YES VIRGINIA, ALL THE PC CRAZIES LIVE IN MONTGOMERY CO. MARYLAND!

Santa, smoking derail Montgomery Way by Josh Kurtz Staff Writer ANNAPOLIS -- George W. Owings III, the House majority whip in the state legislature, was standing in front of the House office building the other day, smoking a cigarette as usual.

As he greeted an acquaintance from Montgomery County who happened to be passing by, Owings (D-Dist. 27B) of Chesapeake Beach took a particularly fierce drag on the butt.

Rare is the week that a humble suburban county, even one of the 875,000 souls bordering Our Nation's Capital, rates a mention in such august places as ABC's "This Week," Cable News Network, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The London Guardian Leader and the slightly less-august Drudge Report. All in one week! Montgomery Countians should be celebrating, shouldn't they? Our county's Economic Development Department is shipping the latest news clippings in promotional packets to businesses worldwide, right?

This being Montgomery County, we are being held up this week as objects of ridicule -- not for one offense, but for two. First, there was the attempt by the County Council to limit smoking in private homes, vetoed this week, somewhat surprisingly, by County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D). Next came word that the Town of Kensington had banned Santa Claus from its Christmas tree lighting ceremony on Sunday because someone might be offended.

And now, as Paul Harvey likes to say, is the REST of the story (some intersting things further down in the article):

"I am convinced there is something in your water supply down there in Maryland," one Darlene Brennan of Caribou, Maine, wrote in a missive to this newspaper this week. "You ARE becoming quite the laughingstock of the world, believe me. Get a life!"

We know, we know.

Blight, like celebrity death, usually comes in threes. Lord only knows what official mischief we can expect next.

It was George Will, the ABC and Newsweek commentator -- and a Chevy Chase resident of longstanding -- who first compared the lawmakers of Montgomery County to the Taliban.

"The trouble is, the Taliban headquarters in America is here," he said Sunday on "This Week," the talking head show hosted by Sam Donaldson and (Bethesda resident of longstanding) Cokie Roberts. "It's called the Montgomery County Council ... Once we're done chasing the Taliban into Pakistan, I hope our Special Forces come home and chase the Montgomery County Council into West Virginia."

Now, The Gazette has it on good authority from a Chevy Chase neighbor of Will's that the commentator's leaf blower is the loudest and most noxious thing on their block. It could not be determined whether a hired hand operates the thing, or whether it's Will himself, bow tie and all.

No matter. The Taliban moniker stuck. And just as America has been crying "Bomb the 'Ban'" post-Sept. 11 (a jingoistic twist on the early '60s pacifistic "Ban the Bomb"), the bombs have been falling on Montgomery County ever since.

"Isn't it comforting to know that the people in this county in Maryland are paying these clowns to sit in a closed room and come up with garbage like this, and say, we're doing our jobs as elected representatives of the people?" opined CNN correspondent Jack Cafferty a few mornings ago.

Wait a minute, Jack! This is the Montgomery County Council you're talking about. They may be fools, but they're our fools.

For years and years, Montgomery County's political and civic leaders have hewed to something they have called "The Montgomery Way." On paper, this is not a bad thing.

"The Montgomery Way," in theory, is designed to produce a clean, honest, open and deliberative government, which maximizes citizen input and keeps moneyed, special-interest meddling to a minimum. Montgomery Countians could regard this with smug satisfaction, especially with so many of their neighbors' public officials -- even their governors -- on the take.

Official Maryland has long had a "laissez les bon temps roulez" attitude second only to Louisiana's. But Montgomery County was always different, purer. Heck, the county still insists on controlling the flow of booze to restaurants and liquor stores, lest some latterday bootleggers appear to mob up Derwood. But somehow, through the years, "The Montgomery Way" has mutated into something else.

The first symptom is something called "Paralysis by Analysis," a disease that enables the citizenry to debate a project or proposal to death. See the Intercounty Connector (born during World War II, still dead at the dawn of World War III) as the classic example.

Also instructive is the fate of the phantom Montgomery County Conference Center, which got some kind of favorable court ruling this week, signifying nothing. The General Assembly authorized the project in 1996, the same year the legislators handed out $200 million for a new professional football stadium in Baltimore. Since then, gleaming PSINet Stadium has gone up near the Inner Harbor, the purple-clad Ravens have won the Super Bowl and, more important, captured the hearts and minds of a city that seemed destined to bleed Colt blue from here to eternity.

And in all that time, along Rockville Pike, nothing. No conference center. No Marriott hotel to go with it. No parking lot with hundreds of spaces. Not even a shovel in the ground, as county officials bickered about site locations, and neighborhood groups skillfully set up road blocks the Montgomery Way. But paralysis by analysis is just one symptom.

The other, epitomized by the smoking law but manifested in many other ways, is for government to reach its tentacles into every aspect of our lives, however small. Think of the cat leash law. Or the smoking ban on the streets of Friendship Heights.

Like the inner air quality act itself, the Friendship Heights and cat leash debacles were born of good intentions. But something, inevitably, went awry.

"What a wonderful place Montgomery County must be," Ron Heimer of Chula Vista, Calif., wrote in a letter to the editor of The Gazette this week. "I would like to offer a few suggestions to really help out your community ... You should have a $350 fine for being ugly in public (UIP). You might even have a $150 fine for being fat in public (FIP) and a $50 fine for being stupid in public (SIP). If you're unfortunate to be caught UIP, FIP and SIP, then you should be allowed a last cigarette before you're executed."

Could happen, Ron. Could happen.

Takoma Park is proud of its native sons and daughters who have made good. There's Goldie Hawn, for one. But perhaps most famous these days is Matt Drudge, the man who made it OK to libel people on the Internet.

Through his Drudge Report Web site, Drudge on Wednesday, alerted to an article in the Kensington Gazette, beamed to the world the news that Kensington would not permit good ol' Kris Kringle to show up at its Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Instead, Mayor Lynn Raufaste will flip the switch, accompanied by police and fire and rescue workers in a post-Sept. 11 patriotic tribute.

Seems the Town Council had heard objections from two families who were offended with Claus' Christian symbolism. Why there was no objection to the tree itself is hard to say, and some Kensington residents thoughtfully suggested that St. Nick would be only too happy to light a menorah as well.

But inevitably, a media frenzy followed. Local radio DJ's have urged listeners to show up at Sunday's tree lighting wearing Santa suits. The Tyranny Response Team also vows to be there in Santa attire.

Town officials received hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from around the world this week.

"The whole thing has been blown entirely out of proportion," said Kensington Councilman Chris Bruch. "We felt and the tree [lighting] committee felt it was time for something different. Maybe things will return to the old ways next year."

The media swirl is a breathtaking thing to behold. When it comes to your town, it's enough to almost make you feel sorry for Gary Condit and Monica Lewinsky.

Maybe this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but it's amazing how twisted the facts can become as media outlet after media outlet engage in a global game of high-tech telephone.

Take, for example, Cafferty's description of the Montgomery County smoking law on CNN the other day: "Residents can now be fined $750 for lighting a cigarette in their own home, or in their back yard, if a neighbor complains."

Substantially wrong. First, the bill had not yet become law. And the law was a little more complex than his simple interpretation.

Or take what Fox Cable News Network host Sean Hannity said, about the "smoking police" coming to the doors of those residents about whom there had been a complaint.

"Stop using pejorative language!" complained Alice Helm, Montgomery County's leading anti-smoking activist, who was a guest on his show. She attempted to explain -- under the glare of television lights and with two buttinsky hosts -- that a complaint merely means a county health inspector investigates.

"It's all semantics with you, right?" Helm asked. "You use a word so it means that, right?"

Hannity deflected the question and turned matters over to the other guest, Montgomery County Councilman Michael L. Subin (D-At Large) of Gaithersburg, who cast himself as a civil libertarian. For Subin and Helm, 15 minutes of fame.

Of course, it was the media frenzy, as much as anything, that created the outcry and prompted Duncan to veto the bill. Sure, he said the bill went "too far." But it was Duncan's administration, not the County Council, that would have administered the indoor air quality act and set the guidelines for what constituted a punishable offense.

By reacting so swiftly to the public outcry, Duncan short-circuited debate on the bill. Someone, at some point, would have made the case that if the county is enacting a bill protecting residents from their neighbors' pollutants like asbestos, radon, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, why shouldn't second-hand smoke be included? Would anyone have heard it through the media cacophony? Guess Duncan can at least count on George Will's vote.

Now comes French Caldwell, a Montgomery County Republican activist, with word that he is organizing a "victory rally" in front of the County Council building on Tuesday, and urging all who attend to smoke a cigar -- and wear a Santa hat.

"We won one battle in the politics of the absurd, but there are more to go," Caldwell said.

In his call to action, Caldwell put in a plug for a Fairfax County tobacconist who is offering a two-for-one deal for anyone buying a cigar who is planning to attend the Montgomery County rally. Curious that he couldn't find a Montgomery County cigar shop to make a similar offer. Guess they were afraid of the smoking police.

In the State House in Annapolis, no place is made fun of as regularly or as mercilessly as Montgomery County. William Donald Schaefer may have called the Eastern Shore an outhouse (only worse), and Mike Miller may have said something about Baltimore being a slum. In reality, Montgomery County is the butt of most jokes. Who can forget a few years ago, Pete Rawlings saying most Montgomery County residents were misfits, and not real Marylanders?

Does the ridicule of the week hurt the county's image even more? You bet it does.

Those who are reading and chuckling in Denver and Dallas and Dubuque don't really matter that much. They've never heard of Montgomery County and they'll promptly forget it.

But our neighbors in Carroll, Calvert and Baltimore counties are greater worries. For it is they who will perpetuate the notion, in Maryland anyway, that everyone in Montgomery County is a weirdo, and different somehow.

"I hardly think that slamming the door on this right jolly old elf is in the spirit of the season," Baltimore County Republican congressman Bob Ehrlich chimed in opportunely. "Now that Santa has some unexpected down time on his visit to Montgomery County, I invite him to spend it throughout the rest of the state where politics take a back seat during the season of giving."

Maybe they're just jealous. Montgomery County, after all, is one of the state's wealthiest jurisdictions, with great schools, terrific parks and a good quality of life.

And, of course, it has the smoking police.

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