Primary Ranting

Lord knows I take no pleasure in writing about politics. I don't keep track of the likely contenders for mixing it up in the primaries, and if you laid out a slate of presidential hopefuls before me, I wouldn't have much to say to it. At this stage of the game, I just don't care. I'm not ashamed of that; we can't all be policy wonks, and since Darwin enjoys such stuff, I leave it to him.

However, today I saw an article about Newt Gingrich forming a committee to raise funds for his as-yet-undeclared candidacy. I don't know a great deal about Newt Gingrich. The Contract With America went down while I was still throwing aside the front page of the paper in favor of the comics and "Dear Abby", and my main memory of the political tenor of the heady days of the early '90s was the Washington Post's contest calling for the best limerick to include both "Lewinsky" and "Kaczynski".

What I do know about Gingrich is that he's been married three times, and that his second and third marriages sprung from affairs started during the previous marriage. I find that to be somewhat less than inspiring. Everyone has his own political line in the sand, some standard by which he makes decisions about the person for whom he'll vote. Here's one of my standards: If you can't be faithful to your wife, I don't particularly care to have you running the country. I know that Newt has converted to Catholicism; good for him. But I won't support his presidential bid.

While I'm getting politics off my chest, let me say that if Sarah Palin throws her hat into the primary ring, she'll hear my scoffing all the way in the Peoria Holiday Inn. No. You don't resign governorship in mid-term and then pop up and announce that now you think you might try your hand at Presidenting. And for all our sakes, cancel the reality show. And Bristol's publishing contract to write her memoirs.

That is all.