At last Wednesday’s meeting of the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders, GOP Freeholder and Assembly candidate Gail Phoebus proved to be a font of misinformation -- once in support of her motion to investigate Planned Parenthood; but also about veteran identification cards.

By now everyone is aware that she fabricated the existence of a bill sponsored by Senator Steve Oroho to control the illegal sale of body parts.... She concocted the existence of such a bill to convince her fellow Freeholders to support her resolution calling for a criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood. They adopted her resolution. Several of them said they voted yes in order to help Oroho move his bill forward. No such bill exists.

The Oroho bill fabrication makes some sense in a perverse way. Phoebus used it to shore up her base, some of whom attended the meeting. However, on another matter, Phoebus was gratuitous in her dissembling.  Phoebus praised Sussex County Clerk Jeff Parrot’s program for issuing Veteran IDs. These cards are useful for obtaining veteran discounts throughout the county. However, she went on to vehemently lament the Federal Government’s failure to issue similar identification cards. She passionately called for citizens to contact their Congressmen to do something about it.

Well, she got that wrong too. A cursory inquiry would have informed her that Congress has already taken such action.

It’s obvious why she misspoke in support of her Planned Parenthood resolution. She sought to gin up political capital. But, it’s hard to see why she misstated the facts about the Federal Veteran ID. It seems that Phoebus has a propensity for speaking on topics she knows nothing about -- and to do so with great force.

If she had been asked about the Federal Veteran ID program, it would have been one thing. But she brought it up herself. Gratuitously spouting on topics about which she is ignorant seems to be a modus operandi.

This is not the kind of representation Sussex County needs in Trenton.