Gary Hart

"I think it was a good auction. I didn't lose too much," Baltimore broadcasting executive J. Duncan Smith said yesterday, smiling after an elegant, 170-year-old waterfront estate he had purchased as a weekend home was sold at JTC auction for $1.85 million.Several dozen spectators outnumbered the handful of bidders at the auction, held beside a 25-meter indoor swimming pool in the 19-room country house in Annapolis. The estate, known as Toad Hall, occupies seven acres on a peninsula between the South River and Chesapeake Bay.Bidding opened at $800,000, and the offers increased initially in increments of $100,000, then $50,000 and, finally, $25,000.

Annapolis real estate broker Gary Hart was indicted on a charge of first-degree rape yesterday by a county grand jury.Hart, 39, had been charged with second-degree rape and false imprisonment after he turned himself in to police investigators Dec. 18. But county State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee said a review of the case showed evidence of "aggravating circumstances" -- an element that distinguishes first-degree rape from second-degree.Weathersbee said evidence shows the woman who accused Hart of rape may have been choked.

A jury deliberated 3 1/2 hours yesterday before clearing real estatebroker Gary Hart of personal responsibility for failing to pay health insurance for a former employee who lost coverage and became serously ill.After hearing three days of testimony last week, the jury instead found Hart's company, Gary Hart and Associates Ltd., liable and awarded $275,000 in damages to defendant Robin Stallings.Stallings and Karen Kilheffer, who worked as a Realtor with Stallings at a company Stallings later sold to Hart, charged the Realtor with negligence and breach of contract.

From: Lewis BracyPresidentBlacks for SuccessAs chairman of the Black Political Forum ofAnne Arundel County, I would like to express our appreciation to staff reporter JoAnna Daemmrich for her reporting on the trouble-plaguedcounty Housing Authority.Although there are many problems still facing the county Housing Authority, Ms. Daemmrich's articles, along with the Black Political Forum's report on the Neall administration, has yielded two positive results.The first was the appointment ofMs.

Rick Griffin, whose psychedelic posters and album cover made him one of the most prominent rock music artists of the 1960s, died of head injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in Santa Rosa, Calif., Saturday. He was 47. Mr. Griffin's mostfamous poster, "The Flying Eyeball," was commissioned by rock promoter Bill Graham for a Jimi Hendrix-John Mayall concert in 1968. He also created album covers and posters for such rock groups as the Grateful Dead, Iron Butterfly, and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Gary Hart can't get no respect. And he is looking for it in all the wrong places.Hart, former U.S. senator and failed presidential candidate, whined to the New Yorker magazine last week that he had finally figured out the difference between his escapades and Bill Clinton's escapades:"They say Clinton handled his situation better than I did. Poppycock. It wasn't the decision to go on '60 Minutes.' It was the editorial decision not to pursue it any further. I didn't see editors this time sending reporters halfway around the world to peek in a politician's window."

C Boston-- Asked the ''A'' word, Bill Clinton said what he has said before: ''I'm not prepared tonight to say that any married couple should ever discuss that with anyone but themselves.'' And I suspect that the public, queasy after Long Dong Silver and Talking Gray Dots from Palm Beach, felt more relief than disappointment.This is not Monkey Business in 1988. It is private business in 1992. Bill Clinton is no Gary Hart, the National Star is no Miami Herald and Hillary Clinton is neither Lee Hart in '88, Joan Kennedy in '80 nor as she put it, Tammy Wynette.

ONCE AGAIN infidelity has become an election-year issue. Another smart, young, charismatic Democratic candidate is accused of hiding extramarital affairs.But if Gov. Bill Clinton's followers feel disillusioned, it is a misreading of the governor's behavior and of Gary Hart's legacy. Even worse, it suggests selective morality; after all, more than 50 percent of all husbands, and 30 to 40 percent of wives, commit adultery. It's likely that the infidelity rate of politicians is higher than this norm.

After a last-minute invitation, Mayor Martin O'Malley is accompanying President Clinton on a two-day trip to Northern Ireland. O'Malley left last night as part of a 25-member delegation traveling with Clinton on his third and final presidential visit to the troubled country, where the president has been credited with playing a critical role in forming the 1998 peace accord. O'Malley, who leads a Celtic rock band that has produced CDs with Irish themes, met Clinton in Baltimore in July during the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and asked if he could be included in the trip.

I think it may be time to forgive Gary Hart for his sins.I think so because I have almost forgotten what his sins were.He ran for president a couple of times, but you can't hold that against a man forever.And now a newsmagazine reports that next year he might run for the U.S. Senate from Colorado, a job he held for 12 years.(In 1984, Hart won 29 primaries and caucuses and narrowly lost the Democratic nomination for president to Walter Mondale, who asked him, "Where's the beef?" Mondale is currently a U.S. ambassador, but nobody knows to where.