Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, running for re-election on

Attorney General Mary Sue Terry, running for re-election on the same ticket as Lieutenant Governor L. Douglas Wilder, needed less than a week to pronounce her running mate clean of any ethical violations in his failure to list two assets held in trust on his financial disclosure form.

Why did she do that? It bothers me.

Assuming that Mr. Wilder is indeed innocent of any wrongdoing, Ms. Terry is still being assailed by the Republicans, ,who are accusing her of whitewashing the entire episode. She could have avoided that criticism, and robbed the GOP of a potential campaign issue, if she had appointed an independent counsel to look into the matter.

Not only that, she would have emerged on the high side, impervious to allegations of political shenanigans.

Instead, State Sen. Joseph Benedetti, her Republican opponent, has gotten tremendous mileage out of criticisms directed toward her handling of the incident.

Why do they do these things? Do they really think that we, the voters, are that stupid? Did Mr. Coleman really think that no one would uncover the real estate transactions, and then ask him about them? Could Ms. Terry really believe that her handling of the Wilder investigation doesn’t have the appearance of political hanky-panky?

In all these cases, there is no concrete evidence of wrongdoing or malicious intent on the part of anyone involved. But the perception of an ulterior motive is certainly there — and in politics, particularly during an election season, perceptions are often everything.

Don’t these politicians, who aspire to be our leaders, have the most capable and intelligent people they can find to be their advisers? Why do they make these bonehead mistakes?

Could it be that they, and not us, are really that stupid? _

Which raises a final question: If that’s the case, do we want them running our Commonwealth?