The Obama Bubble

According to some sources, the 1630's gave birth to the first documented economic "bubble", in that case dealing with tulip bulbs. For a while, prices reached astronomical levels as buyers bid up the value of the bulbs.

During the course of this mania, a stranger walked into a town market, saw a flower he thought pretty, and inquired of the seller, "how much for that flower, kind sir"?

"A thousand guilders," came the reply, a amount equal to many months worth of labor for an average working stiff.

The stranger stopped, stared, and his draw dropped. Recovering his composure, he replied loudly, "A thousand guilders for a @#*()&! flower?!? Are you out of your tulip-pickin’ mind?"

All around him, crowds of buyers, vigorously competing for the best specimens, heard his reaction, paused, and considered: "Ya know, the kid’s got a point. Why in the world would ANYONE pay that kind of money for a lousy flower?" As they filed away, sellers scrambled to entice them back, aggressively cutting prices. By the end of the day, bags of bulbs were on sale for 3 guilders at the local Haus Depot.

People ask if the recent economic crisis represents a failure of the marketplace. Absolutely not. Indeed, it represents the market place imposing stiff penalties on people who foolishly overvalued certain assets. Although the government may have helped create the bubble with foolish policies, the market does not long tolerate irrationality. Sooner or later, people come to their senses and, when they do, God help those who bought in late.

Bubbles cannot be prevented, because people are not always rational. We rely upon a jury system because, in the vast number of cases, and over time, juries arrive at better answers than do judges. That is not to say that any particular jury verdict makes sense; we somehow empaneled a jury that acquitted OJ. But one irrational jury verdict does not testify against the entire system. So, too, occasional bubbles – representing, as they do, human fallibility – do not speak to the need for governmental regulation. Indeed, governmental regulation tends to be infinitely more irrational than the market place.

Bubbles result from people expecting great returns for little investment. They develop their own momentum and no force on Earth can prevent people from acting irrationally. During the late 70's, people actually paid $4 for a "pet rock". In the late 90's, they invested billions in companies which never sold a product or turned a profit. Just recently, they went on a home-buying tear. In each case, those who believed they would never get burned took a beating.

Bubbles grow of their own accord. When people start acting irrationally, bubbles feed upon themselves, growing progressively larger, against all logic. Trying to persuade folks of the folly of their actions meets with no result: they move, herd-like, impelled by an irrational exuberance, contrary to their own interests and without rational thought. Inevitably, though, someone eventually walks into the market place, reveals the emperor to be naked, and the bubble bursts, leaving those who participated feeling foolish.

Although the housing bubble is now history, there remains on bubble very much alive: the Obama bubble.

Against all logic, it appears that the electorate will shortly coronate the least qualified man ever to assume the presidency. Seduced by a media swoon, hypnotized by the utterly meaningless mantras of "hope" and "change" (Obama might as well have stood before the crowd chanting "Om" for all the specifics he provides), the people seem poised to elect a hard-core dedicated leftist, absolutely intent of wrecking the foundation of a free society: economic liberty. Blinded by the bubble mentality, they repose their hopes in "hope" (or, more accurately, "hype"), flocking, sheep-like, toward the comforting fold. Even conservatives, who should know better, endorse The One on the grounds that he’s too bright to actually believe all the democratic socialist claptrap he spouts on the campaign trail. (The gullibility of these folks probably amused Obama to no end.)

Like all bubbles, this one abides only the arrival of the well-grounded stranger to pop it. But, alas, it seems that John McCain cannot find the voice to make the people listen. He sounds akin to Bob Dole’s plaintive, exasperated lament, "where’s the outrage"?

But burst this bubble eventually will, perhaps when the people realize that the promised tax relief never materializes. Perhaps when they see trillion dollar deficits. Perhaps when he appoints Cynthia McKinney or Catharine MacKinnon to the United States Supreme Court. Perhaps when he piously intones that "spreading the wealth" means that everyone with a job needs to pay more to permit the colossal expansion of government he envisions. While the media will remain in the tank, the people will, with some luck, realize precisely the same buyers’ remorse from which they suffered when they fell for the last glib huckster, Bill Clinton. Reaction to his overreach produced the GOP landslide in 1994, and, unlike Clinton, Obama’s a true believing, non-triangulating leftist. Although Obama is not an idiot, there is simply no way to do the kind of things he wishes to do without massive harm to the economy. Even if he’s fortunate enough to inherit an improving economy, as did Clinton, his tax proposals make Clinton’s look puny by comparison. His policies are patently and obviously inconsistent with prosperity.

Of course, socialist policies, while they destroy economies, also produce dedicated constituencies, like public employee unions. Destroying an economy does not necessarily get one evicted from office; witness the Democrats in NJ, who have waged relentless war on prosperity, and stand poised on the brink of victory. Obama’s non-bubble supporters – hard-core "progressives" ideologically opposed to freedom – will continue to support him through thick and thin. The media (the membership of which is almost exclusively composed of the ideological opponents of freedom) will remain his lap dog. But, perhaps, the bubble will burst when the people actually realize that this guy means all the anti-freedom things he says.

Miscellany. Reviewing global warming thoughts, it appears that the paper industry ranks among the worst environmental offenders in terms of energy intensity. A partial solution suggests itself. The New York Times should immediately cease publication, its product apparently being as toxic to the environment as its opinions are to politics. It simply won’t do for one of the loudest advocates for restrictive environmental controls to rank among the worst environmental malefactors.

Or, perhaps, The Times would support a huge paper tax rather than (or in addition to) a huge gas tax, thereby ensuring that its readership bears the full consequences of its environmental crimes.

Whitman the Maverick?

John Farmer, Jr., pens an interesting piece in today’s Ledger defending his erstwhile boss, Christie Todd Whitman. Farmer remains loyal to his captain, and some of the points he raises ring true.

During the primary season, I noted, of Rudy Guiliani, that anyone The New York Times hated so passinately could not be all bad. Similarly, anyone the left reviles as much as it purports to detest Christie Whitman merits a least a civil hearing.

Farmer describes our former Governor as a "true maverick", unbeholden to the extremes of either party. But that description also fits someone lacking any guiding principles whatsoever. Liberals, like Jon Corzine, embrace a vision of New Jersey in which a huge, all encompassing-government, provides "affordable", "universal", everything, at (massive) taxpayer expense. Conservatives, contrariwise, envision a low tax, small government utopia, with few guarantees and universal opportunity. Query: to what vision of a good society does a "maverick", a "moderate", adhere?

While positively frugal by today’s standards, Whitman’s budgets were nonetheless bloated, laden with borrowing, pork, and gimmicks. Her legacy includes the insane pension bond, absurd school bonds, and the use of borrowed money for operating expenses. She genuflected to the Politically Correct politics of identity, which her silly "many faces, one family" slogan. She proposed preservation of 1,000,000 acres of open space – which might have obviated passage of the egregious Highlands Act – but never followed through with a stable and reliable source of funding, beyond borrowing.

Indeed, that lack of follow through characterized her administration, which seemed to drift, rudderless, from one year to the next, completely directionless. Only comparison to what came before, and the unmitigated disaster which followed, does Whitman look good by comparison.

But ... There’s always a huge "but" when one talks about Governor Whitman.

I served from 1996 though her departure in 2001. During the better part of three terms, I never once heard the dulcet tones of her voice on the telephone. She made essentially no effort to reach out to conservatives, to find common ground and work for a better New Jersey. Once, to much fanfare, she held a press conference supporting constitutional limitations on taxation, her passion for which failed to survive that press conference. That represented about the extent of her genuflection to conservative ideas.

Perhaps self-proclaimed "moderates" always lack "the vision thing", as another notorious "moderate" put it. If Whitman had a vision for the state, she kept it a well-guarded secret. Her Administration muddled through, holding place, without effecting any kind of substantive reforms. While cutting taxes, she failed to slay the spending dragons, setting the stage for the McGreevey-Corzine disasters which followed. Apparently, she actually believed in Mt. Laurel and Abbott; certainly, she made absolutely no effort to reform them. In short, on most things, she left the state pretty much as she had found it. While that's not horrible -- would that McGreevey, Codey, and Corzine had done the same -- it's hardly a cause for celebration.

But perhaps Whitman’s most enduring legacy is also the most pernicious: truly horrible judicial appointments, the epitome of which was Deborah Poritz. It took considerable effort to find someone worse that Robert Wilentz, but Whitman succeeded. Poritz lacked even the vaguest conception of the appropriate role of the judiciary. And, in her one "political" act – choosing the redistricting tie-breaker – she selected a man so outrageously bad that choosing Joe Roberts would have been preferable. Just this one inexcusable judicial selection totally overshadows the balance of Whitman’s otherwise undistinguished term. Truly, liberals can look back at Whitman’s term with no complaints; none of their policies took a real hit. Leaving aside abortion, Whitman well-earned lasting conservative antipathy for preserving what Farmer calls the New Jersey Supreme Court’s "progressive tradition" – that is to say, a tradition of acting like a legislature.

A great Governor leaves an enduring legacy. Whitman’s only substantive achievement – her tax cuts – failed even to survive DiFrancesco’s term, and were utterly obliterated by McGreevey. She left the state deep in debt (albeit nothing compared to what her successors have foisted upon the long-suffering taxpayers) and, thanks to Poritz, with (unconstitutional) districts that Republicans will almost certainly never win. To what accomplishment of her Administration can a State resident point with pride and say, "we owe that to Governor Whitman"? At best, she represented a pause between two profoundly destructive Democratic hurricanes.

It’s not a question, as Farmer opines, of being "in no one’s camp". If Whitman had offered some compelling vision, some guiding philosophy, some direction, she could have made her own "camp". But fits and starts, directionless advances and disorganized retreats defined her term; she utterly lacked any sense of how to make the state better, and how to turn that vision into reality. Never once did she look ten years hence and offer, "this is what I see for New Jersey, and this is how I think we ought to get there." About the best that can be said for her Administration is that, aside from Poritz and the courts, it did no lasting harm.

A conservative, handed the sort of legislative majority Whitman allegedly led, would have made Mt. Laurel and Abbott unhappy memories; enacted constitutional provisions to prevent most tax increases; brought public employee unions to heel; reined in an arrogant, extremist Court; gotten the state out of the ethnic-nose-counting business; pursued greater educational choice; etc. Under McGreevey-Codey-Corzine, we see the profound destruction liberals wreak when handed legislative majorities. Whitman, exercising what Farmer calls "independent judgment", poised neatly between the "extremes", straddling the perceived "center", decided to do, essentially, nothing.

And that’s nothing to brag about. Great leadership requires one to choose a course based upon thorough analysis, then motivate people to make that course a reality. Drifting with the tide hardly constitutes the hallmark of the sort of great leader required in uncertain times.

Hence, while Farmer gets high marks for his continued loyalty, his assertion that Whitman exercised much in the way of "independent judgment" is simply unsuppported by the facts. She exercised little leadership and the state suffered from the incoherence of her Administration. She paved the way -- and, therefore, shoulders some of the blame -- for the utter disaster which followed.

A Buckley on Obama

Kathleen Parker and Chris Buckley lately find themselves engaged in a mutual pity-party, penning several "poor me" columns, lamenting their treatment at the hands of their former allies. Their offenses? Parker dissed Sarah Palin and Bukley endorsed Obama. Each then became the target of substantial conservative and Republican (the two not necessarily synonymous) vitriol.

Which is unfortunate. Conservatives should leave the hate and scatology to Moveon and Daily Kos, neither of which is housebroken or suitable for polite company. Even vehement disagreement should be expressed respectfully.

I give Parker a bye, even though I disagree with her. Even a conservative columnist labors under no obligation to toe the party line. She’s entitled to her view and to express it. Even when wrong.

Buckley, on the other hand, deserves a spanking. While conservatives might properly object to McCain, no conservative, while retaining any intellectual honesty, can support Obama.

A conservative from New Jersey enjoys numerous opportunities to dissent from the positions espoused by Republican candidates. Our last two Republican governors spent, seemingly, more time distancing themselves from conservatives than correcting the obvious failings of leftist Democrats. NJ’s dubious distinction as the most expensive, least business friendly, highest taxed cobalt purgatory in the country owes its genesis, in no small measure, to the efforts of these two erstwhile Chief Executives, who, when not actively supporting Democratic initiatives, clearly enabled them.

As a Republican official or legislator, I felt obliged to hold my tongue – mostly. Party loyalty means something. Sometimes. As bad as Kean and Whitman were, Florio, Shapiro, and McGreevey were clearly worse. Similarly, no conservative should have many nice things to say about George Bush. His first six years in office were spending nightmares. But, again, when compared with Gore or Kerry ...

A conservative columnist enjoys the freedom from Party discipline to express his views of the Republican candidate candidly. It would be arguably proper to conclude, as Buckley does, that John McCain strayed too far from the true path of conservatism to support. But endorsing Obama? Assertedly from the right?

After admitting that Obama is "a lefty", Buckley praises him for being an intellectual, a good writer, and a Harvard man. Just after agreeing with the sentiment that "a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away", Buckley opines:

"But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
"Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy "We are the people we have been waiting for" silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for."

That’s a mighty thin reed upon which to base an endorsement.

In short, Buckley endorses Obama because Obama’s too bright to actually believe all the things he’s been saying throughout the course of his campaign – and, indeed, his entire life. Obama expressly promises massive tax increases and protectionism, while becoming a veritable vacuum of special interest money from trial lawyers, labor bosses, etc. Nonetheless, Buckley looks into Obama’s soul and concludes that we can’t take his rhetoric or record seriously. He avers that Obama, as President, will forthwith abandon the promises and people who put him into office, because he will conclude that they’re silly. Otherwise, he will "reap a whirlwind".

Whether this represents Buckley's cynicism respecting the veracity of politicians, or a sort of wishful thinking, I would prefer not to be around when Obama reaps that particular whirlwind, as self-created economic tornadoes tend to inflict considerable collateral damage. Liberal idiocy – "rolling the dice" – on Fannie and Freddie, all in the name of "affordable housing", produced a worldwide economic catastrophe. The architects of that disaster are, mostly, completely unrepentant. They learned nothing. Obama shows absolutely no signs of deviation from leftist-socialist orthodoxy. If he refused to "move to the center" during a campaign, what would possess him to do so once elected?

Buckley’s a humorist by trade. Perhaps this represents nothing more than a somewhat early April Fool’s joke, or a clever Swiftian satire. But there would be nothing the least bit funny about an Obama presidency. The harm he could wreak – simply with his judicial appointments – is truly frightening. No conservative could even entertain the thought of supporting him, even if he cannot find it within his conscience to support McCain.

Somehow, Buckley seems to have breezed through Obama’s writings and speeches and concluded that the man is too smart to be taken at his word. That’s not only profoundly dangerous, it’s downright insulting to Obama. Buckley supports him expressly because he, Buckley, believes that Obama, upon taking the oath of office, will promptly repudiate his every public utterance and promise.

This "historic moment" calls for a return to conservative principles of small government, low taxes, and personal freedom. One might conclude that McCain is not all the moment requires, but Obama represents the antithesis. He unequivocally supports higher taxes, huge government, and the diminution of freedom which that inevitably entails.

Buckley enjoys the right to his opinion, but support for Obama cannot be clothed in conservative garb. He can turn in his credentials at the desk.

WSJ Follies

Generally, one turns to The Wall Street Journal for learned insight on matters economic and financial. Most often, one comes away from the columns better informed.

And then one encounters Thomas Frank.

Honest leftists -- such as there are -- might be fundamentally wrong, but they’re honest. Demagogues anger me.

Political leftism represents more of a religion than politics. Its adherents passionately believe in its nostrums as a matter of received wisdom, and no amount of factual refutation suffices to overcome their faith. Listening to a leftist explain the present economic "crisis" leaves one bewildered: did we just enter a Lewis Carroll world in which words have no meaning? Or a Soviet system in which history gets a makeover to match today’s Party Line?

So, while Fannie and Freddie, which, Frank admits (in a refreshing burst of candor) enabled the crisis (one abides his call for their abolition), the real fault lies with the "largely unregulated" mortgage industry, the operators of which wanted to "make a buck". First, in what world does he live, that the mortgage industry is "largely unregulated"? And, second , what would make a normally prudent lender, solicitous of its bottom line, offer money to people (including, apparently millions of illegal aliens), with problematic credit?

Answer: liberal government mandates and liberal-governmentally created moral hazards.

As has been repeatedly shown, lenders who insisted that their mortgagors meet traditional lending standards repeatedly ran afoul of Clinton-era government regulations. Indeed, the whole point of many of these regulations was to compel lenders to provide money to bad risks, all in the name of "affordable housing". Frank entitles one of his recent columns "blaming the victims", asserting that conservatives blame people for taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford.

Not hardly. Everyone behaved perfectly rationally.

Except government. Liberal government.

Why shouldn’t relatively poor folks take out mortgages? In an up market, they could always sell – at a profit – if they got behind. And, in a down market, they could simply walk away (as they have). What was their risk? Often, they put up no money of their own; everything was financed. If they lost the house after a few years, they occupied no worse a position than if they had simply paid rent.

And why shouldn’t the lenders lend, when Fannie and Freddie socialized the risk? Make a loan, earn a bunch of fees, and sell the paper to the GSEs. What’s not to love, from the perspective of a lender? No risk!! (Frank possesses an annoying talent for making the pursuit of profit sound downright unsanitary.)

Is there a bunch of private sector blame to go along? OF COURSE!! Who denies that? People got caught up in a bubble mentality. It happens. If Frank knows a way to prevent occasional irrationality, he’s keeping that information to himself. Like most leftists, while he blames "deregulation" for the losses, he’s keeping the identity of the repealed regulations a closely guarded secret. Put simply, what regulations did "conservatives" eliminate, over liberal objections, which might have prevented the problem? Indeed, regulations which might have prevented the problem – directed at Fannie and Freddie and supported by conservatives – faced massive leftist opposition. Their "affordable housing" mission was simply to important to permit something as trivial as traditional standards to stand in the way. To reiterate the quote from Barney Frank, he urged "rolling the dice" on the GSE’s. We did; and the taxpayers lost, big time.

And where, pray tell, is this "conservative", anti-government ethos in the present Administration? George Bush, the "compassionate conservative", who signed every single spending bill in his first six years in office; who joined with Ted Kennedy on No Child Left Behind; who created the largest entitlement program since the Great Society; a "conservative"? Puh-leeze. Even his foreign policy goes by the name "liberal internationalism".

Frank lists the usual liberal suspects: "tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing federal work ..." Hmm. Tax cuts caused this economic downturn ... how? What regulations were repealed which would have prevented it? Privatization had ... what to do with it? Frank doesn’t bother to offer evidence; true believes don’t need evidence. That’s what faith is for.

Lawyers have an expression, "proximate cause", which means that occurrence, but for which a particular event would not have happened. In the case of the present economic disaster, the "proximate cause" was liberal government’s insistence upon lending to unreliable folks and the willingness of liberal governmental agencies to purchase those loans. But for those regulations and that willingness, none of the present unpleasantness would have occurred.

Frank’s correct that government misrule caused this problem, but it was liberal policies, "rolling the dice" with the taxpayers’ money, all in service to the leftist goal of "affordable housing", and not "conservative deregulation" which sparked the catastrophe.

Alas, it looks as if Obama may profit electorally from the present disaster; demagogues and socialists often do, as fear produces irrationality in voters. It’s possible that, Clinton-like, he could inherit an improving economy and, without the slightest personal responsibility, reap the credit (despite how infuritating that would be, one certainly hopes so). Then again, it’s also possible that, Roosevelt-like, he could inherit a terrible economy (caused by high taxes and protectionism), and, through inane tax, spend, borrow, and protectionist policies, make that economic malaise permanent. Perhaps, unlike 1936, the people would see through all the false "hope". It’s possible that, somewhere, there’s a Ronald Reagan waiting to replace this latest incarnation of Jimmy Carter. Maybe some of those folks wearing "yes we can" stickers will, by that time, appreciate that the difference between "Hope" and "Hype" is but a single letter.

Democrat "Competence" in Morris Township

Morris Township voters, evaluating the candidates for Township Committee, might well consider the recent correspondence sent by one of the Democratic candidates to his Republican adversary. I apologize in advance for language herein employed, but to censor the missive would seriously dilute its impact.

"Its (sic) just stupid to say that the current financial crisis is the fault of President Clinton. Your party leadership is corrupt, shuns intellectualism, can not (sic) govern and is completely incapable of any meaningful self reflection, which is the truest sign of incompetence. The nomination of Sarah Palin is a disgrace of epic proportions.

"On a more personal note, I was hopeful after we had lunch a few weeks ago that the foolishness from your campaign would end. Two days later you posted a letter from Michael Carroll on your web site. Carroll, a man I have never met, said among other things that if elected the first thing I will do is to betray the taxpayers and that I see government as a chance to do well personally while allegedly doing good. My understanding is that you followed up that letter with robo calls to your supporters repeating its contents and asking them to go to your web site to read it.

"Mr. Carroll is of course a piece of shit. He is also a hypocrite. You see, he is an attorney that holds himself out as having an office in my building. He does not actually have an office here, this is just where he receives his mail. I do get to see his mail. It appears his two larger clients are the municipalities of Montville and Mount Olive. That would make Mr. Carroll a republican (sic) elected official who also operates as an attorney receiving work from republican(sic) dominated municipalities.

"In other words, he would be guilty of the exact thing that he rails against in his slanderous letter.

"As for you, I was very clear in telling you that if you continued your negative campaign of lies and bullshit I would take it personally. I do take it that way. Do not confuse my public courteous interaction with you as friendship."

Wow. And this represents the best that the Democrats have to offer?

Leaving the "colorful" language aside, first, consider the chutzpah required for a New Jersey Democrat to raise the corruption issue. How many Democratic legislators have been (figuratively) frog-marched out of the chambers in handcuffs? Given the pending trial of yet another in a long line of former Democratic office holders on corruption charges, and the revelation of a massive, taxpayer-funded slush fund run by powerful Democrats, a NJ Democrat who pursues the corruption angle treads very dangerous ground.

Second, given the massive governmental and fiscal malpractice committed by Democrats in this State over the past seven years, aspersions cast against Republican "competence" are laughable. Under the Democrats, New Jersey residents, for the third year in a row, groan under the highest taxes in the nation. Under the Democrats, our once-illustrious state just finished dead last for business climate. Under the Democrats, taxes have been increased more than five-score times; spending is up something like 40%, and we struggle under a massive pile of Democrat-created debt and unfunded liabilities. Under the "competent" Democrats, the State invested hundreds of millions of pension dollars in Lehman, just before it went bankrupt.

Nationally, the current crisis owes its genesis to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and "community reinvestment" banking rules – Democratic creations expressly designed to increase "affordable housing" by lending to people with problematic credit. They were the darlings of Democrats Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters, Chuck Schumer, and Barney Frank, who, confronted with Republican demands for stricter regulation, famously said that we should "roll the dice" on their solvency rather than undercut their "affordable housing" mission. That gamble came up snake-eyes and the taxpayers lost, to the tune of several TRILLION dollars.

Are the Democrat architects of this disaster the least bit contrite? Don’t be silly. San Francisco Democrat Pelosi had the nerve to blame Republicans. Frank remains unchastened. And after costing the taxpayers trillions, these Democratic creations remain substantially unreformed.

Competence? If the Democrats’ performance exemplifies their idea of "competence", when one of them accuses Republicans of failing to follow suit, such constitutes high praise indeed.

Indeed, one might empirically compare Republican administered towns with their local Democratic counterparts, and draw one’s own conclusions respecting governmental competence. Democratic Morristown v. Republican Morris Township? No contest; case closed.

More fundamentally, it troubles me deeply that a candidate in a political campaign cannot take political criticism without resorting to scatological invective. Then again, when one visits the Morris Township Democratic Committee website, and a clicks on "issues", it produces a blank page. Obviously, lacking anything substantive to talk about, the Democrats resort to potty mouth.

And on a more personal level, I find it most interesting that the candidate – an attorney – apparently has nothing better to do than rummage through my mail. Here I was thinking that attorneys are supposed to keep their cotton-pickin’ hands off other people’s mail. If that’s not downright unethical, it’s certainly obnoxious. (Not that I care overmuch, of course. It just demonstrates the level to which Democrats are willing to stoop.)

(It’s no secret I represent two local land use boards (positions I held well before my election to office, to the extent that matters). And if my billing practices approached those of Democratic firms, and if I then donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates, I’d be a local issue, too. And justifiably so.)

This "intellectual", "self-reflective", temperate missive from the local Democrat candidate came in response to a letter I wrote contending that when Democrats control a town, they immediately hire a crony Democratic law firm to represent the municipality, at great expense to the taxpayer, and that firm then shovels huge amounts of money into Democratic campaigns. Far from being "slanderous" (the letter, incidentally, never mentioned anyone’s name), these assertions are undeniably true. For an "intellectual" and an attorney, this candidate displays an astonishing lack of care in the use of language. Printable language, anyway.

This, alas, represents the state of the Moveon, DailyKos school of leftist politics and language: one’s political adversaries are not merely mistaken, they’re evil, entitled to no civility, warranting no courtesy, their ideas dismissed with a barnyard epithet. The electorate certainly deserves better.

Confronted by a Democratic candidate, whose level of "intellectual" political discourse would be inappropriate in a locker room, Morris Township voters should seek a candidate with a less colorful vocabulary, a better sense of decorum, and more substantive ideas, to represent them. As it happens, the local Republicans found two: Dan Caffrey and Ray Snyder.