First, Pagnucco equates sponsorship of bills with being serious about transportation funding. That might be Montgomery County logic but it's not Annapolis logic. The most important players in transportation funding decisions are the House speaker, the Senate president and the relevant committee chairs. Each of  them is very serious about transportation funding, but each is very strategic about when and where they put their own names on a bill. Often that doesn't happen until a consensus is in place.

Pagnucco also reads far too much into a feel-good, no-chance  bill put in by a group of mostly Republican lawmakers that could have led to a cut in transportation funding. He seems to find something hypocritical in the participation of two  Baltimore County lawmakers -- Republicans William Frank and Joe Boteler -- in pushing this idea even though the Red Line would run part of its length in their county.

Excuse me, Adam. Have you ever checked out a district map of Baltimore  County? Frank represents Towson;  Boteler represents Perry Hall. Neither comes close to the Red Line corridor. Their constituencies don't benefit from the line. They might be wrong-headed on the metropolitan level but there's nothing hypocritical if they are indifferent toward the Red Line. They're just representing their districts and their party.

Folks from Baltimore who write on staewide politics had better learn the differences between Germantown and Takoma Park, becaue Montgomery County isn't a monolith. Montgomery commentators who  wish to dabble in Baltimore politics would be well advised to learn Baltimore County's political  geography.

Finally, Pagnucco seems to find something surprising in the fact that politicians  aren't rushing forward to identify revenue  sources for the state's contribution to transit projects that haven't been OK'd yet  by the Federal Transit Administration. If his naivete is feigned, he's faking it very well, but he's also setting up false expectations for his readers.

Let's say you are a principled but prudent politician who supports transit projects. Because  you're principled, you are ready to step forward to back a funding stream for transit once the projects are approved. But if you're prudent, you wait until the federal government has acted before taking a politically risky stand. Why cross a bridge before you come to it -- particularly when there's a chance you won't come to the  bridge? That not cravenness, that's Politics  101.

There is, by the way, a place in Maryland that offers excellent courses in Politics 101, plus 201, 301 and several graduate level seminars. It's called the  Maryland General  Assembly. Pagnucco would benefit greatly by enrolling.