The Gig is up

John Leopold's alleged backseat tryst keeps looking worse and worse for him:

Two Anne Arundel County councilmen said yesterday that, until County Executive John R. Leopold explains his actions on the evening that a police officer responding to a report of possible sexual activity in a mall parking lot found him in the back seat of his county-issued car, they will continue investigating the matter.

The councilmen, C. Edward Middlebrooks and G. James Benoit, also questioned why Leopold has made numerous calls from one of his two county-issued phones to the cell and home phones of a county employee during the past six months.

In a public meeting Tuesday, Middlebrooks referred to a county employee who he suggested was at the mall parking lot Jan. 30, but he did not name her. According to records obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a public information request, Leopold used one of the cell phones almost exclusively to call a county employee's cell. Leopold exchanged about 200 calls with that number between mid-September and mid-February.

Leopold spent more than 19 hours - 90 percent of the time he used the phone - on the phone with the employee's number.

Leopold's refusal to comment on the accusations keeps making things worse and worse for him (as I said they would). Especially when you get nuggets like this:

According to the records, the county executive exchanged four calls with the employee's phone on the day in question. He also phoned the number at 6:07 p.m., 20 minutes after police declared the call to the mall parking lot "unfounded," the records show.

Now Leopold says that he has "spoken as much as I intend to speak on it." Which of course isn't an answer at all, but what do you really expect from this guy.

If Leopold wanted to do the right thing (and as I have said before, the next time he does want to do the right thing would be the first) Leopold would come clean and announce that he will not run for reelection. It is in the best interest of the county and certainly the party to take that course of action. Leopold has become a distraction to the business of the county and this additional lack of forthrightness and honesty puts the county Republican Party in an increasingly untenable position giving the current political environment.

The gig's up John. It's time to do the right thing.