There are not sufficient words to express the disgust that all Bermudians must feel about the bullet that was sent in the mail to Premier Dr. Ewart Brown.

Regardless of who sent it ¿ and theories abound from one extreme to the other ¿ this kind of action has no place in Bermuda politics. It is a national embarrassment.

Nonetheless, it is hard to disagree with lawyer Llewellyn Peniston that the extreme nastiness of this campaign ¿ possibly the worst in living memory ¿ has almost certainly contributed to this.

There are two other major questions abut this case, the first of which is why the incident was made public at all. One would have thought that the normal Police reaction would have been to quietly increase security for both party leaders while doing everything possible behind the scenes to catch the person who made the threat.

By making the threat public, that will only make the person cover their tracks and go to ground, or it will give some other maniac the same idea.

The only conceivable reason for announcing it ¿ given that the media would be of little assistance in solving the case because of the paucity of information provided by the Police — would be because of concerns that the threat would have been made public anyway and that inaccurate and misleading information could have come out.

But it is not unknown for the Police to approach editors and news directors to delay publication concerning sensitive crimes in order to allow them time to conduct their investigation, and this certainly is one. It would have been worth a try.

The second question concerns the presence of Public Safety Minister David Burch at the news conference where the threat was announced. Lt. Col. Burch has made his frustration over not having operational control of the Police all too clear, so one wonders just why a Minister in a holding government was deeply involved in a the operation of a politically sensitive case.

Consciously or not, it is exactly these kinds of actions that are fodder for the over-active minds of conspiracy theorists of all political stripes.

Even so, this newspaper appeals to all Bermudians to join in the condemnation of this heinous act. For the good of the Country, sanity must prevail.

***

Certainly, the "revelations" from former Police Supt. Larry Smith over the weekend concerning the Dunkley's Dairy drugs trial were not designed with sanity in mind.

They were the worst kind of smear, using innuendo and shreds of information taken fully out of context to make the more gullible members of the public believe the worst of Mr. Dunkley.

To his credit, Mr. Dunkley has been clear and forthright in answering the "charges" and has even offered to take a lie-detector test. Further, assisting Police throughout the investigation and giving evidence at the trial of his employees are not the actions of a man with something to hide.

But what is most striking about this episode is the reaction, or lack thereof, of the governing Progressive Labour Party.

This party's leaders could not say enough about the publication of the documents from the Police investigation into the Bermuda Housing Corporation, going, at vast expense to the Privy Council to block further publication on the basis that Police files should remain confidential.

And yet, when a former senior Police officer makes a series of allegations from a Police investigation concerning a public official who was never even investigated, only PLP chairman David Burt spoke out, not to condemn it, but to state that Mr. Dunkley's refutation of the claims was "evidence of a desperate politician who is now visibly in a state of panic".

More extraordinarily, Mr. Burt accused Mr. Dunkley of a "smear" because he connected the video to the PLP. At least the UBP had the conviction to do both concerning the e-mail pictures mocking Dr. Brown earlier this month.

Even yesterday, when Mr. Dunkley called on Dr. Brown to join with him in a pledge to at least run this hitherto miserable campaign clean through December 18, Dr. Brown agreed, but only with conditions that they both condemn the barmy anti-Independence campaign and the picture e-mails, the latter of which have already been repudiated.

Why didn't Dr. Brown include the Larry Smith video, the clearly inaccurate and ridiculous statements by PLP candidates Mark Bean and Lovitta Foggo about the UBP wanting to "lock us all up" return "us to shackles", or the PLP's own foolish attempts to claim the UBP will restore hanging if elected to Government?

This is the worst kind of hypocrisy.