D.C. Fire Chief: Your Honeymoon Is Over

In a fine Washington Post rundown, D.C. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin went before the D.C. Council and got hammered over the sexual misconduct allegations among his ranks. He refused to give up any details other than, yeah, there's a real potential that some of it might be true.

The Post wrote: "When a reporter sought further explanation of Rubin's comments during a break in the hearing yesterday, the fire chief said he was referring to 'sex for overtime,' but he did not say that during the hearing."

I love his phrasing: Sex for overtime. Thank you Chief Rubin for introducing this nugget to our world. It won't be forgotten anytime soon.

Explaining why he can't talk about the sex for overtime was easy. After all, it's still under investigation. But he had serious problems explaining what is already known about the racial disparities in discipline cases. The Post reported that Rubin provided stats that plainly show that "African Americas were the subjects of 80 percent of the department's discipline cases in fiscal 2007. Whites composed 15 percent, and Hispanic personnel 4 percent. The numbers were similar in the two previous fiscal years"

Rubin would only say that the numbers concerned him.

Great. Thanks for your concern.