I see someone still thinks there's news in Martin O'Malley having been pulled over for drunken-driving in August 1987. The Sun did the obligatory reporting of this incident last month. The story "advances" today with a posting on the WBAL Radio web site that O'Malley refused a breathalyzer test during the stop. He was eventually found not guilty.

If I'm an editor, I have to decide if this advances the story from last month, and I don't think it does in any substantive way. However, at the same time, the public deserves a complete record of a governor-elect's behavior, even from nearly 20 years ago. Thus, we're justified in reporting the additional information.

But this is not Chappaquiddick. This is a not-guilty from the time Ronald Reagan was president. There's no evidence that drunken-driving has been a chronic program for O'Malley. And this is something that became known to voters at the 11th hour of the 2006 campaign, and apparently this week voters decided it was not a candidacy killer. They might have even seen it as last-minute character bashing. The people who have spent the last year or so knocking O'Malley need to have something to chew on this week, I guess.

I've spent the last 18 months writing about crime, drug offenders, ex-offenders and the tough time they have finding jobs. People with criminal records, even relatively minor drug offenses, face many obstacles in landing employment. What they seek are second chances, especially after a decent interval since their crimes were committed. The public gets this -- overwhelmingly. Marylanders see the risk in not opening opportunities for ex-offenders; they understand that, without second chances, ex-offenders remain stuck in a cycle of poverty, crime and incarceration. At some point, the society has to be satisfied that a person has paid his debt for a guilty verdict -- and even for a not-guilty verdict.

Let's move on.