Predecessor

Betterton Mayor Carolyn Sorge, who was appointed to the post two years ago, won re-election Saturday by more than a 2-to-1 margin, handily defeating her predecessor, Frank S. Puleo.Mrs. Sorge, a teacher and Betterton native, received 113 votes to 49 for Mr. Puleo, a retired Pennsylvania highway worker who was elected mayor of the Kent County town four years ago.Nearly three-quarters of the town's 204 registered voters turned out for the election Saturday, Mrs. Sorge said yesterday.she said.

Henceforth, let there by a rule that nothing can be compared to Maryland's failed investment at Rocky Gap, located just outside Cumberland in Western Maryland, except for Rocky Gap and perhaps any other $55 million white elephant loss that comes along. We know Rocky Gap. Rocky Gap is an acquaintance of ours. Sorry, Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay resort in Cambridge, but you're no Rocky Gap. Incidentally, let us insert a reminder here. Even the infamous Rocky Gap hotel and conference center isn't Rocky Gap anymore.

Gary Kerkorian, a predecessor of John Unitas as Baltimore Colts quarterback, died yesterday of lung cancer at age 70 in Fresno, Calif. Kerkorian had been a judge in the California court system for more than 20 years. The Stanford graduate played for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1952 and with the Colts from 1954 through 1956. Jim Mutscheller, his former roommate, said, "He was just a first-rate gentleman, studious and a friend to everyone." Kerkorian attended the 40th reunion of the 1958 NFL title-winning Colts in Baltimore two years ago because he had become an emergency member of the team when Unitas was injured.

Jacoby Jones has been back cutting and catching balls on the practice fields for the Ravens, a week after he Cha-Cha-ed and waltzed his way to a third-place finish in the latest season of ABC's “Dancing with the Stars.” We won't get a look at the wide receiver-kick returner-playoff hero until Friday's organized team activity, but Jones will be trying to buck the trend of recent “DWTS” contestants who struggled after returning to football....

MANILA, Philippines - Having ridden to power on a wave of popular revulsion at the corruption of her predecessor, Gloria Macapgal Arroyo began her term as the 14th president of the Philippines with a call for national healing. President Joseph Estrada was forced from office early yesterday by a groundswell of protest that erupted after attempts to impeach him collapsed when the Senate voted to block access to bank records that prosecutors said would have convicted him of corruption. Arroyo, Estrada's vice president, faces considerable challenges in leading this poor but proud Southeast Asian nation of 90 million people, who have grown almost accustomed to political chaos, military coups, island insurgencies and economic instability.

MOTHERS USED to say to little boys, "This is America. You can grow up to be president of the United States." Today's version is, "If you don't watch out, you could grow up to be president of the United States."What a scary threat. Look what being president has meant in the 20th century:Bill Clinton faces impeachment. Maybe even jail. His predecessor, George Bush, was fired by the voters after one term. Bush's predecessor, Ronald Reagan, got shot in his first FTC term and got hammered for Iran-contra in his second.

The National Security Agency's new director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, comes to his job at a defining moment: Modernize the NSA to confront stateless extremist threats, or face post-9/11 obsolescence. To survive, the agency must leap from the "industrial age" to the "information age," as Alexander put it in an interview at his Fort Meade office last week. "That is where our country needs us to go for our security." In three decades as a military man, most recently as the Army's intelligence chief, Alexander built a reputation as an aggressive problem-solver who can skillfully navigate bureaucratic roadblocks.

It's a Maryland tradition, it seems, for incoming governors to give the back of the hand to their immediate predecessor -- and to rehabilitate chief executives who had previously been sent to the political gulag. The latest example: Harry Hughes.Under Gov. Parris Glendening, Mr. Hughes -- who served two terms as governor from 1978 to 1986 -- has been reborn. He was chosen by the new chief executive to revive the state Democratic Party as its chairman. He was named a University of Maryland regent.

What a difference a new governor makes! It has meant a new political life for Harry R. Hughes. Where once he was shunned, now he's a very important person again.Under Gov. Parris Glendening, Mr. Hughes -- who served two terms as governor from 1978 to 1986 -- has been reborn. He was chosen by the new chief executive to revive the state Democratic Party as its chairman. He was named a University of Maryland regent. Last week he was appointed to the board of the Chesapeake Bay Trust.That's quite a reversal for a guy relegated to Politicians Anonymous by Gov. William Donald Schaefer, whose feud with Mr. Hughes started when Mayor Schaefer felt Governor Hughes didn't care enough about Baltimore City.

Half the Brazilians in a public opinion poll conducted last summer could not identify Itamar Franco as their vice president. Shortly before he became acting president, on Oct. 2, only 18 percent thought he had the capacity to resolve the country's problems. By the time he was sworn in as president for the remaining two years of his predecessor's five-year term, Tuesday, that figure was up to 58 percent.What Mr. Franco did in the interim was very little. It included no major speeches. Whether this former supporter of state intervention, who opposed President Fernando Collor de Mello's rapid privatization of the economy, will reverse, slow or fulfill those reforms is sheer conjecture.

Brendan Fowler won more than 55 percent of his faceoffs and scooped up at least 34 ground balls in each of his first two seasons at Duke, but still was not making much of a dent in terms of playing time. Then again, considering that C.J. Costabile - who won 53 percent of his draws and collected 376 ground balls en route to being named Division I's top midfielder - was atop the depth chart, Fowler was not fretting about his opportunities. “C.J. just brought a different dynamic as a faceoff guy,” Fowler recalled Wednesday afternoon.

It has been a rough week or so for the Obama administration. From Benghazi to the tapping of reporters' phones to the IRS admitting that it targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the press is in a frenzy, and many are questioning President Barack Obama's future. If the president does not soon regain control of the narrative, he is likely to suffer the same fate as his predecessor - a collapse in public confidence and a vastly diminished second term. To understand President Obama's situation, we need to explore a little presidential theory and some recent presidential history.

For the first time in history, the Roman Catholic Church has a pope from the New World, but liberal American Catholics should not expect Pope Francis to stray far from the old theology. Some things are excitingly different about this new pontiff. On matters of birth control, abortion, homosexuality, celibate priests and the role of women in the church, however, he is no revolutionary. When Argentina's Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped out on the Vatican balcony as the new pope on Wednesday evening, all he was required to do was wave and give a blessing.

A week after he won re-election, President Barack Obama said he was more than familiar with what the "literature" — the very use of the term cheered academics like me — says about re-elected presidents who over-reach during their second terms. They fail. Mr. Obama's second term began this week, following a first term defined by emergency challenges (largely economic) unlike those faced by almost any incoming American president. Theoretically, his second term ought to be easier.

It took just three games, but Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones has already surpassed the production that the team got from its No. 3 receiver spot last season. With three catches for 86 yards in the 31-30 victory over the New England Patriots on Sunday night, Jones now had seven catches for 153 receiving yards and a touchdown. In 2011, the Ravens got just eight catches for 120 yards and no touchdowns from Lee Evans, whom they acquired from the Buffalo Bills in a late-summer trade, and LaQuan Williams, who subbed while Evans was sidelined with an ankle injury -- and those eight catches came on 38 total targets.

The Obama re-election team must be in panic mode. The president is stuck in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in some polls and behind him in others, so in desperation it has reached out to the Big Dog, Bill Clinton, for help. Mr. Clinton will speak next month at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., in a Wednesday night position often reserved for the vice presidential nominee. Presidents Obama and Clinton have not had the most cordial relationship, but when you're drowning, your feelings about the lifeguard matter less than his ability to keep you afloat.

ONE YEAR AFTER his triumphant departure from office turned into a nightmare of humiliation, former Mexican President Carlos Salinas has launched a campaign for vindication that has instantly increased his country's political turmoil. Murder and money, corruption and conspiracy, even a contest between rival economic theories -- all these figure into a Salinas offer to return from self-exile to face justice and, by implication, meet smear with smear, scandal with scandal.His threat, his open break with a predecessor, is a distinct departure from the closed-circle traditions by which his party has held power since 1929.

ACTING Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm didn't waste any time getting rid of his predecessor's allies -- three were gone within hours of his appointment last week. Among them was the head of the organized crime division, a former New York cop, who led the department's assault on the city's narcotics trade. As Commissioner Hamm assembles his new team, the importance of rousting drug dealers and shutting down their suppliers can't be stressed enough. This culture of violence preys on the addicted, corrupts communities and drives the city's ever increasing murder rate.

Ronald Weich, an assistant U.S. attorney general and former aide to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, is to be named the next dean of the University of Baltimore School of Law on Wednesday, nine months after his popular predecessor resigned amid a public dispute with the university's president. Given his lengthy experience on Capitol Hill and his lack of time in academia, Weich, 52, is an unconventional choice to lead the law school. But faculty leaders, alumni and students said that's part of the reason they're excited about him after last year's tumult involving former dean Phillip Closius.

Glenn H. Lahman, a pioneering television broadcast chief engineer who never lost his affection for old tube radios, died of cancer Oct. 10 at his Annapolis home. He was 86. Born in Bucyrus, Ohio, he left a farming community for the Valparaiso, Ind., Technical Institute, an engineering school. He then joined the Army and served in Europe during World War II. He landed at Normandy in July 1944 while in the Second Armored Division and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge. In later years, Mr. Lahman wore his original master sergeant uniform in the St. Patrick's Day Parade and in the Annapolis Memorial Day Parade.