An American Lion

Baltimore County Police Helicopter Foxtrot (by cooder70 on Flickr)

“Gee, wouldn’t it be a good idea to use my status as an elected official to have a police helicopter hover overhead and create a ruckus so that I can propose to my girlfriend?”

I often find myself asking myself that question. It’s not really a good one. I don’t have a girlfriend I would marry right now—sorry, ladies, I’m not going to marry the fifth future ex-Mrs. Norman Rogers unless there’s a guarantee there won’t be any more children involved. I’m short a house to give away right now, thank you very much. I’m not a state delegate here in Maryland, at least, not that I know of. Senator Ben Cardin isn’t my uncle. I do expect favoritism and to be treated better than everyone else, but it’s been that way for me since birth.

I do have good judgement, and that’s more than this clown can say:

City police are investigating why on-duty marine and helicopter officers helped a Baltimore County state delegate propose to his girlfriend by pretending to raid a boat the couple were aboard, a department spokesman said Monday.

Officers boarded the boat, owned by a friend of Del. Jon S. Cardin, Aug. 7 in the Inner Harbor. As the helicopter Foxtrot hovered overhead, adding to the sense of tension, one report says officers pretended to search the vessel and even had the woman thinking she was about to be handcuffed before the delegate got on one knee and proposed.

Megan Homer said yes.

Baltimore police did not find the account of the pretend raid amusing or charming.

Police said they are investigating what appears to be a misuse of police resources at a time when the budget-strapped department is begging for private donations to keep its horseback unit running and is immersed in investigating the latest violence at the Inner Harbor — a double shooting inside the Light Street Pavilion at Harborplace over the weekend. Residents and visitors have complained that police presence is thin at best.

Megan, you might want to reconsider. Young boy Cardin isn’t going to have much of a political career with judgement like that. Yes, it’s good to marry into a family with a sitting US Senator—there will always be a job there for you when you get tired of working retail or whatever. There will always be people who want to give money to your uncle the Senator so that they can buy his vote—this is America. It’s how things get done. The problem is, such families are usually full of useless characters and screaming weekends on the sea shore. If you’ve been to one family gathering, and watched one of your future in-laws roll down a hill into the water drunk, crying and kicking feet and pounding fists on the ground because mother wouldn’t give them the car keys, that’s pretty much what your life is going to be like until you can divorce and marry a rock drummer or a pediatrician.

Wealth, indolence, drinking, and screaming. Ah, the nostalgia floats in here on a breeze scented with flowers and ammonia.