Former President George W. Bush and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney cited Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction as their primary justification for toppling his regime. But it wasn’t true; he didn’t have them.

It’s always been rare for people, whether they are powerful leaders or at the bottom of the political ladder or totem pole, to admit when they have made a mistake or take the blame for a decision that proves to be wrong.

This is even more true today where the emphasis too often is taking credit when a venture goes well and finding someone else to blame when things fail.

However, the necessity of finding scapegoats is diminishing.  Today we have an updated version of avoiding the blame game that is gaining universal acceptance.

It’s easy.

When anyone questions a bad decision or a failed policy, you simply say that things would have been even worse if the action hadn’t been taken.

For example, no matter how hard journalists try to get former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to admit they were wrong about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, they will insist Saddam Hussein was a bad man and things would have been worse if we hadn’t overthrown the dictator.

If you criticize President Barack Obama for forcing the government to waste money on a solar energy company that failed, the answer is, things would be worse if this hadn’t been done because we need to encourage development of environment-friendly power.

When critics of the economic stimulus plans pushed by both Bush and Obama say this has slowed the economic recovery, supporters argue things would have been worse and we would have fallen into a recession if the presidents’ actions hadn’t been taken.

Perhaps this is right. It isn’t always incorrect to say a move needed to be done even if it didn’t completely solve the problem.

But when this type of justification is used all the time, it makes you very skeptical. None of us is perfect and we all make mistakes. But what type of credibility and respect can leaders expect to have when they look for scapegoats and make excuses every time there is a problem?

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Has the Baltimore area seen the last of gasoline prices under $3?

POLITICIANS LACK GUTS TO IMPLEMENT
EFFECTIVE  GASOLINE  CONSERVATION
 
By David Maril
 
Now that finding a service station around Baltimore that sells gasoline for $3.50 a gallon is considered a terrific bargain, we have to wonder at what point Americans will become conditioned to paying $4 and even $5.

Sure, short-term relief occasionally surfaces, briefly dropping prices a bit. You know, however, price drops are always a lot slower than the increases. It takes a much longer time for improving supply conditions to make the prices sink.

And we’ve probably seen the last of gasoline under $3 forever.

In the end, prices will keep rising. It’s always some factor that’s out of our hands.

If supplies of crude oil are up we hear refineries need maintenance and are not running up to speed. Often the excuse is that gasoline distribution is behind schedule because refineries are switching to summer or winter blends.

Mix in political volatility causing frequent disruptions of oil drilling in the Middle East and fluctuations in world pricing, fueled by the recklessness of stock market speculators, and it’s no wonder gasoline prices are out of our control.

Politicians know most of us rely on our cars for transportation and will keep driving no matter how often they tack on extra fuel taxes to compensate for their budget sloppiness and incompetence.

Let’s face it, Baltimore and its suburbs have a long way to go before public transportation options are upgraded to the same level as cities like Boston, Washington, Chicago and New York.

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Associated Press portrayal of 17-year-old 6-foot-3-inch Trayvon Martin — who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Florida, allegedly in self-defense — shows Martin as a child, not as he looked at the time of his death. Despite criticism, the photo was repeatedly run by AP in tandem with a police mugshot of Zimmerman, adversely affecting public reaction and likely influencing potential jurors in Zimmerman’s trial, causing the judge to caution the six women ultimately selected, to ignore press reports and photos depicting the two assailants.

We are even unhappy just reporting for the possi- bility of jury duty. It’s considered an unbearable burden to get saddled with a complicated trial that runs a week or more.

Even though relieved if court officials send us home without needing to serve, we still complain about wasting part of a day waiting around.

But imagine what it’s like if you were one of the six jurors on the high-profile George Zimmerman case in Sanford, Fla.

The pressure and strain of deciding guilt or innocence in the death of Trayvon Martin was only part of the task. After Zimmerman was found not guilty of second degree murder and manslaughter, the jurors have been absorbing nationwide criticism fueled by emotion and frustration over the seemingly senseless death of a 17-year-old kid.

Protestors and demonstrators alike have raised the question of racism’s influence on the verdict from the nearly all-white female jury. Trayvon Martin’s parents and family lawyers continue to hold news conferences and appear on television news-talk programs questioning the job the jury did.

Government officials, like U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and even President Obama, have weighed in.

Debate on the trial and verdict shows no signs of letting up and prompted the President to comment Friday on the subject of race relations, an issue he has studiously avoided — until now.

Issues are being raised that overlook the fact the jurors were required to stick to the specific aspects of the law. And the only way a guilty verdict could legitimately have been issued would have been if the prosecution had built a case eliminating any reasonable doubt.

This, of course, is an extreme example of jury-duty pressure. The few times any of us actually have to sit on a jury and decide a case, it’s a lot more low-profile and generally over in a day or less.

Which raises the question again of why so many of us who grouse about work and being stuck in a routine moan and groan when the summons comes for jury duty?

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Holly Walter won the Voice of Baltimore 2013 competition this week at Padonia Station. Leroy Laws (not pictured) was the first male winner. (VoB Photo/Debi Fowler)

TWELFTH ANNUAL ‘VOICE OF BALTIMORE’ COMPETITION
CONCLUDES WITH 2 WINNERS: ONE MALE, ONE FEMALE

Final  at Padonia Station sports club in Timonium
features 18 singers participating in 5-hour event
 
The twelfth annual “Voice of Baltimore” singing competition concluded at Padonia Station in Timonium this week with the first-ever dual winners, one male, one female.

Holly Walter and Leroy Laws took first-place honors, with Courtney Brewer and Andy Felicitas coming in second. Third place went to Crystal Freeman and Bruce Gavin.

To see full contest results  click here.

However an additional finalist — local band vocalist Sara Heilman, who placed out of the money at the five-hour event — consented to describe for Voice of Baltimore her experience performing in the annual competition at Padonia Station for the second time.

The following is Sara’s story — exclusive to VoB — a tale of failure and rejection… and ultimate triumph.
 
REJECTION: A CONSTANT IN A PERSON’S LIFE
THAT HAS  THE POWER  TO BUILD  OR BREAK
 
By Sara Heilman
 
A majority of people shy away from the unknown. They refuse to put themselves center stage, to give themselves a voice, to stand up for what they believe in. And most importantly, to keep trying, despite their many failed attempts.

However, I am not the majority. I am a 24-year-old girl who has seen my fair share of struggle. A girl who has worked for everything I can now call my own.

Not once have I ever gotten lucky or had something happen by chance. No, I have had to create the opportunities which are now available to me. I wouldn’t be writing this piece had I not been a person who has overcome failure and rejection time and time again.

I can’t remember when I first started singing, but I do remember watching my idols — Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera. These women dominated the music industry with their powerful vocals, bringing chills up and down the spine for those who listened… and everyone was listening. I knew I wanted to be like them, not for the fame or the fortune, but to have my voice heard.

My first real rejection came when I was 13 years old — an already awkward stage for any teenager at the time — when I auditioned for my school’s talent show. I knew the competition I was up against, but I also believed I had talent that superseded theirs.

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Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (blue polo shirt, center) and his running mate, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman (red shirt, center) make splash at 37th annual Tawes Crab and Clam Bake Wednesday at Crisfield, sur- rounded by campaign aides holding up Brown-Ulman lawn signs. State Attorney General Doug Gansler, who is widely expected to run against Brown next year for governor, noted that numerous campaign signs for the lieutenant governor's gubernatorial candidacy were il- legally displayed on the public highway median strip leading into Crisfield.  (VoB Photo/Veronica Piskor)

Would be first openly gay governor elected in U.S.
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
Except for Spiro Agnew in the late 1960s and Bob Ehrlich near the beginning of the new millennium, Maryland has elected only Democrats to the Governor’s Mansion in Annapolis since the GOP’s Theodore R. McKeldin served two terms from 1951 to ’59.

What’s more, they’ve all been men, and white. But next year’s election could change all that, or at least some of it.

A frontrunner for the Democratic nomination is Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, an African-American Harvard-educated lawyer who is finishing out his second term as Gov. Martin O’Malley’s No. 2 and has gotten the jump on other hopefuls by running for more than two months since announcing his candidacy in early May.

He made a big splash at Wednesday’s J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake in Crisfield on the Eastern Shore (see photo), a political must-attend event for Maryland politicians that is billed as equal parts seafood, sweat and schmooze.

But a dark horse female candidate for governor appeared at the annual event as well.

Enter State Del. Heather R. Mizeur, an out-of-the-closet lesbian who hopes to be not only Maryland’s first non-male governor, but the first openly gay person to run and be elected governor in the United States.

Mizeur announced her candidacy by email immediately prior to the Tawes namesake event, a political gathering open to all factions despite being named for a governor of the old school variety, a conservative Democrat of the 1950s and 1960s, who was a longtime state comptroller prior to serving two terms as governor before he was succeeded by then-liberal Republican Spiro T. Agnew, a one-term Baltimore County executive.

Women have run for governor of Maryland before, albeit unsuccessfully; Mizeur is not unique in that regard.

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