The Monday after, Part 2

Uh, oh. Someone has their nose out of joint. Apparently, radio talk show host Bob Ehrlich is upset with “Part 1” from last week. So, he devoted about a third of the “talk time” during his most recent show on one of the issues raised.

Apparently he doesn’t mind me telling you that he took a $9,962.60 junket to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2001. Or, that it was paid for by a “let’s drill for oil” lobby group funded by the state of Alaska while he still had a vote in Congress. He gives every indication of being sincere about ANWR oil-drilling. He wants it bad. He says so each week.

Nor does he dispute the facts that his 72% increase in BGE rates happened on his watch. Nor is it disputed that he appointed two Republican delegates to run his PSC who whole heartedly supported (and in one case helped formulate) electricity deregulation that he now calls “flawed.”  Why would he have an issue with those facts? They’re solid.

More on what did create an uproar below. First, what’s new.

Idle Threats

Mr. Ehrlich: “Memo to the Maryland Democratic Party. To the extent you live and you’re focused on the Ehrlichs and everything we say and trying to parse everything we say on this show, you’re only empowering us to think about maybe coming back.”

Correction: You know what they say about shooting fish in a barrel. Success is guaranteed. Besides, it’s quick and easy and leaves the rest of the day for important things.

Protesting Day Labor Centers

A Mr. Brad Botwin, Director of a group called Help Save Maryland, pre-arraigned to report “live” on Mr. Ehrlich’s Saturday radio program to discuss the “CITIZENS' RALLY AGAINST TAXPAYER FUNDED DAY LABORER CENTERS!!” that he was organizing.

Here is how Mr. Botwin promoted his appearance in an advance e-mail alerting people to “rally” and listen to the “coverage” about his events at two day labor sites. (The caps are in the e-mail in question.)

“COVERAGE - FORMER GOVERNOR BOB EHRLICH & WIFE KENDEL OF WBAL RADIO 1090 WILL COVER THE RALLY (sic) LIVE FROM BOTH LOCATIONS (VIA PHONE)!”

And, “coverage” there was. Here is what was discussed when Mr. Botwin called in to report. It’s much too long to write all the words of this conversation in this limited space. The words below accurately reflect the tone and substance.

Brad Botwin: “We are out here today at the uh,  in two locations - the Derwood day labor site in Gaithersburg and also the Silver Spring day labor site which is the headquarters of CASA de Maryland.”

Mr. Ehrlich: “Now let’s talk about CASA for a second because CASA receives tax dollars, correct?”

Mr. Botwin: “CASA receives, yes. CASA really is the illegal aliens’ non-profit of choice… really one of the priorities of Governor O’Malley, all the way down at the local level.”

Mr. Ehrlich: “Well, we know what they’re priorities are. In fairness to them by the way, they ran on this platform. There’s nothing surprising about this platform. There is nothing surprising about their support for CASA. Our problem is, your problem is, is that they’re using taxpayer dollars to encourage and literally instruct – correct? – in illegal behavior.”

Mr. Botwin: “Yes…”

Mr. Ehrlich: “…Well, as you know, we have sanctuary cities now. Baltimore City is a sanctuary city, the state of Maryland is a sanctuary state….these folks, the Ike Leggetts, the Martin O’Malleys, the Mike Buschs, all of them, they ran on this platform. There is nothing surprising about this. They support it. They were very transparent, very clear that they were going to support groups such as CASA and tax dollars used in this way. So, Brad what do you do about it, we’re in Maryland, um…”

Mr. Botwin: “I’ll tell you what we do sir.  We need you to get off the radio and get back into office… (Laughter).”

Correction: If Mr. Ehrlich is so concerned about what is and isn’t “surprising” then maybe Mr. Botwin would be surprised to know that during his four years as Governor, Mr. Ehrlich voted for and signed-off on spending $578,000 in tax dollars to help CASA “renovate and expand” the headquarters being protested on Saturday.

The taxpayer funding happened in 4 separate expenditures over 3 years, including bond bills that Mr. Ehrlich signed into law.

There were so many other items on those bond bills that a lesser man might deflect responsibility by saying, “Such bills could not be vetoed just because I object to one insignificant item.”

Sen. Andy Harris had a similar problem since he voted in favor of the same funding bills. He defended himself by saying other features of these bills were important and needed. Fair enough, responsibility for one’s actions deflected. I recall no such public objection to these bills at the time they were signed by Mr. Ehrlich. But anyone could be mistaken.

So now we get to the item on which Mr. Ehrlich voted; a chunk of tax-dollars that was to fit neatly with the other three pieces into an ongoing package of CASA funding. It was a grant of $100,000 before the Board of Public Works, on which Ehrlich served as Chairman.

While it appeared on an agenda on May 20, 2004 within a long list of other items, this $100,000 was submitted for funding by the Ehrlich Administration.

Had Mr. Ehrlich truly opposed taxpayer funding for CASA - as he implies he does now on the radio - he could have ordered his Department of General Services not to submit this item.

If it found its way onto the agenda by mistake, he could have set it aside for discussion, urged the other members of the board to vote against it and vote against it himself. Instead, he voted to approve it. I am sure CASA appreciates the leadership and support from Mr. Ehrlich; helping it to further serve a community in need.

CASA operates today as it did in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Apparently its mission was not so controversial for Mr. Ehrlich back then. I mean, that was before he was going to run for re-election and lose.

I am definitely not trying to imply that Mr. Ehrlich has reversed himself in order to pander to some talk radio fans in regards to an important issue on which many people have passionate views. No sir.

If anyone must see the taxpayer funding documents in question, I have the links. Just let me know. I will post them below.

Deflection and Spinning the Race Card - Re: An Obama Presidency

This one apparently got under Mr. Ehrlich’s skin. Read the last item of “The Monday after, Part 1” for details. Or, catch the DailyKos pick-up on the issue, or, the Baltimore Sun’s take.

Along with friends and compatriots, Mr. Ehrlich’s takes to the airwaves unchallenged to engage in a little spinning for his own sake:

Mr. Ehrlich: “Now, they (He’s talking about me here.) appear to be parsing parts of the transcript and then e-mailing the parsed parts to reporters and we had a reporter (Baltimore Sun) who called us last night inquiring about a lady who made a great call (Dee)… I don’t even know what point they were trying to make.”

Correction: The point was in the column. Many other people were able to understand it. Maybe Mr. Ehrlich will read it. I depicted his words accurately as they were spoken within a forty second portion of his program. The caller said what she said. Mr. Ehrlich followed it immediately with what he said and so on. Audio of the entire 5:45 conversation between the Ehrlichs, a guest and the caller named Dee was sent to a reporter who requested it.

Mr. Ehrlich: “Dee is inconvenient and they (Meaning me, again.) really can’t digest her and they really cannot understand. So, what they do is they denigrate her, they degrade her... this is about the intolerance of people who now sit in Annapolis who will not put up with a black person such as Dee.”

Correction: I never wrote that Dee was a “black person” or African-American. She never said so, either. I thought the words spoken were more important.

Come to think of it, the only person who has played this particular “race card” is Mr. Ehrlich. He used it to deflect attention away from himself.  Now that’s a clever deflection as long as nobody calls him on it.

Until next week…