Did she violate the public trust, or is she damned by pricey shoes?
Did she steer millions in tax breaks to swanky projects with trendy names on Baltimore's gold coast - or did she simply endorse actions well under way?
Was the state prosecutor, accused of dragging out an investigation for political reasons, absolving himself with a trash can full of innuendo?
These and other titillating questions accompany a threat to the personal renaissance of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.
Over the last three years, she has thoroughly confounded a universe of critics by doing her job with spirit and passion. She has reinvented herself, suggesting to many that she is the ideal leader for a city in distress.
She knows the devastation of drug abuse from family experience. She repeatedly counsels her constituents to nurture their children. She has been politically courageous, looking past race for a police commissioner who has presided over a sharp drop in homicides.
But now, after Maryland State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh (appointed by former Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.) obtained a search warrant for her house, serious questions have been raised about her relationship with a developer, Ronald H. Lipscomb.
Court documents show Mr. Lipscomb gave Ms. Dixon - then the City Council president - a $2,000 gift certificate to buy furs in 2003.
On a trip to Chicago with Mr. Lipscomb, she spent $4,410 at Giorgio Armani and $570 at Saks Fifth Avenue, where she bought Jimmy Choo sandals. These purchases were made on her personal credit card.
But - and here comes the innuendo - because she was then earning $80,000 a year as council president, the implication is that Mr. Lipscomb must have been subsidizing her purchases. With a grand jury impaneled to examine the case and her lawyers advising caution, the mayor has had little to say in her defense.
The atmosphere is colored by the rarefied atmosphere of high fashion, a romance and million-dollar tax breaks at public expense. But what does it add up to? No one really knows until the prosecutor proceeds, if he does, with an indictment.
Now, it may be instructive to examine what has not happened as a result of the raid and the subsequent disclosures. There has not been a hint of defection by Ms. Dixon's widely praised inner circle. No one is walking away in disgust. One member of the City Council, Mary Pat Clarke - no lock-step supporter of the mayor's - called the raid a "home invasion."
