Paul Schwartzman

In Maryland, Prince George's County's top elected official, County Executive Jack B. Johnson (pictured at right on NB's home page) was arrested yesterday, and "is accused of accepting cash in return for helping a developer secure federal funding."

Johnson's wife, a recently elected councilperson, was also arrested yesterday. The couple are both accused of "tampering with a witness and evidence relating to the commission of a federal offense, and destruction, alteration, and falsification of records in a federal investigation."

The linked article at Gazette.net does not identify the Johnsons' political party affiliation. When this failure to identify occurs, it typically means that the politicians involved are Democrats. As expected, the Johnson are indeed Dems (Jack; Leslie).

Sadly, it is not at all surprising that there is a virtual blackout on the Johnsons' party affiliation:

At the top-left corner of the Washington Post's front page today is a celebration of pot smoking in the nation's capital. "As D.C. votes on marijuana, seeds already firmly planted: Council weighs medical use of 'pervasive, accepted' drug."

Reporters Paul Schwartzman and Annys Shin fill 28 paragraphs with copy from pot smokers and pot lobbyists and pot dealers, and nowhere in those 28 paragraphs of mostly anonymous weed enthusiasts is there a single critic of marijuana, or of the fraudulent nature of "medical use" with the pretense of "trouble sleeping" or how media outlets in Los Angeles now report more pot dispensaries than Starbucks locations.  

Instead, the Post suggests the the Council isn't poised to display once again the District's social liberalism on drugs, it's merely acknowledging current realities:

"The president-elect popped into a party at Bobby Van's restaurant, as well as The Washington Post's newsroom, where hard-bitten journalists fumbled for their cellphone cameras and reached for his hand."

So noted Post staffer Paul Schwartzman in his January 18 Metro section front-pager "Mr. Obama's (Giddy) Neighborhood." Yet for a supposedly hard-bitten bunch, the Posties sure are giddy over Obama. 

Elsewhere on the Metro front page: "Driven to Obamaville by Something 'Bigger Than Us,'" -- columnist Marc Fisher's look at Obama fans camping out in an RV park north of Washington, D.C. -- and David Fahrenthold's "Visitors Pour Into D.C., Loaded With Luggage, But Lightened by Hope."

Hard-bitten journalists? Only if it's Chris Matthews that's been doing the biting.

Pssst. Eight hundred rooms in Washington, D.C. proper and a total of 15,000 rooms "in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District" remain unbooked for the Obama apotheosis inaugural. Pass it on.

"Actually, Hotel Space Remains Available," the Washington Post's Paul Schwartzman quietly reported on page B2 of the January 15 edition's "Inauguration Watch." Staffer Paul Schwartzman cited Washington's "official tourism office, Destination DC" as the source of the stat.

Last Friday, I noted how the Post reported that "Inaugural Renters [Are] Begging For Takers." That 29-paragraph story was given the front page treatment on the paper's January 9 Metro section: