"Tis the season...

Sorry for the blogging delinquency, but seasonal demands have forced me to keep my meditations on the political scene to myself. An expected whopper of a snow storm later today may give me the chance to impose them on you, but until then, check out David Bernstein's analysis of Mitt's "poor me, I'm [sort of] a Mormon" speech in the Boston Phoenix.

Among the republican presidential contenders, it looks like it's a scramble for the bottom of the barrel, so it's hard to call Romney the worst. However, it's hard to imagine a candidate with less integrity.

Meanwhile, John Kerry attends the climate conference in Bali - alone, and flying some ridiculous number of hours - for a 36-hour trip to tell the world that George Bush's stubborn inaction does not represent the U.S view on global warming. A lot was written about his trip in the foreign press. It took a few days for the American press reports to catch up. Here's one:

Kerry (D-Mass.), who flew roughly 20 hours on commercial flights to get here and was making the same journey back to make a series of Senate votes Tuesday, met over the weekend with representatives from more than a dozen countries, including Australia, China, Germany, Indonesia and Japan, held a news conference and delivered a speech before a packed room of non-governmental officials before heading back to Washington.

That is integrity, and it explains why, at this late date, I'm still officially unaligned with any presidential candidate. Simply put, none of them match up to Kerry, and to date none have earned my loyalty or my trust.