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You know, we sympathize with just-resigned Atlantic City Mayor Robert W. Levy's personal health situation and all. The heretofore absent-without-say-so city leader turned up earlier this week after spending the last couple of weeks hiding out at home and at a clinic for substance abuse and depression. If we'd been consulted, we might have recommended a subtler exit strategy from his job—say, an apparently spontaneous trip to visit long-lost relatives in outer Mongolia! Or perhaps a sudden deep and abiding devotion to the melting of the polar ice caps, necessitating an in-person look-see? Hell, if Levy had said he'd taken a day trip to Trenton, everyone would have just assumed he was recovering from gunshot wounds someplace, no big deal.

Regardless, this little spectacle has us thinking once again that we've really got the short-end of the political drama stick over on the other side of the Hudson River here. New Jersey's up one closeted governor, one reckless unbelted governor (no, the two are not related), one runaway fake veteran town mayor, several thousand politicians of different stripes, um, now wearing stripes (we are so sorry), and one attorney general boyfriend-rescuer-in shining-white-official-state-car.

What do we have here in New York? One grandstander, adorable painted cabs and one overcompensating vertically-challenged occasional sexist mayor. Dime a dozen, people. Best idea anyone has to shake up New York City's local political scene? Elect a Major League Baseball coach with a serene personal record to Gracie Mansion Yawn.