Kwame's Third Chance?

It seems, perhaps, that former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick might land on his feet after all. He has been released from prison, having served his sentence for not being entirely honest about his ability to repay the City of Detroit what he owes it in the wake of the text message scandal. He has a book in print, Surrendered: The Rise, Fall & Revelation of Kwame Kilpatrick, sales of which are, by court order, to go towards his restitution payments (which the former mayor insists he intends to repay anyway). And now he has a paying gig, meeting with students and speaking to them about his life and its pitfalls. He will speak at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas on August 27th.

The school's motto, Think Justice, indeed seems appropriate to the nature of Mr. Kilpatrick's visit. Further, school officials assure the public that Kilpatrick will be properly challenged by their students.

Let's hope so. It would be nice to think that, as Mr. Kilpatrick somehow still seems to view himself as a role model, he might actually take on the mantle and instruct those college students on proper behavior and how to live rightly. There's no good scoffing at this prospect: if he isn't recalcitrant, it doesn't matter, and folks will see through him. If he is, well, his crimes certainly weren't beyond forgiveness, and hopefully the students will learn a lesson in that.

Mr. Kilpatrick does have to earn his daily bread as well. It is unfair to expect that every dollar he earns should go towards restitution no matter how fair and, ahem, just the payments may be. And to give him his due, he could certainly inspire the young at one time in his life. If he can find a way to inspire them properly as he gets his own affairs back in order, there's no harm giving him the chance.

True, his past actions do not offer much reason to believe that possible. Yet as the future is unwritten, there's no harm giving him the benefit of the doubt. As only time will tell, as time is all he or we have got, we just as well let it play out its course. If nothing else, maybe the upcoming Federal case against him will help keep his actions in check.