Jean Marbella

Mayor Sheila Dixon normally would be proudly front and center Saturday, welcoming President-elect Barack Obama to town when he stops by on his way to Washington for his inauguration next week. But coming as it does a week after she was indicted on theft, misconduct-in-office and other criminal charges, the Baltimore stop now is fraught with intrigue.

Does Dixon, an early supporter of Obama, stand with him before the cheering crowd and the many cameras expected at War Memorial Plaza on Saturday? Or does she find a way to be suddenly indisposed – it is cold and flu season, after all – and spare the president-elect from being photographed with her, an image that would quickly make its way to the sneering likes of the Drudge Report and its ilk?

Dixon seemed subdued and even a little sad when the subject came up at a news conference at City Hall yesterday, perhaps already resigned to a less-than-starring role in preinaugural hoopla. It’s sort of a shame, when you think about it, given that the first African-American to become president and the first woman of any race to serve as Baltimore mayor hold overlapping pieces of this majority-black city’s heart.

What a picture for Dixon’s glory wall, the two of them, beaming before a crowd of equally delighted Baltimoreans, the dome of City Hall glowing in the background. But now, even City Hall itself must be erased from the picture, to keep whatever political cooties may be coursing through there from infecting Obama – instead, plans call for him to be positioned with the War Memorial Building rather than City Hall behind him.