at some point, during the media's years-long lovefest with John McCain, some reporter would wake up in a cold sweat, and ask, "Oh, my God! Am I dating John Kerry's ex?"

And now, the race to paint JK as scorned senator - never mind the actual crap McCain has pulled ever since his perfunctory denouncement of the SBVT in 2004.

I don't want to make too much of this, because, actually, I have very little interest in the friendship between Senators Kerry and McCain - maybe because, unlike the rest of America, I have very little interest in John McCain. I've never been able to get too worked up about the notion of McCain as JK's VP, and we've certainly never gotten any satisfyingly enlightening info about whether or not that was a possibility. Which is fine - these two are entitled to their private conversations.

I just want to point out, though, that the constant dragging of McCain's name into the '04 race had little to do with his friendship with the Democratic nominee, and everything to do with the MSM's love of typing the letters "M-C-C-A-I-N" over and over again.

The MSM has a similar affinity for the letters "C-L-I-N-T-O-N," which was also conspicuous back in '04, and one wonders what purpose that actually served. (Or maybe one doesn't. I do. I, personally, wonder: what purpose did 4 years of Hillary chatter serve?)

So, yeah. Rather than come to JK's defense here - because I think, in spite of his making some points that I think ought to have been made, this is a non-story - I should ask, "why is this personal?" Why is John McCain's bad judgment with regards to the troops in Iraq - remember them? - being placed into the context of some Senate soap opera?

If I stop being friends with somebody because they torture kittens, it's not to rouse up some level of interest in me. It's about the kittens.

Let's try to keep our focus on the kittens, people.

Bloggers of the world:

Let's all take a moment to figure out how to be more like Reb Akiva at Mystical Paths, who, after spotting one tall and unmistakable senator outside of Petra Souvenirs and Money Change in Jerusalem, not only posted about it, but posted a picture, AND reported "Mr. Kerry was wearing his traditional powder blue shirt and pink-ish tie, as was his senate staffer."

Ok, that? Is important information. Well done, Reb Akiva, and hat tip to beachmom, who found this before I did. You made some American fangirls very happy today.

I'm not going to argue that every blogger in every corner of the universe ought to stop posting pictures of their children/lolcats/socks/weird food from 50's magazines/etc. in favor of daily candids of a pink-ish tie-clad John Kerry followed by slobbery descriptions of any animals or small watercraft depicted on said pink-ish tie.

But, if you see the tall guy, will you for frak's sake let me know? It really will not compromise the quality or readability of welovechildrenlolcatssockandweirdfoodfrom50smagazines.com. Trust me.

Kerry On, wherever you are,
democrafty

If you've read up on the subject, or even just seen HBO's weird but entertaining John Adams miniseries, you'll know that the date, 7/4/1776 has almost no historical significance. No matter. This is America - we celebrate however we want!

And what's not to celebrate about the ideals that led to the project that is America, the valor of those who executed our Revolution, and the little document that changed everything.

It's beautiful, and maybe a little telling, that we chose to celebrate our nation's birthday based on the signing of a document. It's not an anniversary of a bloody battle, or the founding of the Treasury, or some other such thing. And when it seems as though we've lost our way, we have our birth date, July 4th, pointing back to the very words that tell us why we are here: "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The American Story.

To me, today is so much about giving thanks. For the leadership of our founders, for our legislators and executives who take on the task of caring for our nations (especially those who do it well!) and for the citizens who participate actively, every day, in the care and upkeep of our democracy.

Liberty and union, now and forever,
democrafty