ODD COMMENTARY: RNC Chair & Former Homeland Security Head Discuss Doug Gansler Beach Week // PLUS: Much More!

Below Maryland Juice provides a roundup of recent news items regarding our state's heated Governor's race. We include commentary on the Beach Week controversy from some interesting sources, along with additional sparring going on in Maryland's top statewide race:

JUICE #1: FORMER HEAD OF U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY DISCUSSES DOUG GANSLER BEACH WEEK STORY - In one of the stranger commentaries about the Doug Gansler Beach Week story, Michael Chertoff (former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) used the controversy to defend the NSA's mass surveillance program. Chertoff's musings on Gansler and NSA surveillance appeared in a Washington Post op-ed yesterday (excerpt below):

MICHAEL CHERTOFF VIA WASHINGTON POST: In the past few months, much has been written about whether the National Security Agency’s authorized storage of anonymous telephone records should be curtailed on the grounds that it’s too invasive of Americans’ privacy.... So it is striking that two recent news stories illustrate a less-debated threat to privacy that we as a society are inflicting on ourselves. Last week, a passenger on an Acela train decided to tweet in real time his summary of an overheard phone conversation by Gen. Michael Hayden, a former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA (and my current business partner). The same day, a photo was published of Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler at a summer party where he was surrounded by underage youths who apparently were drinking.

Of course, the delicious irony is obvious: In one case, the former NSA chief becomes a victim of eavesdropping. In the other, a politician critical of teen drinking fails to intervene when he is surrounded by it. But both stories carry a more troubling implication....

Where does this lead us? If a well-known person has an argument with a spouse or child at a restaurant, should it be broadcast? If a business personality expresses a political opinion at a private party, should that opinion (or a distortion of it) be passed on to the rest of the world?.... This is worth a national, and perhaps global, conversation at least as robust as the debate over government collection of telephone numbers....

JUICE #2: NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIR REINCE PRIEBUS COMMENTS ON DOUG GANSLER BEACH WEEK STORY - It appears that the national Republican Party has decided to use the Doug Gansler Beach Week story to try and score some political points. RNC Chair Reince Priebus published the following op-ed in The Baltimore Sun this week chastising Gansler over the controversy (excerpt below):

REINCE PRIEBUS VIA BALTIMORE SUN: "Parents, you're the leading influence on your teen's decision not to drink." Those are the words of Maryland's Attorney General Doug Gansler, a Democrat and candidate for governor, in an anti-underage age drinking public service announcement he recorded a year ago.

Sadly, Attorney General Gansler doesn't listen to his own words and reportedly helped plan a party last June at which underage boys would be drinking beer and wine.... As a dad, I'm appalled by his behavior. It's irresponsible for a parent. And as a lawyer, I also know he likely violated the oath he took as attorney general by selectively enforcing the law....

JUICE #3: ANTHONY BROWN'S CAMPAIGN DENIES LEAKING ATTACKS ON DOUG GANSLER, CONSERVATIVE ACTIVISTS CRITICIZE BROWN CAMPAIGN - Given the constant flow of negative attacks on Attorney General Doug Gansler, it seems entirely plausible that rivals (or their allies) have been responsible for the recent spate of embarrassing leaks. But NBC News reported this week that Anthony Brown's campaign is denying involvement (excerpt below):

NBC NEWS:  "We know exactly who these things are fed by ... do I think this is a character assassination set up by my opponent? Maybe," Gansler said at a press conference called to respond to the beach party picture.

But Tuesday, Gansler's chief opponent in the race for governor -- Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown -- said he was not the source of the stories. When News4's Mark Segraves asked the candidate if he had anything to do with the stories, Brown said, "Our focus will not be what other campaigns are doing or candidates, it will be on the future of Maryland."

Segraves asked again if the campaign had anything to do with stories of Gansler at the teen party, or of a previous Washington Post story about a speed-camera ticket that Gansler never paid. "Did you have anything to do with it?" Segraves asked. "Nothing," Brown said, at an appearance at a counseling center for victims of domestic abuse.... 

But in a pair of recent blog posts, the conservative writers at Red Maryland laid the blame for the recent negative turn in the Governor's race at the feet of the Brown campaign. Moreover, the Red Maryland bloggers seem to think Reince Priebus' entry into the Doug Gansler story might be short-sighted as they think Maryland Republicans will be the next ones to receive this sort of treatment (excerpts below):

RED MARYLAND: What the Democrats are doing to Doug Gansler right now is something that few of us have ever seen before in Maryland intraparty Democratic politics.... And it has been extremely vicious between the Brown camp and the Gansler camp. And it has been sustained, from the original story about Gansler's State Police Drivers, to the speeding ticket that became an issue earlier this week, and now on to the Beach House Party story that broke late last night. The sustained assault on Doug Gansler and his character really is a new low for Anthony Brown, Martin O'Malley, and Maryland's Democratic establishment....

And my fellow Republicans, don't revel in the misfortunes of Gansler, Brown, and the open warfare occurring in the Democratic primary. On June 25th, after the primary and regardless of who wins, they will set their sights on us. Just wait for it....

In a second, more recent blog post, the Red Maryland bloggers also seem to imply that negative tactics are the norm for Brown's campaign manager Justin Schall (excerpt below):

RED MARYLAND: Anthony Brown’s campaign manager, Justin Schall, has quite a history, and it isn’t pretty. Maryland political insiders know Schall hopped over to Brown after running John Delany’s successful campaign to win Maryland’s gerrymandered sixth district. However, Schall’s track record is pretty shady.

In 2006, Schall managed the losing campaign of Cindy Chavez, who was running for mayor of San Jose, CA.  Here’s what the website MetroActive reported that election night.

We love election night parties. The exuberance, the fatalism, the cheese cubes. We even enjoyed getting tossed out of the Holiday Inn's Mediterranean Room banquet hall by a man who claimed to be Cindy Chavez's campaign manager, Justin Schall. "This is a private party," he explained with postal rage. (Was it something we wrote?)....

Hostility to a certain media that fails to write nice things about a campaign that won’t talk to said media.... 

Schall was one of the mental giants behind a local San Jose sleaze site called San Jose Revealed.   Funded by a labor union, Schall and his partners, which included the husband of his former boss, Cindy Chavez, dished out all manner of personal attacks and invaded the privacy of its targets.... one frequent victim of San Jose Revealed’s particularly vicious attacks asked Chavez for help in removing a map to his residence that had been posted to the site... After the map was published by Revealed, the home’s owner, falsely accused of making money through pornography, became the victim of a hate crime that involved property destruction and swastika graffiti....

JUICE #4: IN LIGHT OF GANSLER CONTROVERSY, SOUTH BETHANY ISSUES WARNING TO HOMEOWNERS - In our last bit of response to the Beach Week story, we provide a short item from the town of South Bethany. Delaware Online reports that the town has decided to turn the controversy into a teachable moment (excerpt below):

DELAWARE ONLINE: The government of a Delaware beach town is warning homeowners that they can face penalties if underage drinking or other offenses occur inside their homes.

South Bethany was the site of a party for graduating high schoolseniors that Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler briefly visited last summer....

The town government says in a statement many such incidents “are the result of poor or absent supervision by parents....” Homeowners can face fines or the loss of their rental licenses over disturbances on their property....

JUICE #5: DOUG GANSLER LAUNCHES ATTACK ON ANTHONY BROWN'S DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RECORD, DELEGATE CHERYL GLENN RESPONDS - On Tuesday, Doug Gansler's campaign decided to fight back against Anthony Brown by dredging up a 2003 domestic violence bill that they accuse Brown of helping sink. Delegate Cheryl Glenn responded with the following statement:

DELEGATE CHERYL GLENN: Reducing domestic violence is something we should all agree on.  As a survivor of domestic violence myself, it is deeply troubling that the Attorney General’s campaign would use this issue to score cheap political points, especially when Lt. Governor Brown, like far too many in Maryland, has been personally affected by domestic violence.  Anthony has fought for - and won - critical legislation to reduce the scourge of domestic violence, and Doug Gansler knows it.  Political attacks on this issue are entirely inappropriate. 

MORE ON THE MARYLAND GOVERNOR'S RACE SOON!