*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Desi Deschaine, 29, a fixture in local politicking over the last decade and recently a staff member for Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, has died after drowning in Baltimore.

Jeff Coudriet, a top Evans deputy, says that Deschaine had gone on a Chesapeake Bay boat trip Sunday with a man he'd been dating. The boat had returned to Baltimore's Inner Harbor Sunday night when Deschaine left the boat at about 10:30 p.m. He was not seen or heard from again. "In the morning Monday is when we found he was missing. He obviously didn't turn up at work," Coudriet says.

Baltimore police recovered a body from the harbor this morning, a department spokesperson says, and Coudriet says a positive identification has been made. Deschaine's parents arrived in Baltimore late last night.

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Earlier today, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty engaged in a Q&A at Nathans restaurant; there, owner Carol Joynt asked him about his controversial recent travel to the United Arab Emirates.

He roundly defended the trip, calling the criticism he received the same-old, same-old: “I think you expect on every given day on every given issue that people will challenge you," he said.

While abroad, Fenty inserted himself into an international incident by attending a tennis tournament to which an Israeli player had been denied entrance; he later explained that away by noting that the tournament later agreed to allow another Israeli participate, making it, in Fenty's mind, A-OK for him to attend.

LL, for the most part, is willing to set aside the thorny issue of the tennis tournament. For one thing, WaPo's Marc Fisher was also there this afternoon, asking Fenty questions on tournament, so I'll leave him to weigh in on that aspect. But there's other extremely troubling facts about the trip that Fenty refuses to confront: the secrecy and the money.

Allow LL to lay out exactly, Mr. Mayor, what's wrong here.

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