Yes, ladies and gents, it's time to break out the hankies for L'il Bobby Ehrlich, Maryland's politically inept Republican Governor. It turns out he's the victim of--gasp--"blackmail" from a former state employee.
www.washingtonpost.com :
Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. accused a former state employee yesterday of trying to "blackmail" him. The woman involved said she was trying to protect herself against a retaliatory "whisper campaign" by the administration that could cost her a job.
But it appears that one person's blackmailer is another person's whistleblower, as I'll explain on the flip....
The backstory, for those unfamiliar with it:
Ehrlich has been surrounded by controversy for a month over (now ex-)aide Joseph Steffen, who circulated false rumors of marital infidelity against Baltimore's Democratic Mayor Martin O'Malley, a possible challenger to L'il Bobby in the 2006 governor's race. Subsequent reports revealed that Steffen--aka "The Prince of Darkness"--had been employed by Ehrlich as a hatchet man, circulating through various state agencies and firing civil servants deemed insufficiently loyal to L'il Bobby.
So now L'il Bobby is attempting to go on the offensive against those charges, which have thoroughly soiled him over the past month. He claims that former state employee Michelle Lane tried to blackmail him by threatening to release damaging correspondence from Steffen--the insinuation being that Lane was the initial source for the leaks last month about Steffen.
In his brief remarks, Ehrlich did not directly accuse Lane of being a source of news reports about Steffen. But his aides suggested that Lane was a disgruntled former state employee who had a motive to tar the governor. They released a letter sent by one of her friends, urging the governor to reconsider her termination. And they made public the uncropped version of a now-familiar photo that shows Ehrlich and Steffen standing together, the governor's arm over Steffen's shoulder. In the uncropped version, Lane stands with the two men, and Ehrlich's other arm is over her shoulder.
Democrats called Ehrlich's new tack a ham-handed attempt to divert attention from his own actions. Lane's attorney, Daniel Clements, said, "It is grossly disturbing that the governor is trying to blame his problems, and his errors, on the person who has attempted to bring these matters to public light."
Lane, through her attorney, claims that she was fired from her state job last summer for uncovering malfeasance regarding state oversight of foster children--and she has emails to back up her claims about that whistleblowing. And to top it off, Lane's attorney says, Ehrlich cronies have since tried to get her fired from her current job, teaching a nursing class.
L'il Bobby no doubt lacks the self-reflection necessary to see it, but there's something supremely ironic about his charges here:
- Lane is fired from her state job--for being a whistleblower--and apparently hounded in her new job.
- L'il Bobby, whose aide circulated false rumors about O'Malley, now toddles in to complain that he's the victim of a smear campaign, from a woman who--even if she did what he claims--circulated the truth about his henchman Steffen.
Bwaahaahaahaahaa!