We'll always have Paris . . .

The story goes that Sigmund Freud, who made a living in part by studying, analyzing, writing and lecturing about the role of the phallic symbol in our psyche, was smoking a cigar one day. A student asked him what the cigar symbolized.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

But sometimes it's not. Ask Bill Clinton.

It's just become to hard to know when it is and when it isn't.

John McCain was somewhere in middle America today at a biker rally. He addressed the group and drew his biggest applause when he suggested that his wife could enter the group's beauty contest, "Miss Buffalo Chip". As it turns out the contest includes showing a lot of skin and doing some pretty crude things not completely unrelated to the aforementioned Freud discussion. I don't believe McCain knew that. And I am sure he wasn't serious about his wife entering the competition. It was just supposed to be a joke. Maybe it was inappropriate, but I kinda thought it was funny.

You'd a thought the man had committed a major foreign policy blunder.

Obama repeated something earlier this week that he has said several times the past few months. He doesn't look like the presidents on the money, he is young, he's got big ears, and did you notice, he was black. I realize there was a serious element to what he said, but he was laughing as he said it, and the crowd he was addressing was laughing with him.

The statement has been analyzed, criticized and publicized until it probably affected the national polls as much as off shore drilling.

If we keep this up, if we don't let these guys have a few moments where they can be themselves addressing the few hundred or thousand people in front of them, we may lose our best opportunity to know who they really are.

If everything they say is dissected and the post mortem published before they get back in their car, then eventually their handlers are going to pull in the reins to the point that their real voices are choked.

I believe that John McCain really enjoyed joking about his wife being in the beauty contest. I like that about him. I think Obama is at his best when he is relaxed and laughing at himself or at his opponents while relating to his audience.

Real people make mistakes. They don't always say everything just right. And if you want to, you can be offended. Maybe sometimes you should be offended. But if we make it where they can't afford to speak freely, we will never get to know them at all. And we will miss some good laughs. And we need all the laughs we can get.

I don't like the negative campaign tactics that McCain has apparently thought were necessary this week. I am one of the minority that believes that a couple of cigars in his TV ad were not just cigars.

But even that regretful tactic has been good for a few laughs. An unlikely heroine has emerged to give us perspective. Paris Hilton. McCain played the Paris Hilton card. But Paris Hilton upped the ante. For a laugh check this out. http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

One of these guys is going to be our president. Yeah, I am definitely for one of them. But they are both good guys.

At ease. If you got 'em, smoke 'em.