GOP dirty tricks are what public will remember
Republican Party spokeswoman Deborah Martinez charges that Mayor Martin O'Malley's camp "leaked" Joseph F. Steffen Jr.'s Web postings to the news media ("Managing a rumor quietly, then openly," Feb 13).
But what's to leak? The postings weren't secret. They were written for circulation.
Ms. Martinez then intones that "a year and a half from now, people are only going to remember `sex scandal and O'Malley.' And it wasn't the Republican Party that put him there."
What a revealing slip of the tongue. There is no O'Malley sex scandal. There never was one. There is only a Steffen dirty-tricks scandal.
But by talking about a nonexistent "sex scandal and O'Malley," Ms. Martinez inadvertently exposes this whole matter as a Republican Party dirty-tricks scandal.
Robert Sherman
Gaithersburg
Republican spokeswoman Deborah Martinez, who was quoted as saying, "A year and a half from now, people are only going to remember `sex scandal and O'Malley,'" has it wrong.
A year and a half from now, people will only remember "Ehrlich close friend and political appointee caught in clumsy smear attempt, while Ehrlich scrambles, unsuccessfully, to distance himself."
Lloyd Lachow
Reisterstown
Rodricks can't know who started rumors
In his column "The politics of humiliation and hurt spin nicely on Web" (Feb. 10), Dan Rodricks states matter-of-factly that stories regarding rumors of a romantic affair involving Mayor Martin O'Malley facilitated "the outing of the source of these rumors."
Excuse me? How does Mr. Rodricks know that the man who wrote about the rumors on a conservative Web site, Joseph F. Steffen Jr., is the one who started them?
The Sun wrote that the rumors have been around for 18 months ("O'Malley denounced rumors," Feb. 10). And the Washington Post articles cited by The Sun say that Mr. Steffen's Internet postings were made last summer, six to nine months ago.
Do the math, Mr. Rodricks. It doesn't add up. Unless you have a crystal ball, you have no idea who started the rumors.
Tony Ondrusek
Hunt Valley
Taking mudslinging to a brand new low
The GOP has mastered the art of dirty politics combined with plausible deniability. This strategy has helped defeat respectable Democratic opponents and put the Republican Party in the majority nationally with a foothold in Maryland.
