When he grows up he’d like to be a governor

Actually, Douglas Gansler, Maryland’s attorney general, would like to be a governor even though he hasn’t grown up.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler regularly ordered state troopers assigned to drive him to turn on the lights and sirens on the way to routine appointments, directing them to speed, run red lights and bypass traffic jams by using the shoulder, according to written accounts by the Maryland State Police.

When troopers refused to activate the emergency equipment, Gansler, now a Democratic candidate for governor, often flipped the switches himself, according to the police accounts. And on occasion, he became so impatient that he insisted on driving, directing the trooper to the passenger’s seat. Gansler once ran four red lights with sirens blaring, a trooper wrote. Another account said he “brags” about driving the vehicle unaccompanied on weekends with the sirens on.

This extremely irresponsible behavior is non-stop and occurs on a daily basis,” Lt. Charles Ardolini, commander of the state police executive protection section, wrote in a December 2011 memo that said the problem had existed for five years. “Attorney General Gansler has consistently acted in a way that disregards public safety, our Troopers safety and even the law.”

Maryland has had its share of law breaking governors: former vice president Spiro Agnew, of course, and Marvin Mandel, to name two. But to my knowledge, we have never been governed by a juvenile delinquent.

By the way, the report on Gansler’s antics comes from the Washington Post which, I assume, will endorse him for governor if he succeeds in obtaining the Democratic nomination.

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