shameful and delusional

We have a local politician -- a state senator -- who until a few days ago was considered by many to be a shining star. Her name is Diane Wilkerson. She's a brilliant African-American lawyer who's pulled herself up by her own bootstraps and has really made a name for herself.

She represents perhaps the poorest, most downtrodden, most neglected part of Boston, Roxbury, an area that strikes fear into the hearts of many suburban white folks. It's been generally accepted that she's a fierce advocate for her community, a fighter, a networker, someone who has done a tremendous amount of good.

A few years ago, she got into trouble for neglecting to file her income taxes. Yeah, she's a lawyer, she should have known better, etc etc, but I think she was forgiven and everyone moved on. Then this week or last, the news broke that the feds have been following her for years, that they'd caught her on camera multiple times accepting bribes from business people. The bribers were influencing her to allow businesses into her district (and paying her to use her network to influence others). Some of these businesses weren't necessarily good for her constituents -- they were good for the business people.

Ms. Wilkerson's lawyers tried to claim that the pictures of Ms. W stuffing cash into her bra were "taken out of context" -- er -- what context would these pictures make the most sense in? Apparently, some of the bribery happened in a restaurant with huge plate glass windows across the street from the State House. Like no one might have noticed the cash-stuffing activity? Sounds fairly anonymous to me.

Earlier this fall, Ms. W had narrowly lost a primary bid to a challenger and was mounting a write-in sticker campaign as if the primary hadn't happened. This week, the state Senate unanimously (a rarity) asked her to step down. Then a coalition of the area's black executives joined the senators in requesting her resignation from the Senate. A few days later, Ms. W dropped the sticker campaign and said she'd announce her further intentions after the election.

This story has gotten tremendous air and newspaper play across the Boston area. In my opinion, most people caught on tape accepting bribes multiples times would be resigning in a hurry and going into seclusion. The long pauses between this woman's announcements are astonishing to me.

I find the unwinding of this story so sad. She is obviously delusional. In the face of undeniably strong reality, she seems to be going about her business, assuming she's still a Senator and that nothing much has changed. Maybe she thinks it will all "blow over" in a few days. Maybe she thinks she still has supporters who are willing to vote for her anyways (remember, her name isn't even on the ballot at this point). Maybe she thinks enough people will believe the contention that her pictures were "taken out of context" and that she will be exonerated.

Her resignation is inevitable. I can't imagine that she'll ever work in this town again, which might be ok, because I imagine she'll be spending some of the next few years in prison. As they said in Fiddler on the Roof, I wish her well, somewhere very far away from here.