Laura Berman's Blog

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Category: City Hall

Posted by Laura Berman (The Detroit News) on Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 4:34 PM

Casting a new High School Musical

One minute she's a feminist intellectual, touting her law degree and her credentials. Then, Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers undermines her own case, with the exaggerated flair of a sitcom character.

After helping her brother get a job with the city ($30,500 a year), she renounced him this week by denying his existence, at least in the fraternal sense, to News reporter David Josar. Brother? What brother? When it turned out that the man in question, Reggie Esters, 38, was an ex-con who got fired for not showing up and recently got in trouble again, was indisputably her brother, Conyers reluctantly admitted the truth.

That wasn't her only flip-flop of the week.

"I didn't say she needs a man but...does she?" That was Conyers, sounding like Anna Nicole Smith or Mae West, baring her claws as she snarled about her fellow Council member Sheila Cockrel to a Channel 4 (WDIV) reporter. That was after she'd told Cockrel to "shut... up"

But don't the mean girls always get mad at the teacher's pet? Cockrel responded to the character smear and obscenity with a diagnosis, suggesting the president needs work on her anger management skills and impulse control.

In high school, the mean girl with impulse control problems gets sent to the principal's office. But this is Detroit City Council, where Monica Conyers is the principal.

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About this Weblog

Laura Berman is a Detroit News columnist who writes about local, national and, occasionally, personal issues. She's using her blog as a place to react to breaking news, try out new ideas and reinvent old ones and get and give tips about the Detroit area and beyond. Readers are invited - no, begged - to comment, amuse, challenge, ponder and, even, rant.

Laura has been a features writer, columnist, business and political reporter and magazine staff writer at the Detroit Free Press, and a contributor to many national magazines. Her journalism awards include a National Headliner Award for column writing. She has a degree in history from the University of Michigan.

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