Where does the time go? Another month, another concept-free column from Jim Carignan. His opus of July 31 contained one surprise – the bait-and-switch technique, a favorite of Democratic political hacks everywhere.

The bait: faint praise for the president’s Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. The switch: bashing that old stand-by, Karl Rove. With no rational stance from which to attack Roberts, the professor cleverly set his sights on Rove, like a hyena cutting the weakest animal from the herd.

Having chosen the easiest target, he then abandoned coherent argument by harping on the one point that most Democrats gave up on a few weeks ago: Rove broke the law, his heinous acts rising to treason. The professor even found space for a couple of digs at Vice President Dick Cheney.

Here’s a message for Mr. Carignan and his spiritual advisor, Howard Dean. George W. Bush can’t run again, so you should stop campaigning against him. The Republican Party will field another candidate in 2008 and all your effort will appear silly at best.

This advice will fall on deaf ears, and we’re all in for another three years of this specious nonsense. And I almost forget: More young people by far were turned away from politics by the shenanigans of Bill Clinton than by Karl Rove’s.

Michael LeBlanc, East Wilton