The New Kleptocrats
I suppose this is news. Governor O’Malley is trying to stuff every nook and cranny in the state government with various toadies and lickspittles. I mean, if you recently came out of a decades long coma this could be considered news.
Gov. Martin O’Malley is continuing his public attempts to fire high-ranking Maryland officials, including those he has deemed disloyal to the administration.
Mr. O’Malley, a Democrat, now has enough votes on the Maryland Stadium Authority board to oust longtime Executive Director Alison L. Asti, former board Chairman Robert L. McKinney said yesterday.
Mr. O’Malley said last night he is looking for state employees who are “committed to the mission of this administration.”
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From what we’ve seen so far, those who are “disloyal” include the former assistant secretary for real estate, Nelson Reichart, who had the temerity to describe the process by which a couple of guys who are “committed to the mission of the administration” managed to fleece Maryland taxpayers of several million dollars, and the state school superintendent who put the welfare of kids in Baltimore above O’Malley’s Everestine ego.
To the extent that this is nothing more than an intraparty purge that will create bad blood and a cadre of dedicated leakers within various agencies, I don’t care. From my perspective one Dem is pretty much like another and if they are spending their time backbiting and firing each other at least they have less time to pick our pockets.
Having said that, it is pretty clear that O’Malley’s governing philosophy is not a lot different from that of Spiro Agnew. He clearly sees the state treasury as a piggy bank for his friends and we citizens as milch cows.
My gamble here is that he will eventually achieve the critical mass of corruption necessary for the Baltimore Sun and federal prosecutors to take notice before we are reduced to something resembling a Mid-Atlantic Zimbabwe.