Donna Watts-Brighthaupt is a former lobbyist with terrible, tragic taste in men. Barry hired her last year as his driver and personal assistant, and took her with him to the Democratic National Committee in Denver. "For reasons that remain murky," the City Paper reports, she was booked to stay in the same hotel room as Barry. While Barack Obama was busy restoring the nation's hope and offering a path forward out of our racial morass, Barry was busy, in the words of his girlfriend, putting her out because she wouldn't suck his dick. That's from an audiotape a fight between Barry and Watts-Brighthaupt, supplied to the paper by her ex-husband.

According to the paper, after Watts-Brighthaupt refused do the honors, he threw her clothes out of the room and forced her to sleep in his rented Cadillac in the hotel's parking garage.

But Barry's tender opening gambit eventually paid off, and the two started dating, which for Barry means leaving a bizarre and deluded succession of voicemail messages for his best gal, copies of which the City Paper has posted online. A sampling:

• "I'm gone. I'm not gonna think about it anymore. I'm not gonna worry about it like I used to, not gonna pray about it, not gonna do nothing....You don't even exist. Goodbye, good luck, God bless you."
• "Donna, this thing's gotten outta hand. That's too bad. I don't want to continue talking to you about anything and I don't want to press no charges, I don't wanna do nothin'. I just want to be left alone and so you oughtta do the same thing. Don't call me."
• "Donna, you don't have to answer your home phone....Don't call me back. I will not take a call from you; I'm not gonna call you, so this is it."
• "Donna, call me....I'd like to apologize and settle this matter."

There's also this gem, from a recording of an argument between the lovebirds, spoken by Watts-Brighthaupt:

You made me fuck you up in the middle of a Las Vegas casino. I had my shoes off. We were like fucking Tina and Ike Turner.

Where do you go after you've introduced such pitch-perfect generational catchphrases as "The Goddamn bitch set me up" and "You put me out in Denver because I wouldn't suck your dick" to the world?

And how does a paper that does work this beautiful—look at that cover!—end up in bankruptcy? It's a sad, crazy world, kids.

So Marion Barry is still technically married but he and his wife have been separated for years, and he has an ex-girlfriend named Donna Watts-Brighthaupt, and she and Barry decided to take a drive up to Rehoboth Beach, but somewhere around Annapolis they got in a spat and decided to turn around and go home, and then a few hours later Marion Barry was arrested by the god damn US Park Police, who are always on his ass about something. What happened, there? All we know for sure is that Marion Barry and those he associates with have a very loose definition of an "ex."

There is no disagreement that the couple returned to Watts-Brighthaupt's home in Southeast Washington, where her ex-husband, Delonta Brighthaupt, was staying to watch her West Highland terrier. After some time, Barry left in one car, and Watts-Brighthaupt and Brighthaupt left in another. Both cars ended up in Anacostia Park.

So Barry happened on his ex-girlfriend with her ex-husband. Who the hell knows where his wife was, at the time. Hundreds of miles away, if she's lucky. So somewhere in there his ex-girlfriend told cops Marion Barry was "bothering her," and boom, right into the clink he goes! Fucking Park Police, again!

In 2002, Park Police said they found traces of marijuana and crack cocaine in his car. Barry said the drugs were planted. No charges were filed. In 2006, Park Police pulled Barry over for driving too slowly and cited him for driving on a suspended license; he accused the agency of unfairly targeting him.

God damn park cops, they're worse than mall cops! Marion Barry is currently on the DC City Council so he has to play his cards very carefully. He had his attorney lay it on the line:

Cooke, who would not let Barry speak, accused Watts-Brighthaupt of "instability."

Uh. Of course she is. Who else would take a trip to the shore with her "ex," Marion Barry?
[WP. Pic via]