It was wonderful to learn that basketball legend Dave Bing is running for Mayor of Detroit. At long last, it seemed, the city might benefit from the discipline, integrity and high standards of this great player and good man. Bing was as dignified on the court as he has been successful as a businessman off the court. Besides, the good people of that long-besieged city could hardly do any worse than former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, recently released from prison for lying under oath.
Now comes the revelation that, well, Bing lied, too. He does not have an MBA degree from the General Motors Institute nor did he graduate from Syracuse University in 1966 as he has claimed. He did finally graduate from college in 1995, which is a better story and therefore makes even more mysterious why the candidate would lie about it. His more serious transgression it seems to me is in fronting a spokesman named Clifford Russell to make matters worse with statements like, "Given all the hard knocks he had gone through and the rigors of being an auto supplier, he felt he had an MBA in terms of the amount of knowledge he had acquired." This is bullshit, and it's not even good bullshit.
So here is yet another edition of what happens even to good people when they taste political success and yet somehow feel inadequate to the task. Should we forgive Dave Bing? Likable basketball star aside, he deserves at least one more shot at the truth. Everyone is entitled to one mistake and Bing has earned our respect as an employer and civic leader. One more fib, however, may well end a promising political career before it ever started. It would be, as the late Boston Celtics play-by-play man Johnny Most used to say about one of his favorite players, "Bing Bang."
Now comes the revelation that, well, Bing lied, too. He does not have an MBA degree from the General Motors Institute nor did he graduate from Syracuse University in 1966 as he has claimed. He did finally graduate from college in 1995, which is a better story and therefore makes even more mysterious why the candidate would lie about it. His more serious transgression it seems to me is in fronting a spokesman named Clifford Russell to make matters worse with statements like, "Given all the hard knocks he had gone through and the rigors of being an auto supplier, he felt he had an MBA in terms of the amount of knowledge he had acquired." This is bullshit, and it's not even good bullshit.
So here is yet another edition of what happens even to good people when they taste political success and yet somehow feel inadequate to the task. Should we forgive Dave Bing? Likable basketball star aside, he deserves at least one more shot at the truth. Everyone is entitled to one mistake and Bing has earned our respect as an employer and civic leader. One more fib, however, may well end a promising political career before it ever started. It would be, as the late Boston Celtics play-by-play man Johnny Most used to say about one of his favorite players, "Bing Bang."