By Dave Shiflett (Bloomberg) – In the pantheon of political survivors, Marion Barry is king of kings. Neither a stint in federal prison, drug and alcohol addiction, world-class womanizing, IRS troubles nor even a gunshot wound can keep him out of office. The four-time Washington, D.C. mayor’s storied career is the subject of an engrossing HBO documentary, “The Nine Lives of Marion Barry,” which airs August 10 at 9 p.m. New York time. Even his detractors, who are legion, may soften their views by film’s end. Barry, 73, is a whisper of his former self, and if nothing else he played the political scoundrel to the hilt and did some good, especially early in his career. Born to a Mississippi sharecropper and his teenage wife, Barry would become an Eagle Scout and a standout student, eventually pursuing a doctorate in chemistry. Yet civil rights became his passion. He joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and came to D.C. in the mid-1960s when it was run by white southern congressmen and surly cops. They met their match in Barry who was, Jesse Jackson says in an interview, a “militant” and “a rabble rouser.” Yet he also co-founded Pride Inc., which found jobs for thousands of desperate city residents, including many hustlers, ex-cons and drug addicts. After home rule came in 1974, allowing residents to elect local officials, Barry won a seat on the city council. The job had its ups and downs, including a March 1977 takeover of District buildings by Muslim militants who shot Barry as he exited an elevator. That dramatic event, the film indicates, added a heroic glow and may have helped him win his first term as mayor in 1978. His first two terms were the glory days. A building boom was accompanied by increasing opportunities for blacks; journalist Harry Jaffe says Barry “had the potential to become Martin Luther King’s successor” though his flaws would eventually take center stage. The film includes interviews with Barry, political colleagues, journalists, and constituents, though none are as compelling as his late wife Effi Barry, who endured tribulations nearly beyond belief. “Power is a very seductive mistress,” she notes, and power was not his only one. Barry’s personal life became an international sensation, including an investigation for cocaine use, sexual shenanigans in a strip bar, and finally his arrest in Jan. 1990 after being filmed smoking crack in a Washington hotel room with a former girlfriend. It was there that Barry uttered his most famous words – “bitch set me up” – and the surveillance tape, a lengthy segment of which is shown, lends credence to his assertion. The trial was too much for the long-suffering Mrs. Barry, who left him shortly thereafter (she died in 2007). Barry spent six months behind bars, though that was a mere speed bump. He won a seat on the city council in 1992 and was re-elected mayor in 1994. His secret to winning, the film indicates, is in playing to his strong suit: Barry bills himself a “role model for those who fell down.” As he told one audience: “We are living in an imperfect world where people expect us to be perfect.” His constituents clearly sympathize. “Everybody has a Marion Barry in their family,” one supporter insists, though that may be a bit of an overstatement. His talents and troubles have followed him into his senior years, as have his true believers. He won a seat on city council in 2004; in 2005 he pleaded guilty to tax charges. A mandatory drug test found traces of cocaine, but no matter. He was re-elected to city council in 2008 in a landslide. By film’s end, it’s clear that if Washington is ever hit by a meteor, when the dust clears there will be at least two life forms still standing: the cockroaches and Marion Barry.
