Bring back county government? No way! Boston Herald columnist Tom Keane today has an interesting argument but a bad idea. He notes that Suffolk County sheriff Andrea Cabral can't pay a $5 million settlement to women who were strip-searched because the county has no taxing authority of its own, and that the state and the city of Boston have refused to help.

Keane's moral: empower county government. Media Log's moral: get rid of the last vestiges of county government -- a corrupt, hack-infested haven during its heyday -- and put the county sheriffs directly under the authority of the state. Then Governor Mitt Romney would have to cough up.