Don't mess with the press

by David Grand
December 9, 2004

As a seasoned, astute politician you'd think Governor Ehrlich would be savvy enough to know that getting into a (expletive deleted) contest with the Fourth Estate is as futile as trying to subdue an Anaconda barehanded without being squeezed to death and swallowed whole. It's just doesn't pay.

Now, it's one thing to give journalists who'd written something that got his ire up the "cold shoulder," but it's quite another to announce a gag order for all state employees as a way of socking it to two of the Sun's top journalists: David Nitkin, who broke the story about Ehrlich's plan to sell 836 acres of state land to a campaign contributor; and columnist Michael Olesker for questioning Ehrlich's ethics in using taxpayer money in commercials in which he was featured promoting state tourism. 

But that apparently was but the final straw in Ehrlich's mind to the long-standing feud that's existed between the Sun and Ehrlich ever since a 2002 Sun editorial endorsed his opponent Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and saying that his running mate was chosen because of "the color of his skin."

If in fact that was a factor in his choosing Michael Steele, I'd compliment rather that criticize him for making a shrewd political move. For with a large African-American population in the state, particularly in Baltimore City, it could undercut O'Malley's chances of defeating him in 2006.

It's too bad that rather than crossing swords with the Sun's editor that he didn't take the tact that Jefferson took by not dignifying with a response the savage attacks made against him regarding his sexual exploits by the top muckraker of the time James Thompson Callender, who wrote for the Richmond Recorder. Better yet, he could've followed Comptroller Schaefer's example, who although constantly at odds with the press never banned his "picadors," giving 'em instead funny names, like Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura did by issuing to the media badges labeling them as "jackals."

Let's see if I can come up with some apt names Ehrlich could use to deride his tormentors. How about "Bottom-feeder" Franklin (the Sun's Editor), "Nitpicking" Nitkin, and "Overkill" Olesker? 

In closing, I commend Ehrlich for not considering (even for a fleeting moment I'm sure) having them "permanently silenced,"  as Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt of Watergate fame contemplated doing after being tasked by Nixon's domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman of coming up with ways of stopping that constant pain in Nixon's lower bowels, Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson. Among the options they debated were: covertly giving him a doze of LSD, which would impair him so much he'd die in a traffic accident; putting a tablet of poison inside an aspirin bottle; or to simply shoot him and stage it as some kind of street corner crime.

But it was decided at the last moment to call the murder plot off, believing that might be too harsh a penalty for that troublesome columnist.  (And as crazy as it sounds, the source of this plot is none other than Gordon Liddy.)      

Gee, I sure hope none of my readers consider me to be other than a kind, warmhearted, inoffensive columnist, rather than as a troublesome muckraker. (You need not write a letter to the editor expressing which niche you'd put me in.)