Without question, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s least favorite mayor today is Democrat Kwame M. Kilpatrick, the flamboyant mayor of Detroit, Michigan.

Before becoming Mayor of Detroit, the nation’s 11^th largest city, Kilpatrick was a member of the Michigan legislature and the first African-American ever to lead the Democratic Caucus in the Michigan House of Representatives. And while Kilpatrick was tending to legislative affairs and Democratic Party politics in Lansing, his Detroit district office was capably administered by his district director, Christine Beatty.

Then, when Kilpatrick left the legislature in January 2002 to become the youngest mayor in Detroit history, Beatty left the district office and moved downtown to city hall to become the mayor’s chief of staff. But the relationship was apparently far more than a professional one, as reported in a January 23 story in the Detroit Free Press.

As Bill Clinton would learn so painfully in late 1997, and beyond: a) it is best not to solicit sexual favors from or engage in sexual liaisons with subordinates, and b) when confronted with allegations of sexual misconduct with a subordinate… a subordinate who asks for nothing more than an apology to clear her good name… it is best to cut one’s losses and simply apologize.

The roots of the Detroit scandal are to be found in a whistleblower lawsuit brought against the city by former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown and former mayoral bodyguard, Harold Nelthrope, both of whom were fired by Kilpatrick… allegedly because of their respective roles in an investigation of his protection squad, an investigation that threatened to uncover his intimate relationship with his chief of staff.

Instead of settling the lawsuits out of court, Kilpatrick balked at early efforts to settle and continued to fight… even after his attorneys learned in 2004 that damaging text messages might eventually surface in the case.

When the suit went to trial last summer, the mayor and his chief of staff learned that it is best not to contradict, under oath, those who are privy to the most intimate and embarrassing details of one’s private life. Called to the witness stand on August 28, 2007, Beatty was asked, "During the time period 2001 to 2003, were you and Mayor Kilpatrick either romantically or intimately involved with each other?"

Beatty replied, "No."

And when the mayor followed her to the stand the following day, August 29, he was asked the same question. He, too, replied, "No."

Finally, on September 11, 2007, a Wayne County jury found that Brown and Nelthrope had been victims of retaliation, awarding Brown $3.9 million and Nelthrope $2.6 million.

According to the Free Press, Kilpatrick vowed to appeal the decision. But then, in October, he abruptly agreed to settle the case for a total of $8.4 million. Taking a page from Bill Clinton and O.J. Simpson’s book, Kilpatrick explained, "Since the verdict I’ve listened to pastors, business leaders, and so many Detroiters who genuinely love and care about me and this city. I’ve humbly concluded that a settlement... is the correct decision for my family and the entire Detroit community."

Following the trial, reporters for the Free Press gained access to some 1400 sexually explicit text messages exchanged between Kilpatrick and Beatty in September and October 2002, and in April and May 2003… crucial periods in the events surrounding the firing of the two police officers. According to the Free Press, the text messages clearly show that Kilpatrick and Beatty perjured themselves in their testimony.

Discussing the seriousness of the crime of perjury, an official of the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission said, "It's literally the equivalent of the death penalty for a law license…" a lesson that Bill Clinton learned so painfully after it was learned that he’d lied under oath before District Judge Susan Weber Wright during testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit. Judge Wright subsequently disbarred Clinton from the practice of law for a period of five years, the first president in history to be so humiliated.

But what ties all of this so tightly to Hillary Clinton is the clear parallel between the Detroit scandal and events leading up to her husband’s impeachment. Senator Clinton has decided to use her husband’s manifest political skills in a most overt and aggressive way. What she may soon find, as details of the Detroit scandal seep into the public consciousness and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is driven from office, and perhaps sentenced to prison, is that her husband’s past sins may soon come flooding back to inundate her.

As he spends more and more time creating havoc on the campaign trail, people will begin to wonder why Bill Clinton was not thrown out of office for committing the exact… same… felony… crime.

For Hillary, it all tends to prove the adage that timing is everything… the bad as well as the good. For her, the Detroit scandal is nothing but bad news.