Weekly Multiplayer Releases: Week of December 11, 2007

Barry Sells Out His Constituency With Car Auction

The Washington Post February 14, 1993 | COURTLAND MILLOY Inside the Anacostia Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in 1991, Marion Barry’s friends gathered to buy him a car. Children had gone into their piggy banks and elderly women had tapped their shoe box savings, all to purchase the recently convicted former mayor a New Yorker Fifth Avenue.

Yesterday, Barry auctioned off the car. What had been given in the spirit of love and concern he had sold for profit. And because he got $14,200 for a used car worth no more than $11,500, he was hailed by aides as having made a brilliant business decision. go to website capital auto auction

Barry has not made many public decisions since his election to the D.C. Council last year. But what he did with that car indicated dull and foggy thought.

The scene at the Capital Auto Auction was like watching a Valentine being hocked at a pawnshop. A profound lack of gratitude was exceeded only by a crass display of greed: Barry’s aides said he would use the proceeds to buy himself an even more luxurious car.

“He had it for two years and has the right to do whatever he thinks best,” said H.R. Crawford, the former D.C. Council member who helped buy the car for Barry.

But wouldn’t it have been better for Barry to pass on the gift?

He could have used the car to help somebody else. As the representative of Ward 8, the poorest ward in Washington, Barry knows hundreds of people who need a car. Many of them are men who can’t get work because they have no transportation to jobs in outlying areas.

There are also thousands of high school graduates in his ward, shining examples of academic achievement under adverse conditions. For many of them, a car could help them commute to an affordable college.

If Barry wanted another car, he should have bought one with the $70,000-a-year salary that came with his election to the D.C. Council. The used car could have been given away as freely as it had been received.

Barry had received that car because his friends wanted to help him. He was struggling, and in disgrace. He was broke and unemployed. After 12 years as mayor, nobody would give him a real job. So his friends chipped in and gave him a car. Within weeks of being back on his feet, he seems to have forgotten where he came from.

It is unfortunate that many residents see Barry as a victim of a white racist system, but ignore the fact that thousands of other black people were victimized by his systematic neglect as mayor.

Barry, though, cannot afford such self-delusion. In his soul, he must realize that he did more than disappoint people. He hurt them, badly. In his second coming as a politician, he could have symbolized a readiness to heal some of those wounds by at least giving back the car.

Instead he behaved like just another con.

His scheme to unload the vehicle included a news release in which he said that the first 50 bidders would receive “I Bid on Marion Barry’s Car” T-shirts. “Sure to become a collector’s item,” the auctioneer promised.

Barry was actually reveling in his notoriety. He was even scheduled to auction off the car himself, but the stunt was canceled at the last minute. Supposedly, he had to attend a budget hearing yesterday.

But had he showed up at the auction, he would have faced questions about a grand jury probe into the alleged theft of his car.

On Jan. 4, Barry’s first day on the job, the car was reported stolen from in front of the District Building.

What makes a routine auto theft grist for questions has something to do with Barry’s response. He has alternately said he does not know, or did not think he knew the person who was arrested and charged with unauthorized use of the vehicle. this web site capital auto auction

“I’m not driving it,” Barry said of the car after it was returned. He said it was tainted. “There could be anything in there, knowing that there are people out there who want to do some harm to me politically or otherwise.” Of course, that did not stop the auctioneer from billing it as “clean, very clean. You’d think this car had only been driven to church.” This was untrue, but effective.

Within minutes, the car was sold to an Asian woman who did not even know who Barry was. Although she barely spoke English, she had obviously become overly excited by the hype.

Ordinarily, customers get bargains at auto auctions. Had the woman who bought Barry’s car gone to an ordinary used car lot, she could have bought the same car for about $1,000 cheaper.

Barry had done it again. He had turned a gift into a curse. Getting rid of his “haunted” car had been easy. Now all he had to do was get rid of the demons that made it so hard for him to do right.

COURTLAND MILLOY