Memo to SWNIDish Self: Vote for Anyone But Leis

We are late in blogging this, but we can't let it go.

Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis, once the champion of moral values in his headline-grabbing obscenity prosecution of the Robert Maplethorpe exhibit, has decided to sell his soul for a new jail.

Actually, not even a new jail, just for some of the dough to run it.

Leis stood Monday with the feckless advocates of a ballot initiative to bring a casino to Cincinnati's Broadway Commons. WXIX quotes the flip-flopping lawman:

I've been informed that commissioners will announce a funding mechanism for building a new jail within a few weeks. However, operating a large jail costs money and taxes from the casino could help offset that cost.

Or how about crack house, Si? Or a bordello? It would be too honest just to tax people for the money, or to redirect available funds from less important programs, wouldn't it?

By contrast we offer SWNIDish kudos to Phil Heimlich, whose chronic lack of cooperation with other officials makes him not always our favorite local politician, for this remark:

I remember they said if we just pass a state lottery that would take care of our education expenses once and for all. We know what happened there.

Got that right. A teacher spends a whole day teaching children basic skills, reminding them that they need to work hard all their lives using these skills so that they can have money to care for themselves and their families. Then the child goes home, turns on the TV, and is told that the key to wealth and happiness is a $2 scratch-off card sold at the convenience store for the benefit of the state coffers. No child left behind, indeed!

Our experience, sheltered as it has been, is nevertheless littered with the remains of lives destroyed by compulsive gambling. We adamantly refuse to have some spineless politicians refuse to tax us directly for what we need and instead tax the compulsions of gambling addicts and their math-challenged kin, the recreational gambler. If it's our jail, we want to pay for it.

Back to Si. He has the reputation for being Super-Sheriff. But is it deserved? For years we've seen his parade of assault vehicles, all adorned with his large-lettered name, at Cheviot's Harvest Home Fair. But it's time voters asked whether after all these years it's time to elect someone with fresh eyes. And, it would seem, some coherent moral standards.