They Are the Enemies of Every Decent Man (Yup, they're ASSHOLES)

Friday, June 10th, 2011

Remember Prince George’s County, Maryland County Executive Jack Johnson? When last we visited him, he was giving everyone involved a “pat on the back” for their role in the violent, disastrous drug raid on Cheye Calvo’s home.
Last year, Johnson and his wife were indicted on corruption charges, and has since admitted to taking some $400,000 in bribes and shaking down developers. And now we learn that just before he was indicted, Johnson spent $225,000 in public funds to print 275,000 copies of a glossy booklet celebrating . . . Jack Johnson. He was preparing to spend another $275,000 to send a copy to every household in the county. They’re now collecting dust in a county warehouse.
From the Washington Post:

. . . it describes a county guided by a visionary leader who built schools, attracted businesses and lowered the crime rate. The glossy pages are replete with photos and comments from Jack Johnson at venues throughout Prince George’s, overlaid with quotes from the Bible, Dostoevsky, Mary McLeod Bethune and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).
There is a family photo of the Johnsons during happier times: Jack, Leslie, their three children, among them son Bruce, who was hired a few weeks before his father left office for a job in the county’s health department in a process that appeared to flout county hiring rules.
The words in the booklet, which Johnson and his staff pored over for months, revising and then revising again, are now fraught with no small amount of irony.
“We visualized and shaped our own destiny,”Johnson says alongside a photo that shows him with arms extended under a highway sign pointing to National Harbor, the sparkling shopping and dining destination on the Potomac River that opened during Johnson’s tenure.
At the beginning of the booklet, Johnson extolled public service. “We are only here for a short time to make a difference. The positions we hold belong to the people. You, the citizens, have given us the awesome responsibility to serve.”

Hell, they’re already printed. I think the county should send them out anyway—but along with an insert of Jack Johnson’s mug shot, seen here.
Headline courtesy of the great H.L. Mencken.