THE LEFT'S attempt to portray U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley as a radical right-winger intent on raping the environment to line his own pockets is so laughable that it should not need rebuttal. But alas, even the most preposterous accusations find currency in these highly partisan times.

When state Rep. Jim Craig shamelessly suggested that Bradley was taking campaign contributions in exchange for voting as oil companies wanted him to, we called him on it. In an interview, we asked him point blank if he would directly accuse Bradley of being corrupt. He wouldn't. He knew better. But, dishonorably, he continued to allow his campaign to portray Bradley as a tool of Big Oil.

Craig's baseless suggestions and a few others were picked up this week by left-wing journalist Ken Silverstein, writing on the Harper's Magazine Web site. Silverstein boldly asserted that "Bradley has voted in a way that makes him look more like a stockholder than an elected representative."

That is hogwash. A fair examination of Bradley's record shows no such thing.

Readers of the Harpers.org story are immediately tipped off to its flimsiness by its first sentence, which identifies Bradley as a conservative. That is news to conservatives in New Hampshire, who tried to prevent the moderate Bradley from getting the Republican nomination in 2002.

Bradley is neither a conservative nor a pawn of Big Oil nor a venal stockholder who votes against the public's interests to line his own pockets. Such ignoble charges show just how desperate the left is to lay a hand on the popular representative from Wolfeboro.