scandal with either one of them in office. The possession of both power and a penis seems to be an irresistable and damaging combination for too many men. This is nothing new. Pharaohs, Roman emperors, kings, popes, presidents, congressmen, MPs, mayors, councilmen--all have a history of mingling political leadership roles and sexual profligacy from the dawn of time. It is not likely to change any time soon either. The entire world is one big frat house.
Here's what I'd like to see happen: I would like to see Hancock and his team stop dragging their feet and hemming and hawing and allow access to the phone records. I would like Hancock to come out and tell the truth, or as much truth as he can keeping mindful that the people of Denver don't need to know every detail, but that we do deserve to know if he has done any wrongdoing. Don't try to hide behind the bromide of "for the good of my family" or "the media is dragging my family through the mud", because that obviously wasn't part of the thought process if and when Hancock solicited prostitutes. Then--and this is the tough part--if he did pay prostitutes for sex and then tried to cover it up he needs to resign and there needs to be yet another mayoral election. This time, if Romer runs again, I may even vote for him. (Unless it was his team that was responsible for leaking Hancock's connection to the brothel. Which seems highly possible.)
What are the odds it will all actually play out this way? Don't hold your breath.
Peace...
(Here is the link to the most recent Denver Post story about Hancock and his alleged ties to the "Denver Players Club": http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18252064
DISCLAIMER: Also, this is an opinion posted on a personal blog. Despite my [admittedly tangential] ties to 9News, I am in no way connected to any part of the investigation and reportage of this story and my views DO NOT reflect those of 9News, Gannett, The Denver Post or anyone else connected to any of these organizations.)
2 comments:
Michael Hancock wins Denver mayoral race Tuesday. Two days later it comes out in the press Hancock's name was on list of names of an escort service that when investigated in 2007 caught a Federal judge who then resigned. Of course Hancock and his handlers are in deep damage control at the moment. Inauguration is 7/18. Those same escort records had Hancock's name misspelled as "Handcock." But, that seems appropriate under the circumstances, doesn't it?
The "burning" question is whether this apparent sordid event will derail his being inaugurated and then what happens? At least Denver has not been spared from joining other cities whose politicians have been caught with their ...........in the cookie jar, so to speak.
Worth noting...Hancock seems to have been exonerated, although the whole story seems to still bear watching. For now, I will accept the consensus opinion that Hancock is in fact innocent of soliciting prostitutes from this service.
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