Name That Party: Kwame Kilpatrick (Dem, Former Detroit Mayor) Gets Up to 5-Year Sentence (See Updates)

The order of just desserts that many of us hoped was on its way to Detroit serendipitously arrived today, in the form of a stiffer-than expected sentence of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for violating the terms of his probation -- so severe that, for perhaps the first time in his life, Kwame and his clan are, to borrow from Elvis, all shook up.

It's too bad that readers of Associated Press dispatches can't hand out sentences dictating that certain journalists be prevented from accessing a computer keyboard or other data entry device to publish anything for public consumption for as least as long (5 years) as Kilpatrick's maximum potential time in jail. If they had that power, the AP's Corey Williams would be guilty as charged for "waiting 8 paragraphs to identify the party affiliation of a major political figure involved in crime and/or corruption." If the sentence seems too harsh, recall that Williams is an at least one-time repeat offender, having co-authored an AP dispatch in April (noted by yours truly at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) that avoided mentioning Kilpatrick's Democratic Party pedigree at all.

Here are the first seven paragraphs of Williams's wimp-out (HT to an e-mailer, who also helpfully points out that Kilpatrick's mom, Carolyn Kilpatrick, is a Michigan congressperson, a relationship that has almost never been mentioned in any story about Kwame's calamities). Note the arrival -- finally -- of the aforementioned just desserts in the final excerpted paragraph:

Hats off to Judge Groner. Team Kilpatrick's arguments that the former mayor was in effect "too important to jail" have long since become totally intolerable to those of us who would rather see Detroit and Southeastern Michigan get cleaned up and turned around than descend further into corruption and decay.

Brickbats go to Williams, the Associated Press, and so many other establishment media outlets that have almost always refused to tag Kilpatrick as the Democrat that he is.

Previous NewsBusters posts on Kilpatrick show more of the former mayor's sordid history, as well as multiple examples of shameless Hide That Party journalism.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

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UPDATE, 2PM: An updated and longer Corey Williams AP story (saved here at my web host for future reference purposes) waits 21 paragraphs to flag Kilpatrick as a Democrat. My original tipster believes that earlier versions of AP's report included no party reference for Kilpatrick.

UPDATE 2, 2:10 p.m.: A version earlier than the one used in the original post above (saved here at web host for future reference purposes) did NOT tag Kilpatrick as a Dem.