BERMUDA bashing is the Major Irritant of the Week.

Ever since we came up to Boston to school we've been battered over the head with election advertisements. At first the advertisements were pretty funny. One Massachusetts candidate said he should be elected because he once picked up trash on Beacon Hill.

What trash? I wondered. For those of you who don't know, that's like picking up trash in Tucker's Town.

But the elections ads, which are mostly about New Hampshire now, aren't funny any more. They're all about that evil island called Bermuda that's taking hard-earned cash out of the pockets of hard- working Americans. The picking-up trash thing must have lost some umph so they decided to throw trash instead.

I don't know if you people down there in Bermuda realise this, but Bermuda bashing has become a major sport here in New Election (whoops, I mean New England). Every time I turn on the television there's another political advertisement decrying evil tax havens "like Bermuda".

Each ad is accompanied by a photo of a palm tree-laden island that looks nothing like our own bit of Atlantic rock. Bermuda has become the scapegoat for American fury. I've yet to see some other examples of a harmful tax haven given. If nothing else, these people are too lazy to do any research. These ads run constantly, all day every day. According to one article I read, it's the democrats who hate Bermuda.

Naturally, when it came to writing this article ahead of Tuesday's US mid-term elections, I couldn't find a single political advertisement on television, but I did find evidence on Jeanne Shaheen's web site, www.shaheen.org

Jeanne Shaheen is the Governor of New Hampshire and she's running for the US Senate. Her main competitor is John Sununu, who is apparently a Bermuda-loving freak and should therefore be prevented from ever touching the reins of power in New Hampshire (Sununu, in fact, defeated Shaheen). The next thing you know this guy might be wearing shorts to work, and saying good morning to people. (That was my thought. Like I said these election candidates are too lazy to do any actual research on Bermuda). Maybe we ought to send Sununu a free airline ticket or something.

According to the Shaheen web site: "John Sununu voted against banning corporate inversion which is when a US company inverts its corporate structure so that the parent firm is technically located in a tax free or lower tax nation such as Bermuda with only a subsidiary in the United States to escape federal taxes. "

This is much nicer than what's being said on television. On television it's pretty simple. Nasty foreign Bermuda bad - America good.

There's a simple reason why they bash Bermuda, and no other "harmful tax haven". There's a simple reason why our name is on this loophole and no one else's. The reason is because we're wimps. We don't stand up to these people. We have a Government that thinks that by verbally abusing a few American cable workers, they're standing up to Uncle Sam.

Meanwhile, when America really is trampling all over our reputation, Bermuda does nothing, just stands in a corner cowering. All our Government can whimper is: No comment, no comment.

Why doesn't the Government sue these election trash diggers? Why don't we take out our own television ads countering this negative stuff? How dare they say this stuff about us? How dare these people drag our name through the mud like this.

My guess is you won't be seeing many New Englanders next tourist season.

"I went to a 'harmful tax haven' for spring break" hardly sounds enticing.