Your House figures turned out to be pretty low, too!

You need to explain yourself, young man!

Look, I have tried to apologize twice now and it was hardly the most clever or hilarious statement ever made. Nonetheless, is it all possible that you are taking a tad too seriously?

Indeed, having been to your site I note quite a bit of political humor, much of which might offend someone, and not all of which is necessarily bold and original. Given that I don’t get the defensiveness.

Again: I am sorry I made a pedestrian dig at NJ.

I got to your posting via a link from a site that I respect. Well, everyone makes mistakes.

We are talking past one another.

Again: I apologize to you for insulting your (?) state. My goal was not to upset anyone. I can see why someone might take offense. I still consider it to be a joke, but c’est la vie.

At its most fundamental level, I do stand by the point I was trying to make in my original response to your original comment–that there is a basis for making the joke, even if one doesn’t like it.

I can see that you don’t get the point. It doesn’t seem terribly complex to me.

Thanks for the post. As I noted in the my original response to you, I acknowledged that there isn’t a mountain of evidence against Menendez, but that there was plenty to make political hay out of, which is what Kean has done.

Overall, however, you come across as unnecessarily defensive.

If you find my dig at NJ to be that big of a deal, I apologize.

The point of my reference to corruption indictments and to the Menendez stories (as well as Toricelli and McGreevy) was to point out that I was hardly pulling the notion out of the air.

I would note that I am hardly the first person to ever suggest in jest that there are corrupt politicians in NJ.

I do not claim to be a stand-up comedian, but my point about the humor issue is that the entire tone of the post is one of levity and semi-tongue-in-cheek. As such, I think you are taking the particular line too seriously.

I just don’t get the point of the offense or the defensive reaction.

With respect to your arguments, they are very flimsy.

Indicting lots of politicians for corruption indicates to me a low tolerance for corruption, not a fondness for them.

McGreevey resigned one jump ahead of being caught up for his corruption. I have no evidence to cite, but the sense I had was that he resigned rather than accept the indictment that he deserved. Again, does that indicate a fondness for corruption? If people don’t know someone is corrupt, how can you claim voting for them is a sign of affection for corrupt politicians? Once exposed, corrupt New Jersey politicians don’t stick around long. Torricelli actually supports what I am saying in that he had to step down during his re-election campaign because of allegations of corruption. Again, once exposed, they leave. How long did Bob Taft remain governor of Ohio after his corruption was revealed?

Regarding Menendez, your support rests on two stories that you probably dragged up via “the google” when you saw my comments. You might have done further research to see that both of those stories are flimsy support for arguing that Menendez is corrupt.

The first Inquirer article contains no evidence of any wrong-doing by Menendez. It says that somebody claimed to be operating on Menendez’s behalf. While there was a relationship between Menendez and Scarcini, there is nothing beyond that one name-dropping episode to support the claim that Menendez had anything to do with Scarcini’s attempt to pressure Sandoval into hiring someone. Does that merit calling Menendez corrupt?

Regarding your second citation, you might look a bit deeper into the facts. Menendez was one of the owners of a property that was rented to a non-profit organization. Menendez supported the non-profit’s application grant, according to the article. Here are a few things the article doesn’t mention. The owners (including Menendez) rented the property at less than market value. Menendez approached Ellen Weintraub, the attorney for the House Ethics Commitee (Menendez was in the House at the time) and asked her if there would be any conflict if he were to rent the property to the non-profit organization and Weintraub told him that there was no conflict (the article does mention the clearance from the HEC, but without the detail as to who he approached…it also leaves out the fact that the HEC clearance was cited in a newspaper story around the same time that the events transpired). The article that you cited does, towards the end, give Menendez’s side of things and there has been nothing since that August 27 article to contradict Menendez’s version of things. That story remains a campaign canard. It does not prove in any way that Menendez is corrupt; it hints at corruption and, if one didn’t bother to learn the facts, might make one think he is corrupt. You don’t have a real basis for calling Menendez corrupt unless you ignore half the arguments. I don’t regard that as intellectually honest.

Anyway, thanks for trying. Sorry for my failure to appreciate what a funny guy you are. I’m sure you’re a real hoot.

For the House, on the other hand, the same method shows some Republican recovery in the last several days, albeit with a slowing of any possible momentum here at the very end.