Eminentoes
I, Marion Barry
The former D.C. mayor strikes again.
Marion Barry wants the world to know there isn’t just one Messiah now living in Washington, D.C.
This irrepressible creature of habit seems convinced he is a living god, unencumbered by the laws of mere mortal men.
The dashiki-wearing Democratic former mayor of the District of Columbia who years ago aggressively led the capital city into insolvency, has yet again failed to file his personal tax return, the Washington Post reports.
Barry did this while on probation after being convicted in 2006 of failing to file federal and district income tax returns from 1999 through 2004.
This is just the latest incident in a lifetime of law-breaking for the liberal municipal lawmaker who now represents Ward 8 on the Washington, D.C. city council.
Barry was previously a member of the local school board and city council. He then served three terms as mayor until he was convicted and sent to prison on federal drug charges in 1990. He was videotaped by the FBI smoking crack cocaine with a woman in a hotel room and sent to prison.
After serving six months in prison he was released and, of course, ran for mayor again. Sensing his higher calling, the voters put him back in the mayor’s office again, this time for a fourth term.
While there he presided over unprecedented deficit spending that put the nation’s capital on the brink of total collapse. With the city’s bonds rated “junk” by Wall Street, Congress intervened in 1995, seizing power from the district’s elected leaders. Congress created a financial control board and gave it veto power over city affairs.
Under the leadership of then-mayor Anthony Williams, the district — with no help from Barry — balanced its budget four years in a row. The return to solvency caused the board to go dormant in October 2001.
In his brief stint out of office, Barry offered his services as a financial rainmaker to New York-based municipal bond firm M.R. Beal & Co. That firm disclosed in filings with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board that it paid Barry at least $50,000 in 1999 for his expertise in parting the Red Seas of public finance.
Restless, the man who started his career in politics as a civil rights crusader for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, returned to politics again.
Barry is now a member of the D.C. city council, having returned to politics in 2005 as the council member for Ward 8.
He remains a recidivist.
In October 2005, Barry pleaded guilty to failing to file federal income tax returns and failing to pay federal income taxes.
At a February 2006 sentencing hearing I covered as a daily newspaper reporter, Barry arrived in the courtroom at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse and greeted his fans. “Do I look good? Am I fresh?” he said.
About the Author
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
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IMKessel| 1.30.09 @ 9:02AM
"It's good to be king."
danny| 1.30.09 @ 9:09AM
maybe marion needs to talk with rangel and geithner. you know, pick their brains on the ins and outs of this tax business.
Bruce| 1.30.09 @ 9:38AM
IMKessel,
Yes, it's good to be the king. But, then again, remember what happened to Charles I of England ....
Doctor Right| 1.30.09 @ 10:17AM
In a Democracy, the people get the leaders they deserve.
In their insistence on sending Barry back to elective office time and time again, the people of D.C. get exactly what they deserve - an amoral, cretinous fool who pilfers the city's coffers for his own ends, and who fiddles metaphorically while his city burns (literally) around him.
Marrion Barry in D.C., Kwame Kilpatrick in Detroit, Sheila Dixon in Baltimore, Sharpe James in Newark - they're all cut from the same cloth as Barry. They make rules for the citizenry that they don't apply to themselves. They preside over cities in serious decline, but do nothing to actually improve them. And, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they scream "racism" as loud as possible.
Until the people who live and suffer in these cities, and others like them, stop sending these fools to high elected office, I personally have no sympathy for their problems.
Raoul Ortega| 1.30.09 @ 10:58AM
I'm gonna get called a racist for this, but something tells me that if Blagojevich had a darker skin color he would still be governor today, and favorite for reelection next year. But the real racism is not holding people like Berry to any standards.
marie| 1.30.09 @ 11:18AM
Those fools in ward 8 would vote for a pig, if it were a far left like marion. No wait, they did.
Ward 8, the home of the stupid, lazy, gimme losers.
SeniorD| 1.30.09 @ 11:18AM
Washington, D.C is 98% Democrat (the other 2% are diplomats). There is no reason not to believe the entire city payroll is corrupt.
Pingback| 1.30.09 @ 11:31AM
Loose Lips Daily: Let’s Get Flinty! - City Desk - Washington City Paper links to this page.
Marc Jeric| 1.30.09 @ 1:12PM
Washington D.C is a hellhole of black racism, worse than anything the KKK ever dished out. The corruption there is even worse than in Chicago, if that is possible. The man is right - if Blagojevich had been black nobody would have even whispered about impeachment.
dnha14| 1.30.09 @ 2:43PM
I say make him Under Secretary of the Treasury. It would be fitting.
Steve| 1.30.09 @ 4:48PM
With qualifications like his he would be a great nomination for a position in the current administration. He shares the use of hard drugs with our new president while sharing the tax proclivity of the new Treasury Secretary. If he were only a lobbiest he would be a sho-in.
Everly Waverly| 1.30.09 @ 4:49PM
Marion Barry is a syphilitic disgusting example of a Robert Mugabe wannabe, the guy should one late night just disappear. Will a guy like this ever pay for his continued criminality?
Dustoff| 1.30.09 @ 5:04PM
The people pf DC must be the most stupid people of all to keep electing this damn fool!
HotPat| 1.31.09 @ 12:47AM
Is it spelled "Junkie" or "Junky"? Is one the mayor and the other an lawn ornament?
Interloper| 1.31.09 @ 4:15PM
Why are you going way out of your way to link Marion Barry to President Obama, Matthew? An inquiring mind wants to know.
Barry is a senior citizen with a brain addled from drug use. The way to make sure he gets things done is to appoint a conservator to manage his accounts, file his taxes, makes sure he gets medical treatment, pay his mortgage. etc. Many aged people need this kind of help.
Alan Brooks| 1.31.09 @ 6:31PM
libs weren't so nice about Reagan's alzheimers.
TED TAZMAN| 2.1.09 @ 1:57AM
Can we all understand now? Look at the great ones pick for the so called change he is bringing to Washington. How many of them are having tax issues? Like Marion of old, he will skate as will the new tone hope and change Dem's in Washigton. If you have a D in front of your name, alls well.
Alan Brooks| 2.1.09 @ 5:19PM
Obama HAS to suceed. if he were to resign or even not be re-elected it v. well might invite too much retaliation from blacks. cant take that chance in such an overly sensitive ethnic environment. too much rabble.
see, its not those at the top i fear.
Michele San Pietro| 2.2.09 @ 3:14PM
Marion Barry, one of the most dishonest and corrupt politicians in the United States, represents one of the best examples of racism on the opposite: if he were white, he would have been dead as a politician for ages.
davod| 2.2.09 @ 5:50PM
DC Union chief indicted for theft - $4.6 million,
Tab in Scam At Tax Office In D.C. Nears $50 Million.
Just two instances of good public service in DC.
Jarvis| 2.4.09 @ 9:13PM
Interloper: Why are you going way out of your way to link Marion Barry to President Obama, Matthew?
Excellent question but if you are at all familiar with is writing you already know the answer to that. WTF does Marion Barry have to do with PRESIDENT Obama? About as much as Larry Craig has to do with George Bush. Ok, Marion Barry is quite douche-like but why does everything have to be an indictment of the entire black race?
stefon| 2.9.09 @ 9:04AM
"having been borned and rised in the nation's capital. i still love my city and can't find an cogent
reason why people extol marion barry to be this perfect politician of the 80's and something representing dc politics of improvement at the present? " he is who he is, but........thank God for OBAMA !!!!!!!
Pingback| 2.9.09 @ 9:05PM
Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.5.09 @ 3:19PM
Democrats’ Best Friend in DC, Marion Barry, Locked Up Again : The Sundries Shack links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
jkhkjh| 11.19.09 @ 10:09PM
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