For example, in the article "Spies React to Duchy Walkout", we see the reposting of this:
It is all about the “Malcontents” and the “Grown-ups.”
There are four members of this Council who are nothing but malcontents and political opportunists. They do nothing but play to the grandstands for their own benefit on issues that are politically safe (and play well to a very liberal Democratic primary voting universe). They don’t bother to solicit thoughts or ideas from anyone outside of the narrow little slice of constituencies they consider their base because, let’s face it, they know so much more than everyone else (just ask them). They rarely even talk with any of the other four members who are not perceived as “on their team,” and they spend way too much time talking with one another so they can wield their influence by voting as a bloc (open meeting laws notwithstanding). I wouldn’t mind this behavior as much if these four had the County’s best interests at heart, but they don’t. It’s all about them and their immediate, short-term, self-perceived, political self-interest. I don’t want to name names, but these four are Duchy Trachtenberg, Marc Elrich, Phil Andrews and Roger Berliner.
The other four members of the Council, whom I will call the “grown-ups” for this discussion (although all things are relative here), are the ones I see repeatedly coming in prepared for meetings, having done their homework, knowing what they are talking about most of the time, reaching out to various people for their opinions (whether they were with them in the last campaign or not), and doing the job they were elected to do (in some cultures, it is referred to as “leadership,” which I am told used to be practiced occasionally here as well). Unfortunately, these four (whose identities you may be able to deduce by now) had two distinct disadvantages: (1) there were only four of them, which meant they were often outvoted; and (2) they were reluctant to believe that the Council was split down the middle in this fashion, and stubbornly kept trying to work with some of the four in the other bloc, without much success. The fact that not all of the “grown-ups” get along all the time personally, and they don’t agree among themselves on everything, no doubt contributed to this as well.
The really dysfunctional thing here is how these two blocs interact with the Executive. The grown-ups are much more aligned with County Executive Leggett on all his major initiatives, but they are not his political allies. The malcontents are his allies and he repeatedly tries to rely on them to move his policies forward, despite the obvious fact (obvious to everyone except Ike I guess) that they despise virtually everything he is trying to do and have no intention of supporting any of it, ever. The fact that this obvious dynamic has not dawned on the Leggett team before now is one of life’s great mysteries.
Two things have now fundamentally changed (regardless of the final outcome in the primary, actually): (1) the “grown ups” will now have 5 votes on the Council and the “malcontents” will have 4 on most issues. (2) the “grown-ups” have put their differences behind them and are starting to realize that they can get us moving in the right direction again if they work together as a team. The question now is, will the Executive start working with them and tell the malcontents to take a hike?
What a concept! This special election is a huge step in the right direction.
This, astute observers, is rank partisanism. Note, if you will, that the "malcontents" listed are generally considered the most even-keeled and centrist of the County Council members. And note, if you will, that all of those left unnamed -- but classified as "grown-ups" are those who endorse the campaign of Nancy Navarro. Somehow, "Spy #3" appears to have followed Alice through the Looking Glass into Bizarro World by declaring all things that are, to be exactly the opposite, and evidently expecting the reader to think that this makes sense. That Adam Pagnucco seems to consider this credible enough to repost in a main article is terrifying, either because he thinks the stakes are high enough to engage in this sort of crap jounralism -- crap and utter crap even for the blogosphere, and doubly crap considering the reputation for integrity that is being squandered here -- or that he may not be squandering his reputation, but has in fact gone insane.
Possibly it's both. If I had worked so hard to develop a reputation for integrity and even-handedness and then was forced by political expediencies into posting this crap, I'd go fucking crazy myself.
Whatever the case, it's time to spread the word far and wide: There are no non-partisan informational blogs left in East Montgomery County, with the possible exception of Dan Reed's "Just Up the Pike", and even that may be reasonably suspected to have "undue influence" from both the Urban Planners academic and "hobbyist" communities, as well as from the Urban Planning/Massive Development professional and financial community. But at least Dan Reed hasn't published outright Surrealism (or is it mere Revisionism?) in his articles, as has been seen in recent days in Maryland Politics Watch.
MPW has unfortunately fallen into being "all Nancy Navarro, all of the time" except when it's pre=emptively desecrating the reputations of anyone reasonable expected to exercise sanity and get in the way of the immense and revolutionary machine of which the Navarro campaign is barely the tiniest visible tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
I myself have never made the slightest pretense of being other than partisan: look at the URL in your browser, the word "campaign" before "thomashardman.com" might be thought to be a slight clue. Yet as a rule I pretend to integrity but don't expect anyone to take me seriously; any one taking me entirely seriously probably needs medication to treat their morbid lack of any sense of humor. I like to do tongue in cheek, but I also like to be obvious when I'm doing it. I wouldn't want anyone to read something I've written and actually doubt my sanity, which evidently has been the common reaction to Maryland Politics Watch over the last week or so.
Stop the MADNESS!
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