Stop the jibba jabba

Yes, the absurd and meaningless rhetoric coming from all sides during this mid-term election campaign is scary.

John Kerry was, for whatever variety of reasons, unable to win the presidency in 2004 but he was at least astute enough to have been elected as a U.S. senator. As such, that makes him a fairly decent politician no matter what else you think or don’t think about him.

So if you honestly believe that Kerry was dissing American troops in Iraq during his controversial remarks a few days ago, then I feel sorry for you. And if you also believe that the big s*itstorm over his remarks that was fueled by the Republican attack machine was anything other than politics, I feel even more sorry for you.

The controversy over Kerry’s remarks is just one more instance of both Democrats and Republicans flailing one another with whatever bomb, significant or insignificant, they can throw at the other. Both sides come off of crap like this looking tremendously silly although — and to my many Republican friends, nothing personal — the G.O.P. has usually maintained a sharp edge in the silly department overall.

It seems like politicians would rather crawl over miles of broken glass than bother with meaningful discussions of the issues. And while I freely admit to being a political junkie who devours each hair-raising twist and turn of such an election, I just get a little overdosed on the faux drama for the sake of advantage.

It’s been fun but I now am ready for this election to be done. Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to be done when we all wake up on Nov. 8. I foresee more silliness. It makes me wonder when our country will ever grow up and grow into the nation of which our founding dads left for us to fill in the blanks? I don’t know the answer to that unless it is: probably never. Oh well, it was a good thought.