THE PUBLIC EYE
As Yoda would put it, a week interesting has been this.
First of all, reports are that we had a convention in town that no one knew about. Apparently, it was a gathering of undercover cops, which begs the question, if there was an undercover police convention in town, would anyone know it?
It also makes me wonder how they got along during their various assemblies, considering that they probably all wore name tags that read “Hi, My Name is”
I mean, how stimulating can the conversation be given the need to maintain the mum-ness of their work?
One undercover operative goes up to another and says, “Let me introduce myself, I’m ______” and you are?”
“Good to meet you, ______, I’m ______, and I work for ______. And before that, I was with ______ working on the case.”
“That’s great, ______. Right now, I’m involved in a big deal involving ______. It’s pretty exciting.”
“Wow! That does sound big. You can tell me more over a drink. Bartender, I’m buying.”
“And your name, sir? the bartender asks.
“Why______,” of course.”
•••••
The business of politics is at the center of some of the postholiday goings on, with candidates doing what they do and telling us they know exactly how to take care all our problems.
This leads me to ask how we ended up in this mess when there clearly are so many people who know how to fix it? I especially want to know what they were doing for the past several years when we all started hearing that flushing sound? Talking to Mr. _____, the undercover agent?
But not only do they know just the prescription for what ails us, they also know how we got where we are: it was the other guy’s fault.
In other words, Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is being blamed for this state’s money problems, can argue that he inherited it from the guy he’s opposing, former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, who can say he inherited it from Gov. Paris Glendenning, who can say … wait a minute, it WAS his fault.
For my money, I wish an undercover police officer would run for public office. We would never see him and would rarely have to listen to him. Better yet, when he did have something to say, it would be, “If elected, I promise to do ____.”
And that’s what we need. A candidate who really will stand by what he says.
