Posted on 02/11/2005 9:19:59 AM PST by advance_copy
Democratic legislative leaders, skeptical that a longtime aide to Governor Ehrlich acted alone when he spread rumors about Mayor O'Malley, say it will take more than an inquiry by the governor's legal adviser to resolve questions about the incident that has roiled state political waters.
But Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Thursday Democrats won't rush into any investigation of their own.
"We are going to let the matter percolate for two or three days. We're going to see what else comes forth, analyze what steps the governor is taking," Miller said.
He said he and House Speaker Michael Busch will then try to come up with a way to resolve the matter that will be acceptable to Republicans and Democrats.
Ehrlich asked Jervis Finney, a former state senator and head of his legal staff, to investigate the role Joseph Steffen played in spreading rumors about O'Malley's personal life and whether his Internet postings were done with state equipment on state time. Ehrlich fired Steffen and asked him to apologize to O'Malley.
In an e-mail to O'Malley, which Steffen provided to The Associated Press Thursday, he said he was "truly sorry, ashamed and remorseful and I ask that you and your family please find it in your hearts to forgive me."
"I have no excuse for joining web (or other) conversations that are reckless, mean-spirited and personally damaging in nature," the e-mail said.
Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for O'Malley, said the mayor received an e-mail "through the Baltimore City Web site allegedly from Steffen. The mayor has no further comment at this time."
O'Malley and his wife, Catherine, held a news conference Wednesday to say that rumors that the mayor has been unfaithful to his wife were untrue, with O'Malley describing them as "despicable lies."
Miller said an apology from Steffen was not sufficient and that the governor also should apologize for the actions of someone who was on his staff when he was in Congress and then came with him to state government.
"It happened on his watch. If he didn't know, he should have known," Miller said. "If he would apologize, maybe we could put an end to this."
Ehrlich said Wednesday he would not tolerate what Steffen did, but also would not apologize personally for Steffen's actions. The governor refused to answer questions about any topic at his one public event Thursday, a ceremony to dispense to charities $20,000 donated by state employees for tsunami relief.
House Majority Leader Kumar Barve, D-Montgomery, said he believes an inquiry outside the governor's office is needed to look at Steffen's actions and whether other members of the administration were involved, but he said House leaders had not discussed what form the inquiry should take.
But some key Democratic leaders, include House Speaker Michael Busch and Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman Bryan Frosh, also think an inquiry should be expanded to look into the way the Ehrlich administration has carried out what Frosh described it as "a statewide purge of people who are politically undesirable."
Busch said one of the Steffen's main duties was to go into state agencies and root out people who might not be loyal to Ehrlich so they could be fired.
"They removed long-serving employees, nonpolitical employees, put armed guards at offices, posted pictures of (fired) employees in the lobby of the building where they worked," the speaker said. "That's the police state mentality that state government is now in."
Busch said an independent inquiry is needed into whether Steffen had spread rumors on state time on state equipment and whether other people were involved.
"I certainly don't think it should be left to some kind of investigation done by the administration," he said. "That's the ultimate fox guarding the hen house."
Wha hoo! Them's fighten words and I like fighten words.
"I've got some very interesting information for the governor's investigation regarding the Maryland Democrat Party dirty trickster that setup Steffen and the Washington Post reporter er, Democrat operative that was working in concert with him."
Better pass this around, as I haven't been able to put many of the pieces together, yet, i.
come'on Jim, give us a bigger hint. I've never been able to read between the lines.
Sorry the first ping was wrong! This is the right ping..duhh me..
Thanks for the ping. What a set up.
#20..I hope they do ask you, if they don't can you give the information to a DA or something like that? This has to get OUT!
Would you consider a Citizen's Subpoena sufficient to release the information ?
That's correct - and for a person from WaPo to misrepresent himself and "float" a rumor to see if they could get a reaction - well that's called "entrapment".
People need to be aware of who they're sending FReepmail to.
I always do that if the poster is not well known to me. Some of the smarter ones, however, are now lurking for a considerable period of time. So it's good to do, but it's not fool proof.
I've come across posters of 2 to 3 years who sound like trolls and all you can do is blink. Eventually, they get caught. Sometimes. :)
Well said. We need to keep in mind that every time we think we have seen the depths of our foes' depravity, we are proved wrong by even worse tactics and behavior.
We really are in a war, from which we cannot retreat or flinch.
Link it, link it, link it! Laz has been fired up the last few days.
That's disgusting!
Here you go:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1341085/posts
I wish O'Malley would stop having sex with sheep. Where's PETA?
What did the troll say? They sure are coming fast and furious. We are striking a nerve.
Eventually, there are small clues. Time stamps, writing style, choice of words. MD4Bush wrote "blogging away" - in retrospect, a clue. I would never write "blogging away" about what we do here. This is not a blog!
Troll sent me this link
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/presaddress2.shtml
It's a video of the President, but it's cut and he's saying how we like to torture and kill people. I turned it off only listening for a few seconds after I realized what it was.
It's clear we are being extensively monitored and attacked by the left (and by overseas, anti Western forces?) much more than in the past. AFPhysics (sp?) decribed it as a war, and is right.
Make that AFPhys ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.