A Special Breed

It takes a special kind of pomposity to arrive at jury duty with a posse:

Among the 85 other potential jurors reporting to the courthouse this morning, only one looked familiar from November's ballot.

"I voted for you," Bailiff Nolan Burgess told County Executive John R. Leopold as he checked in.

"Nobody's above jury duty," Mr. Burgess said a few minutes later.

He said he's seen Robert Duckworth, county clerk, and George M. Nutwell, former register of wills, report for duty while he was working, but Mr. Leopold brought something special.

"He's the only one with an entourage," Mr. Burgess said.

Mr. Leopold arrived with a security detail and his governmental affairs director, and met up with his communications director, who arranged to have his photo snapped as he waited for the possibility of sitting as a juror for the first time in 20 years.

There are a couple of unique issues here:

- Once again, do I need to remind people that John Leopold promised to do away with the Security Detail? Besides, it's the County Courthouse. If the Sheriff's deputies can't do their job....

- What kind of political animal arranges to have his picture taken while serving on jury duty? Is this the kind of thing we want to politicize? Does that make John Leopold special that he came down to serve on the jury duty with the little people, even if that would go along with his pompous attitude. Aren't some civic duties above reproach?

- Why am I the taxpayer paying Alan Friedman and Rhonda Wardlaw to hang out at the courthouse while their boss does what he is supposed to do?

- And does anybody doubt that Leopold's people contacted the Capital to make a major story out of all of this?

Just another reason to be embarrassed by our County's Executive...