Wednesday, June 10, 2009 | Opinion
WHY THE MAYOR NEEDS A PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION: SHIRLEY FRANKLIN’S VERBAL VIOLENCE
The City Council should, in the best interest of the citizens of Atlanta, as well as those who work and play in the city, order Mayor Franklin to have a psychological evaluation and, dependent upon its results, ask for her resignation.
Mayor Shirley Franklin has spent the past few weeks sermonizing about the destructive power of angry words, but she apparently doesn’t listen to her own sermons. From defaming reporters like me who criticize her policies, to saying, when she was running for office, that she would have "been better off to shoot” her ex-husband “than to divorce him," Franklin has raised some disturbing questions: Do her words convey the state of her mental health, as she says is the case for others? Or does she, like narcissists and sociopaths, believe that life is a performance, that words and actions are merely means to an end, and that everyone else, and everything else, exists merely to fulfill her own goals? Is that why she finds it so easy to ignore harrowing reports of crime against the citizens she is supposed to look out for? For her, are words window dressing? And if so, then what is her recent flurry of indignation really about? Paranoia? Insecurity? Guilt?
I’m not a shrink, but neither is Franklin, and since Franklin can order (via her lapdog Chief Pennington) someone who criticizes her, like Sgt. Scott Kreher, to get a psychological evaluation—which subsequently revealed him to be mentally healthy and entirely fit for duty—I decided I’m as qualified as anyone to say who might need to fill out an evaluation form at their friendly local mental health clinic.
I’m not, by the way, coming at this from as uninformed a position as the mayor has—I did do a cursory look around the psychiatric literature available on the Web and found there are several serious mental illnesses that feature Franklin’s brand of blatant hypocrisy and her apparent feeling of being above reproach. And how else can one explain a mayor who unleashes the full fury of her authority on a police sergeant who remarks that he’s sometimes so frustrated by the mayor’s failure to properly address the care of critically injured police officers that he would like to hit her in the head with a baseball bat? Especially when, according to a report in today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution by the always impressive Bill Torpy, Franklin herself said of her ex-husband: “Do I talk to David Franklin? Yes. Do I know him? Yes. [But] I’m clearly on record that for my political career, I’d have been better off to shoot him than to divorce him.”
Now consider Franklin’s recent response to a citizen who asked her to accept Kreher’s apology and move on. The citizen signed the petition to reinstate Kreher as “Jeff” (you can find it at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/reinstatekreher/signatures.html) Here’s Franklin’s response:
“Frankly, I believe threats of bodily harm from anyone are dangerous. As a 64 year old woman I have witnessed violence resulting from anger that started with angry words. There is no excuse for threats of violence by anyone because they are upset. There are dozens of examples where this plays out around the world and thousands of women, men and children are killed and injured. To think an officer of the law has any right to be so upset he makes such a threat is to condone violence and encourage the disintegration of civil society. If he was that upset he should have stayed home and sought counseling. My response has no relationship to race, gender or ethnicity. Rather I believe his actions deserve strong and clear repudiation. I am ashamed that you condone threats and violence against anyone. Shirley Franklin”
Some domestic violence experts say that every year 835,000 men are attacked by their girlfriends or wives, and they believe the true figure may actually be higher because abused husbands are often too ashamed to tell anyone that their wives are battering them.
Let’s look at that Franklin quote from 2002 again: “Do I talk to David Franklin? Yes. Do I know him? Yes. [But] I’m clearly on record that for my political career, I’d have been better off to shoot him than to divorce him.”
Now, consider once more what Mayor Franklin wrote to “Jeff”: “I believe threats of bodily harm from anyone are dangerous.”
Was Mayor Franklin making a real threat against her ex-husband? Of course not. Did she batter her husband? I would find that extremely hard to believe. As she told the AJC’s Torpy, she was using the shooting analogy as a way of emphasizing the impact of her divorce on her political aspirations. Why then, does she find it so easy to excuse her own poor choice of words, and apparently impossible to accept the apology of a policeman who exhibited a similar—and perhaps less threatening, since he wasn’t referring to a gun—choice of words?
But Franklin took it even further. She had Kreher suspended, barring him from working extra jobs that he, like most Atlanta police officers, needs to support his family. A benefit to help Kreher recoup some of that lost income is scheduled for tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at CosmoLava at 45 13th Street. More info here: http://www.sundaypaper.com/Blogs/TheRamageReport/tabid/235/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/4151/Default.aspx
What kind of person in such a high office uses her authority to settle personal scores? Is Franklin a narcissist?
Here’s a little info on narcissism from MayoClinic.com (emphasis mine):
“When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don't receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. You may also seek out others you think have the same special talents, power and qualities — people you see as equals. You may insist on having "the best" of everything — the best car, athletic club, medical care or social circles, for instance.
But underneath all this grandiosity often lies a very fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better.”
That may explain why Franklin has lashed out so actively and bitterly at reporters, citizens and employees who have found fault with her policies. “Policies” is an important word here: I and others have criticized her policies, not her as a person. More recently we have criticized her thin-skinned behavior. I have done so because it troubles me that the most powerful political figure in the city of Atlanta is willing to go to great lengths to shame, defame, and professionally damage her detractors in a bid to silence them. I have never said that Mayor Franklin is a bad person, and I am more than willing to acknowledge that her early life was not easy. But her oversized reaction to critical remarks is truly worrying in someone who has the power to order police officers onto the streets to do her bidding, order investigations of individuals, and even order psychological evaluations of city employees who stand up to her.
A police officer wrote to me yesterday that Franklin’s willful neglect of the disabled officers who were injured in the line of duty and her subsequent treatment of Kreher for speaking up for them—both of which she has gotten away with—has had a devastating effect on the APD. Officers’ families are begging them not to put their lives or health on the line, since the City of Atlanta can’t be relied upon to comply with workers compensation policies in a reasonable manner. Officers themselves are terrified of Mayor Franklin’s very vindictive behavior, and distrust and disgust seethe in the ranks as they look for other employment. And this at a time when Atlanta is the second least safe city in the nation.
The City Council should, in the best interest of the citizens of Atlanta, as well as those who work and play in the city, order Mayor Franklin to have a psychological evaluation and, pending its results, ask for her resignation.