By DAN K. THOMASSON, Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON -- Who cares if John McCain and his wife own seven houses or condominiums? Who cares if Barack Obama knows William Ayres, the now-respectable militant of nearly 40 years ago?

Barack Obama gets a mixed bag with fellow senator Joe Biden as his running mate, and the biggest asset may not be Biden's highly touted foreign policy expertise but his appeal to blue-collar whites.

WASHINGTON -- The first thing those with presidential aspirations do is write an "autobiography" that recounts how they overcame adversity and personal tragedy to come to this place where they are ready to lead the world's only remaining superpower.

WASHINGTON -- It seems clear now that the Justice Department under the Bush administration was a place where there was very little justice when it came to applicants for career positions whose social beliefs didn't match up well with conservative dogma, at least as perceived by a major hirer who obviously didn't belong where she was.

WASHINGTON -- Appearing at a rally in behalf of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, humorist Will Rogers said in introducing the Democratic presidential nominee that he would keep it short because he didn't feel like wasting too many words on a "mere candidate." The American press should take note.

WASHINGTON -- Evidence seems to be mounting that the scourge of every young college-bound American, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, may be headed for ultimate extinction, where it belongs.

Not long ago I was helping the elderly and infirm widow of a former colleague runs some errands, driving her in her car with a handicapped licensed plate to a shopping area in Albuquerque, N.M. There were at least 20 spots for handicapped parking all filled, mainly with autos displaying those badges that hang from the rear view mirror.

A rape victim walks into a pharmacy with a prescription for a morning-after pill that will terminate a possible pregnancy and is told politely it will not be filled, and that she must go elsewhere, no matter how inconvenient. That is, if the pharmacist has the decency even to return the prescription.

WASHINGTON -- Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an advisor to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, says being shot down in an airplane doesn't qualify one to be president, a reference to Sen. John McCain's experience in Vietnam. He is absolutely correct. But it also doesn't make him any less qualified.

WASHINGTON -- Humorist Kin Hubbard commented that when someone says it's not the money, it's the principle of the thing -- it's the money.