Spiro Agnew

WASHINGTON -- In a bittersweet homecoming, former Vice President Spiro Agnew returned to the city he left in disgrace 22 years ago, hoping to secure for himself a more forgiving place in history.At a ceremony jammed with more than 300 friends, supporters and former staffers, Mr. Agnew watched as his wife, Judy, unveiled a white marble bust of himself that will be displayed in the Capitol.Looking tanned, rested and thinner than most remember, the former Maryland governor seemed moved by the attention.

With the Republican presidential nomination contest in high gear, Marylanders might be forgiven for smiling. The word "snob" has returned with full force to presidential politics after a four-decade hiatus. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (Penn State University '80, University of Pittsburgh '81, Dickinson School of Law '86), in an old-fashioned beat-down on higher education, recently informed us that President Barack Obama is "a snob" for wanting Americans to go to college, where they would be indoctrinated by "some liberal college professor.

Perot will hold his own debate, to which no other candidate is invited.Spiro Agnew made Maryland famous and vice versa.A juiced ball cannot possibly explain all the Orioles' home runs, although it certainly does explain the As' and Mariners'.Atlantis found Lucid lucid.Pub Date: 9/20/96

Herbert L. "Herb" Thompson, former Associated Press Annapolis bureau chief who later served as press secretary to Spiro T. Agnew during his years as governor and later vice president, died May 30 of pneumonia at a retirement community in State College, Pa. He was 89. The son of a postmaster and an educator, Mr. Thompson was born and raised in Elrod, N.C. He was a graduate of Chadbourne High School and earned a bachelor's degree in 1943 in...

Perhaps the best comment on all the Republicans who have been criticizing everything the Democrats have been trying to do since even before the election of Barack Obama is a phrase from that fine representative of the Grand Old Party, Spiro Agnew. Those critics are the contemporary version of Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativism." Sidney Krome, Reisterstown

LOS ANGELES -- Seeming to relish what some describe as a role of "attack dog" for his boss, Vice President Dan Quayle yesterday added a controversial rapper's song to his list of targets for criticism.Commenting on Time Warner Inc., the parent company of the record label that released a song called "Cop Killer" by Ice T, Mr. Quayle said: "Here is a very influential corporation, supporting and making money off a record that suggests it's OK to kill cops. I find that outrageous."The vice president's arrival in Southern California coincided with President Bush's signing into law a $1 billion emergency urban aid and summer jobs package.

Havre de Grace. -- The tapestry of Maryland political life is long and colorful, the more so because of the way some of its more durable human strands keep appearing and reappearing as the decades slip by.Go back to the tumultuous spring of 1969, and the green Connecticut campus of Yale University. Yale students are on strike, protesting the war in Vietnam and assorted other perceived evils. They want the faculty to join them in closing the university down.In the chapel, when a retired professor stands to challenge the idea that such an action will address the shortcomings of society, a tearful sophomore from Baltimore responds.

COMMENTS on the bust of Spiro Agnew, from Albert Eisele of the Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill:"That was a fine likeness of Spiro Agnew they unveiled in the Capitol the other day. It would have been even better if they'd carved some dollar signs into the thing. After all, the white marble sculpture of the disgraced former vice president cost the taxpayers some $50,000, about half as much as was alleged to be in those cash-stuffed paper bags he accepted while serving as Baltimore County executive, governor of Maryland and vice president . . ."

Washington. -- Some newspapers called it a victory for the White House, a defeat for Democrats in the Congress, when the president's veto on the abortion ''gag rule'' was upheld. But it was a costly victory for the president. Even many people opposed to abortion did not want to see the First Amendment violated by a federal regulation, one telling a doctor what he or she can say to a patient.The president might profitably have waffled on this, but for one thing: We are already seeing the results of the threat that has arisen on his right.

VICE PRESIDENT Quayle said of reports that Ross Perot has investigated people, "Imagine having the IRS, the FBI and the CIA under his control." And you thought Dan couldn't spell!Actually, the significance of Quayle's performance at that Trenton, N.J., school where he told a student "potato" was spelled "potatoe" has nothing to do with spelling. It has to do with the way politicians communicate with the public. They do it with material prepared for them by others.Quayle was handed a spelling bee flash card on which "potato" was misspelled with an "e."

Perhaps the best comment on all the Republicans who have been criticizing everything the Democrats have been trying to do since even before the election of Barack Obama is a phrase from that fine representative of the Grand Old Party, Spiro Agnew. Those critics are the contemporary version of Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativism." Sidney Krome, Reisterstown

John W. Spurrier, a retired federal marshal to whom Vice President Spiro Agnew surrendered amid a political corruption scandal, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin. The longtime Original Northwood resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised on Augusta Avenue in Irvington, he attended St. Joseph's Monastery Parochial School and was a 1939 Mount St. Joseph's High School graduate. As a young man, he worked for the Donut Corp. of America until he was drafted into the Army during World War II. He was assigned to a medical division in Europe and accompanied wounded soldiers to hospitals.

J ohn W. Spurrier, a retired federal marshal to whom Vice President Spiro Agnew surrendered amid a political corruption scandal, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin. The longtime Original Northwood resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised on Augusta Avenue in Irvington, he attended St. Joseph's Monastery Parochial School and was a 1939 Mount St. Joseph's High School graduate. As a young man, he worked for the Donut Corp. of America until he was drafted into the Army during World War II. He was assigned to a medical division in Europe and accompanied wounded soldiers to hospitals.

Forty years ago this summer, Richard Nixon wrestled with the same question that Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama will answer in Minneapolis and Denver next month: Who is the best choice to be the running mate? Mr. Nixon's selection of Spiro Agnew, then a little-known governor of Maryland, carries a perilous lesson about choosing the political over the practical. When Mr. Agnew rose to accept the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination in August 1968, he cited "the improbability of this moment."

So Cambridge burns, again. Forty years and nearly six months after someone torched Pine Street Elementary School and set off a blaze that burned down nearly all of Cambridge's black business district, a fire this week destroyed two businesses housed in historic structures on Race Street and derailed efforts at an economic revival of the Eastern Shore city's downtown district. That's a setback, not a defeat. "We're trying to regroup," said Penny Tilghman, the associate director of Cambridge's Department of Economic Development.

Marie Patricia Haskins, who was an IRS auditor and a secretary to Spiro T. Agnew, died of complications from dementia Thursday. She was 75. Mrs. Haskins, who was born Marie Walter in Baltimore, was raised in the city's Hamilton neighborhood and graduated from St. Dominic School there. After graduation, she lived in Germany, Rochester N.Y., Wichita, Kan., and Denver, holding numerous jobs. She married Owen Thomas Carroll at St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church, and the couple moved to Germany, where he was stationed.

JACK KEMP SAYS he "made it clear" to Bob Dole that he would not be his "hatchet man" on the campaign trail. "I said, 'You know, if you need an Agnew. . . ' and Dole said, 'Jack, even before you ask, you are not my attack dog.' I don't want you to run that kind of campaign.' ""So Dole will do it," writes Newsweek's Howard Fineman, "as will GOP surrogates and free agents. Wild forces will freely roam."It would be quite a departure from tradition if the top of the ticket took the low road and the second man took the high road.

THEO CONTEMPLATING the bust of Spiro in the Capitol last week mused:Many people criticize Richard Nixon for making Spiro Agnew vice president; I criticize Agnew for making Nixon president.Spiro was governor of Maryland in 1968. He came from the liberal wing of the Republican Party. To head off a Nixon nomination, Agnew led the effort to get New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to run. Rockefeller let Agnew believe he was about to get into the race, then embarrassed him by bowing out in a surprise -- to Agnew -- announcement.

Joseph Louis Kosojet, a retired IRS auditor who served on the team that investigated former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel, died of kidney failure Saturday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. The Timonium resident was 90. Born to Czech immigrants in the family's Washington Street home in Baltimore, Mr. Kosojet had seven older sisters. He attended St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic School and enjoyed working as a water boy for his brother-in-law, Samuel "Joe Dundee" Lazzara, a world welterweight boxing champion.