Just wait until Lee Hamilton sees the credit card bill.

We should insist that governments receiving American aid live up to standards of accountability and transparency, and we should support countries that embrace market reforms, democracy, and the rule of law.
-- Lee Hamilton

Jeff Gahan's latest mass mailer touts the mayoral candidate's endorsement by much beloved former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton. On the front, there is a Hamilton quote: "Leaders make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

He probably meant to say "TIF bonds make things happen -- things that otherwise would not happen."

The implication is that Hamilton's quote refers to Gahan, but before we come back to that, let's look at an a ready illustration of the way that desperation and circular logic can invade the lives of sycophants, one of whom promptly offered this interpretation:

When Lee Hamilton speaks well of your leadership, you know you've done something right.

Which is to say, if you belong to the same political party as a former congressman and he endorses you, then you're doing something right -- something like belonging to the same political party as a former congressman ... and so on.

My first thought upon glimpsing the mailer was skepticism. Given Team Gahan's ongoing disregard for transparency and intellectual honesty, were Hamilton's actual words of endorsement to be found anywhere in the mailer? Was the quote on the front intended to apply specifically to Gahan?

In fact, Hamilton's letter of endorsement is to be found on Gahan's campaign page at Facebook, because a politician like the incumbent can be relied upon for transparency only when it involves praise and adulation.

Unfortunately, the letter is boilerplate partisanship, with interchangeable bullet points. To reference just one of them, Hamilton praises Gahan for investing "significant sums" into "aging infrastructure, including the Main Street project, "which added needed improvements to New Albany's historic district."

Uh huh.

And the Hamilton quote on the front of the mailer? It isn't to be found in the letter, although reference is made to Gahan's ability to make things "happen," which sounds suspiciously like an advertisement for a credit card.

And it is.