But Kerry's French

I'm watching a little of Hillary Clinton's town hall meeting (she's not at all a bad campaigner, by the way), and she's talking about her support for universal health care, like Obama in broad, vague terms. Her specific proposal was to expand the CHIP program and cover all children.

This is noble, sensible, and largely seen as centrist. It was also one of John Kerry's proposals in 2004, and he introduced it as legislation just a few weeks into the 109th Congress. Not sure if Hillary was a cosponsor of that, but it certainly didn't get a fair hearing in the Senate.

Because John Kerry isn't a serious person, I guess.

Similarly, there's only one person in the 2008 Democratic field who actually voted against the war in Iraq, and that's Dennis Kucinich. Obama spoke out against it in the Illinois Senate, but only Kucinich voted against it, and not only that, but he took the lead in mobilizing 120-plus other Representatives to vote against it.

But he's not a serious person, either.

I'm not saying I'm a full-fledged supporter of Kerry, or Kucinich, or whatever. It's a real strange time in America where being "serious" is more important than being right. And where that "seriousness" is decided by about a hundred unelected elitists in Washington.