Photo by Kyle Gustafson / photokyle.com

You’ve read the stories and maybe even read the report detailing how D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) has repeatedly misused city money by doling it out to his personal friends and associates. That included his former girlfriend, Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, from whom he allegedly then asked for kickbacks. You may have already made up your mind about Barry’s guilt. But give the man a chance to defend himself, OK?

“I have been in office 55 years, and even my public enemies, my political enemies, my other enemies have never implied that I ever took a penny that wasn’t owed to me,” Barry said yesterday. Get that? He never took a penny. That wasn’t owed to him, that is.

In terms of legal admissions of guilt, this isn’t one. But in more basic terms, it’s a rather revelatory statement from the District’s most famous — and infamous — political figure. Instead of outright denying the accusations against him, the Mayor for Life appears to hedge. For most elected officials sinking this quickly into the morass of allegations of corruption, their defense would be simple and leave no room for interpretation: “I never took a penny in public funds.”

But for Barry, it’s not about not taking a penny. Rather, it’s about not taking a penny that “wasn’t owed to me.” That leaves plenty of room for questions. Did Barry really believe that something was owed to him? And if he did, would that even excuse the transgression? Testimony in the Bennett report indicated that Barry frequently lent (or gave?) money to Watts-Brighthaupt, a recipient of $15,000 from a personal services contract arranged for by Barry. That’s not a lot of money, so it’s even more peculiar that he would, as has been described, wait outside the bank for her to cash her checks and then demand she give him some of it. How much could that have possibly been? And if he really needed to get money that way, couldn’t he have arranged to pay her more?

Barry has long lived in an alternate universe in which laws and political realities just don’t apply to him. Didn’t pay his taxes? He plum forgot. Got busted smoking crack? Bitch set him up. Asked about same-sex marriage? Can’t support it, because, his notorious womanizing aside, he’s a “politician who is moral.” Accused of gaming council earmarks and contracts? He’s a “different kind of council member.” Hired a girlfriend to work for him? There’s no law explicitly saying that he couldn’t. Laws, responsibilities and expectations shift and shape to fit whatever problem Barry might be facing on that given day.

Regardless of what ends up happening to Barry — I can’t even expect much anymore; hell, I thought he might have been done back in 2006 — his defense may well go down as one of the stranger ones we’ve heard. And we wouldn’t be surprised to hear something even stranger before this is over.