It’s not that I have a horse in this race, or that I am personally charged with discrediting scoundrels across the land, but this just plain old offends me.  What, you ask?  The final round to advertisements by my good ol’ friend, Jon Budelmann. 

It seems that Budelmann was feeling some heat for his acting like human garbage (Am I being harsh? Yes. Upon reflection, this was too harsh) inappropriately, so he put out two new commercials to leave nothing to doubt.  They can be found  here and here.

               His opponent, when working as a criminal defense attorney, tried “every trick in the book.”

That, voters of Cayuga County, is because he’s a criminal defense attorney, one step below the devil.  Evil lawyer.  Evil. 

This crap was tried in the last Binghamton, NY mayoral race, but the residents of the metropolis smacked the jerk silly for trying to smear a candidate because he served as a criminal defense attorney.  But will it work in Auburn?

Well, according the very conservative Auburn Citizen, usually addressing the vital concerns of sidewalk cracks and stray cows:

We must admit to being disappointed in Bass’ attempts to create scandal where there is none.

We agree Budelmann should not have run an advertisement in which a crime victim, John Turner (who works as an independent contractor for this newspaper), thanks Budelmann for putting his attacker away and points out that Bass represented the attacker.

But no reasonable person can watch this advertisement and conclude that Budelmann believes some defendants shouldn’t have a right to counsel, as Bass has tried to suggest.

That wasn’t what Bass tried to suggest.  He tried to suggest that Budelmann’s ad was an overt effort to paint criminal defenders as the facilitators of perpetrators of heinous crime.  So is the Citizen saying that although Budelmann was wrong, they’re disappointed in Bass?  Well, yeah, that’s exactly what it says, provided you don’t get caught somewhere in the middle of the logical gap.  Sheesh, if it doesn’t involve a cow, the Auburn Citizen is over its head.

Let this be as stated as clearly as possible.  Criminal defense attorneys are a necessary and important part of the criminal justice system.  They serve the public interest as much as any prosecutor.  Good, ethical prosecutors know this.  Budelmann and his ilk can bite me.   Now it’s up to the good people of Cayuga County to decide whether they are as stupid as Budelmann treats them.