Marion Barry's forgiveness

He truly is an idiot extraordinaire:

D.C. Council member and former mayor Marion Barry yesterday urged two young men who robbed him at gunpoint Monday night to turn themselves in to police, promising that he would urge authorities not to prosecute them.

"I have no animosities," Barry declared. "I don't even want you prosecuted, really. I love you. Give yourself up. Call the police. . . . I will do all I can to advocate non-prosecution."

Great, so rather than prosecute these guys and put them behind bars where they belong, Barry wants them back out on the street so they can rob other people. With that sort of thinking it makes you wonder if he's some sort of crackhead or something.

But wait, it gets better:

"There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend," Barry said at an afternoon news conference in which he described the robbery in detail. "I don't advocate what they do. I advocate conditions to change what they do. I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen."

Here we have the real reason he doesn't want them prosecuted: criminals are his constituents.

But you know, it's hard to hate Barry. He's not the disease, he's just a symptom of the backwards thinking that afflicts so much of this town.

Update: Another take here.