regrets

I saw a newspaper lying around -- it was yesterday's paper, tossed to the side, about to be trashed forever. I couldn't help myself - I picked it up. It was innocent on my part: I'd never read a copy of the Arizona Star before. I wanted to see its tone, maybe find some interesting story about desert life (though I felt certain that there would not be desert news per se: the sun goes up, shines brilliantly, goes down. The end of another day).

The news was of the type you'd find anywhere: a Valentine Day's story of some improbable love, a heroic local rescue of someone's pet, an accident here, a robbery there.

I was about to toss the whole thing away when the words "Madison, Wisconsin" caught my attention. I read it, but wish I hadn't.

Is it true, then, that a reporter in Madison asked Kerry if he had had an extramarital affair? Were there rumors circulating to that effect? A day without news should have been a week withouth news if this is what the media is playing with now.

It is not surprising that Kerry would deny this (assuming, for argument's sake that it is a valid rumor). If a scream percipitated Dean's slide, what would an admission of this sort do to Kerry? But what is discouraging is the insatiable desire to pursue these types of questions. After all. do we fully understand at this point all that each candidate can offer? What policies they stand behind? What implementation tools and strategies they propose to use if elected? Have we weighed these against the three and a half grueling years of GWB? No? Well, shouldn't we get on with that project?

I read that subsequently, Kerry was asked: "is there anything that you want to tell us that's going to come up?" Do I understand this question to be asking -- is there anything incriminating that we can't quite lay our finger on now, but you'd like to share anyway, just in case we eventually learn about it? I'll let you imagine Kerry's brilliant reply [hint: it starts with the letter ""n"].