The 11/27/02, the Newark Star Ledger reported that New Jersey’s Democrat Governor James E. McGreevey spent in excess of $105,000 for a “trade mission” visit to Ireland, when he had originally estimated the cost of the trip to be approximately $20,000. The cell phone bill alone was $16,448. Add to that the $22,000 spent on being chauffeured about in a Mercedes, the $760 per night stays in luxury suites, and a family reunion for a dozen of the Gov’s Irish relatives (steak, Guinness and songs), and it is easy to see why the trip was so pricey. Faced with these numbers a spokesperson from the Gov’s office had the moxie to say, “Every effort was made to keeps costs at a bare minimum.”

Later in the day, the Gov denied that he intended to spend the taxpayers’ money and that always intended that the Democrat party would foot most of the bill. He expects the citizens of New Jersey to buy that, even though he fought for three months to keep the records of the trip secret. Sadly, however, he is quite right. After all, we are the John Corzine-Money-Talks State, the Torricelli State, and the State that invented the political trick of parachuting a substitute candidate into an election at the last minute, when the original candidate is tanking in the polls.

Don’t blame me. I voted for all the other guys.