And in other news...
I've decided that I should run for office. Apparently, you only need to be an idiot and small-minded, and scrape a few bucks up to get started. I qualify on points one and two, and I think I can handle the third requirement --- after all, lots of folks gave Howard Dean money.

Let's look at what is passing for reasoned, political discourse lately:

1. John Kerry might have had an affair with an intern. So what? Show me a politician (especially one as ugly as Kerry) that hasn't used the aphrodesiac of power to get a little on the side, or to his.her personal advantage. This strikes me as a "man bites dog" story, and I can't believe airtime and newsprint are being wasted on it. Americans should, by now, be long past the idea that our politicians are virtuous men and women, when we keep electing Nixons, Kennedys and Clintons into office. No one is squeaky clean and let's stop the pretense. It only leads to other mindless bullshit like:

2. George Bush was AWOL from the National Guard. This story, we can assume, was tossed out of the trash heap by the same people who swear they also saw Bill Clinton's draft deferment letter. Despite the evidence of an Honorable Discharge (they don't hand them out if you're AWOL), and the plethora of folks coming out to say otherwise, this continues to have legs. Another example of throwing enough manure at the barn wall --- eventually, some of it sticks, even if it shouldn't.

3. Demowimps and Republicrats continue to accuse each other of taking money from "special interests". Ho hum. Show me a political party or politician that hasn't. In fact, the government takes my money in the form of taxes and I would consider myself a "special interest". Wouldn't you? The issue (talk about forests and trees) is about who takes more of that money. That's pretty petty, I think, since both sides are obviously on the take one way or another.

4. Charles Schumer is not only still alive, but still somewhat gainfully employed. Refer to the comment about idiots above, and I rest my case.

5. Still no sign of WMD's in Iraq. So what? Eliminating a regime that strangled the life out of it's citizens apparently was not a good enough reason to go to war. Toppling a government and a dictator that had it in for the United States apparently was not good enough. People have awfully short memories --- the President made a case for Iraq on these other issues in addition to WMD's and giving Saddam a 6X6 cell in a dungeon has been official U.S. Policy since 1998, by act of CONGRESS. Someone is too busy trying to make hay by implying that a politician may not have been entirely truthful when relaying his motives to the public. Like that hasn't happened before?

6. Gay people have been lining up to get married all over the country. Okay, let 'em. What's the beef? Yes, I'm sure it offends some people's sensibilities, but then again, so does Affirmative Action and we live with it. This is not a political issue, in the same way that abortion or affirmative action aren't --- these are issues that do not need to be regulated by law and courts but by the cold logic of right and wrong. The sooner we move such things out of the political sphere and into the cultural sphere (where they belong), the happier we will all be.

But I guess I'm applying logic and that would disqualify me from holding office. I sure would like to try though...