Annapolis Halloween

I almost ran into Baltimore Sun Columnist Laura Vozzella in Annapolis Monday as the No-Tax Rally was starting. Sidestepping, I spoke to her, but she took one look at the man in the Stars and Stripes hat and moved quickly away. She looks taller in the paper.

Her column of the following day, Halloween goes all tasteful -- baltimoresun.com, didn’t address the rally, but was, as almost always, interesting. Often I think that her columns reveal more in what they don’t say in that they trigger memories of related information that sharpens the attentive readers’ focus. I did have some comments on her musings. (Or, are these musings on her comments?)

Halloween Decorations
The sedate Government House display is an example of parents molding their children in the image in which the grandparents molded them. Marty is from, as she notes, MoCo and Katie from staid Homeland. Of course, we have to wonder about the sincerity of the plain-jane facade in light of the bathwater drinking proclivity disclosures of the Gov made by the First Lady.

Speech Writing
I suspect the Governor does his own writing. I can't imagine anyone editing this stuff and letting it go through as a speech.

Perhaps what he really needs is an editor with good taste.

By the way, did you notice that there were no explosions of applause during the Special Session opening speech? I have seen it attributed to a lack of support, but believe it more likely that the room was dumbfounded by the rhetorical flourishes.

Harris v. Gilchrest
I am shocked; shocked, I tell you to hear a political operative deny participating in the spreading of nastiness about an opponent in Maryland politics.

If we learned nothing from the recent past, we should know that the pol first inoculates himself from nasty rumors by, at the very least, staring into a television camera and declaring his innocence, particularly when the nasty involves sexual indiscretion.