Officer Mire: This is just to say that some of us actually admire and approve of certain hallmarks of Massachusetts and other, to paraphrase your eloquent description, “commie pinko” states: a decently non-neoconservative voting record, no death penalty, the only digestible first step (however tenuous) in the rocky road to equal rights regardless of sexual preference, not to mention the birthplace of such gleaming flagships as Dunkin’ Donuts or Steel Rail brew.

That said, it would, of course, be offensive to argue that we haven’t still got a long way to go. Witness recent vote-scrounging platform bows to such pseudo-morality-infused ideas as life-at-conception or the supposed ultimate correctness of a yes-vote in the congressional decision authorizing a maliciously (and conveniently) narrow-minded president to go to war at will. Thus, if you must climb on board a cheap, blustering tarnish-train (and, after all these years, I’m sure it’s hard for you to resist) could you please, at the very least, endeavor to be slightly less clichéd in your “left” bashing?

Indeed, what did the northeast in general, and Massachusetts in particular, ever do to you anyway (aside from thoroughly neutralize your ability to come up with fresh and carefully chosen adjectives: yes, apparently no region is immune) to provoke such knee-jerk resentment and turn their names into unquestionable insults? Do you honestly believe that Fox News, say, is any better? If so, I have eight words of imperative advice: “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell.

[Speaking of Fox, Bill O’Reilly’s telling the professor and renowned author of numerous internationally translated textbooks Paul Krugman to “do your own research, pal” on CNBC recently was the height of rational argument and professional decorum.]