Anatomy of a Smear

The Baltimore Sun, and even the Drudge Report picked up the total non-story that is MDGOP First Vice Chair Diana Waterman’s black angus cow “Oprah.” There is, of course, a lot of bovine waste floating around this manufactured tempest in a teapot, but none of it is coming from the cow.

The real story here isn’t the cow as the Sun thinks, but about Queen Anne’s County ne'er-do-well, Sveinn Storm ginning up a controversy where none exists to smear Waterman in order to sink County Ordinance 11-02, which the Queen Anne’s County Board of Commissioners approved Tuesday night.

Storm and his pack of shrieking anti-growth harpies were opposed to the measure, which allows the party central committees to fill vacancies on the Queen Anne’s County Board of Commissioners. A similar system exists for vacancies in the General Assembly. The governor appoints replacements recommended by the county central committee of the party holding the particular seat.

Duly elected pro-growth Republicans dominate the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee. Waterman is not only First Vice Chair of the Maryland GOP, but a member of the county central committee as well. Get the picture.

Storm and his ally Dan Worth claim that their opposition to the ordinance is all about democracy. Worth writes:

I don’t know about you, but I would rather have an opportunity to vote to fill a County Commissioner vacancy rather than have the selection made by who knows who.

Does Dan Worth, an active ally and neighbor of Sveinn Storm really think he can fool people into thinking he actually doesn’t know who is on the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee? Quite cheeky for a guy who was busted for impersonating an elected official to be talking about “who knows who.”

In a letter so full of specious legal reasoning not seen since William O. Douglas wrote about emanations from penumbras, Storm demanded the committee turn over documents under the Maryland Public Information Act. An official from the Attorney General’s office assured me that county political central committees are not subject the law.

What Storm, Worth and the anti-growthers are really worried about is power. The commissioner’s election didn’t go their way, so they’re left with nothing but juvenile tricks and smear campaigns.

Storm and his anti-growth crowd are a fifth column, in what Senator EJ Pipkin and, Delegate Mike Smigiel call the war on rural Maryland.

Economic growth no matter how sensible or how needed is spat upon, and property rights are held in contempt--except their own of course. They know no boundary of decency or propriety, opponents are to be demonized at all costs.

Old Dog, Old Tricks, Same Old Bullshit

Sometimes old dogs can’t learn new tricks they just repeat old ones. Case in point Dan Worth, or Gait Keeper/Gate Keeper, or Sentinel Whispers or whatever anonymous moniker he chooses to hide behind

Worth you will remember ran afoul of the law six years ago after impersonating former Centreville Town Council member Donna Turner, in order to—as he admitted to the Maryland State Police—drag her name through the mud and make her look bad.

Here is the entire police report on Worth. Truly something to be proud of.

MSPReport



Now, it appears Worth is back in the impersonation game. After the 2010 county elections, the administrators of the 2010 QAC County Commissioner's Race Facebook page, changed the page name to 2011 QAC Open Forum. Shortly thereafter “Gait Keeper” one of Worth’s nom’s de cyber, created a Facebook page with the exact same name, and negative of the same photo of the steamed crabs used by the real 2011 QAC Open Forum administrators.

One would have figured that after being exposed by the Maryland State Police for identity theft, Worth and/or his accomplices would forego the impersonation scheme.

Juvenile tricks aside, what this does prove is that the anti-growth—more accurately the anti-liberty crowd—can’t stand on the merits of their own arguments and are reduced to such childishness. For example, using false statements to gin up accusations of racism.

Holy Cow(pie)

"every word she writes is a lie, include 'and' and 'the"

--Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman

McCarthy's famous zinger on the Stalinist sympathizing Hellman could well apply to Sveinn Storm, who appears to have fired up the steamroller to pave over the tattered remnants of his integrity.

Storm’s too-clever-by-half attack on Diana Waterman over her black angus cow “Oprah” contains two blatant falsehoods.

First, Storm claims Waterman named the cow. She didn’t. Perhaps Storm was too busy working on illegal renovations to the property he owns on Commerce St. to pick up the phone and call Diana to get his facts straight.

Second, Storm claims Waterman abused her position as Vice Chair of the Queen Anne’s County Republican Central Committee by campaigning for Robert Mansfield during the primary. As the Torch has documented this is completely false.

The only problem with Storm’s clever little conceit is that Waterman wasn’t campaigning for Robert Mansfield, and wasn’t acting in her capacity as vice chair of the QAC GOP Central Committee. Furthermore, contrary to his claim, there is no provision in the Queen Anne's County Republican Central Committee bylaws, which proscribes a member for campaigning as a private citizen for a certain candidate.

In fact, Waterman organized the door knocking effort on behalf of Queen Anne’s for Ehrlich, and the Andy Harris campaign. Furthermore, she wasn’t “campaigning for Mansfield.” As the email alert she sent out clearly contains the addresses of anti-growth candidates David Dunmeyer—Mansfield’s opponent—and Frank Frohn in the distribution list.

Diana also specifically states “Candidates bring your literature (and your volunteers) and we’ll hand it out too.”

The invitation was open to ALL Republican candidates.

Storm is free whine about promoting a “positive image” of the Republican Party, only he should conduct his spoon banging tantrums in front of mirror. Going by the long search return of his name in the Maryland Judiciary database, Storm is as about a positive image of a Republican, as President Obama is a centrist.

But let's not be too hard on Storm, he did reiterate for us the definition of the word racist... a conservative who is winning an argument.

What Does Racism Really Look Like?

It looks like this.

After allowing Queen Anne's County to enjoy a period of relative peace and quiet, Mr. Storm has painfully reminded us all of his continued existence (perhaps he's spent the last few months dealing with those possible EPA violations of his?).

In a recent post of his he accused Diana Waterman of being a racist for owning a cow named Oprah. Yes, having a pet named after a black celebrity makes you a racist in Storm's book.

Well, here's a message from the Torch to Storm - look to the speck in your own eye first.

As an aggressive opponent of any and all growth in Queen Anne's County and other rural areas, Mr. Storm has promoted policies explicitly designed to drive up property values by artificially restricting the supply of homes and buildable land.

Driving up prices like that has consequences. And considering that whites on average make about $25,000 more per year than blacks, chief among those effects is that it becomes that much harder for people who aren't white to buy homes here in Queen Anne's County.

Queen Anne's County did see its white population shrink from 2000 to 2009. But in that same time the black population dropped at 7 times the rate the white population did! For some reason, I can't help but think that the fact that the commissioners during that same period consistently adopted Storm's policies probably had something to do with the disproportionate shrink in the black population.

So you tell me which sounds more like racism to you, owning a cow with a celebrity's name or aggressively supporting policies that make it significantly harder for a black or a Hispanic family to buy the house next door?