David Matthews really showed me, didn’t he?

Well, actually no; he didn’t. He didn't show me anything, and that's the problem.

As is the curious habit of the political party he leads, Dave aimed low and missed the target, lifting gracefully ineffectual dust devils while providing discerning readers with all too much of nothing, and insisting all the while that his party's conceptual vacuousness is in fact made of something so vitally important that he continues to decline frequent invitations to concretely define it.

At the conclusion of more than 700 words devoted to stale rhetoric and a bit of deft soft shoe, the veil of secrecy remains firmly draped atop the heroic sandstone statue of Randy Hubbard, uniformed and armed, erected by Republicans as a symbol of “leadership,” but one that is just as uncommunicative as most pigeon-gathering stations in public squares the world over tend to be.

Think: "Schlock of Gibraltar," as scored and staged by your friendly local (dare we say it) Karl Rove wannabeen.

MATTHEWS: Substantive talk is taking place in forums

I would love to respond to Roger Baylor’s recent opinion published in the New Albany Tribune concerning the Randy Hubbard-Doug England race for New Albany mayor.

As a side note, I’m guessing that Dave Matthews was taught the importance of context in attribution, and when he omits it, one can only surmise that he does so intentionally.

Of course, anyone can peruse this blog or any other for ammunition to support or attack almost any position and surely find it, and Dave’s probably correct in assuming that the subtleties of scholarship and erudition aren’t the primary concern of voters that he and the GOP target with their current “platform,” one composed entirely of slimings of Doug England.

Note however that Dave is capable of neat stylistic pirouettes of his own, such as taking NAC’s suggestion that the intelligence of voters is insulted by a candidate who won’t publicly discuss platform planks with his opponent, and flipping it over to accuse us of insulting the intelligence of voters by asking them to consider substance.

Gads ... those poor, incapable voters. Having to think! Quick, Dave -- go fetch a straw man and a few broom handles before a thought breaks out.

Okay, so let's get down to the basics. Noting that NAC’s criticism of Randy Hubbard’s mayoral campaign has focused on one central point, this being Hubbard’s persistent inability or plain unwillingness to offer substantive platform planks and address these planks in a public debate forum with his opponent in such a manner that his recognition of problems and consideration of potential solutions are evident to onlookers, readers are begged to peruse Dave’s Saturday column in an effort to locate any such planks.

In fact, there are none, and the GOP chairman all but concedes that there are not likely to be any indications of his candidate’s grasp of specifics or insights as to a possible governing strategy during what remains of the campaign season.

Looks to me like you don’t have to be a “self-proclaimed Web blog czar” to see that NAC has won that particular argument. In place of substantive discussion, Dave leaves us with this alternative:

I’ll take honesty, integrity and leadership over experience any day.

To each his own.

Last winter, when I was looking for a surgeon to repair my shoulder injury, it seemed a good idea to select one who’d done the operation previously rather than one who hadn’t. The surgeon I found was able to brief me beforehand, explain the problem with my rotator cuff, and describe comprehensively how he was going to approach fixing it.

Was he telling me “what I wanted to hear?" Absolutely, because what I wanted to hear was that he understood my problem and had a plan for resolving it.

Had my surgeon followed the scant outlines of the Randy Hubbard Hands-Off Model of civic management grudgingly handed to us so far by the party chairman (talk about "tinkle-down" effects), I suppose he’d have told me what a great guy he is and then asked me if I had any thoughts as to how he should proceed rebuilding the rotator cuff.

No, thanks. It seems to me that there are times when it’s just a better choice to go with experience and proven skills rather than trust an informal polling of sidewalk superintendents and street corner passers-by.

And that’s why I’ll be voting for Doug England in November, and why this whole artificially inflated "character" discussion reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's response to Ulysses S. Grant's purported drinking problem:

"Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."

By the way, Dave – where’s that Brenda Scharlow yard sign you said you’d get for me? After all, our sitting councilman remains a nonentity and a civic embarrassment ... and I'm a bi-partisan type of guy, at least when my intelligence isn't being insulted by denizens of the exurban veld.