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Pssst. Have you heard? I heard that Barack Obama once said there has to be "an end" to the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank "that began in 1967." Yikes!

Pssst. I heard that Obama said that not only must Israel be secure, but that any peace agreement "must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people." Yikes!

Pssst. I heard that Obama once said "the establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it." Yikes! Yikes! Yikes!

Those are the kind of rumors one can hear circulating among American Jews these days about whether Obama harbors secret pro-Palestinian leanings. I confess: All of the above phrases are accurate. I did not make them up.

There's just one thing: None was uttered by Obama. They are all direct quotes from President George W. Bush in the past two years.

Get back, get back. Get back to where you once belonged.--The Beatles

The Republican Party is in distress. Doomsayers are everywhere. Republican National Committee chairman Robert M. Duncan complains that conservative, pro-life, pro-gun Democrats won three special elections by stealing GOP issues.

"We can't let the Democrats take our issues," Duncan told the New York Times. "We can't let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this."

Democrats didn't steal your issues, sir. You abandoned them. Your party discarded them. Democrats simply engaged in Dumpster harvesting.

Unable to win by labeling Democrats "liberals," Republicans don't know what to do. Labeling worked before. Why isn't it working now? The answer is that it only works in combination with superior ideas, which you then contrast to those of your "liberal" opponent. You can't do that credibly unless you have embraced those ideas and sought to implement them. Republicans traded in their ideas in favor of gaining and keeping power as their sole objective. The party wants credit for giving lip service to its abandoned ideology while it practices cave-in politics.

Since taking office, I have made serious efforts to identify underserved areas in our state and the individuals or groups that need additional assistance or protection. I have focused on Internet crime and consumer protection, because there was a lack of resources and focus being directed to those areas.

Working with the Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation Unit in my office, I have identified other Kansans who often are underserved: senior citizens. Seniors often become the victims of scams or other abuse.

During the unit's first year, we made a disturbing discovery. Financial exploitation or fiduciary abuse of the elderly is not always viewed as a crime. In fact, many people do not realize it is against the law.

My office is working on several fronts to make sure our loved ones are protected and to guarantee these crimes are taken seriously.

Of the 1,785 reports of abuse, neglect and exploitation received by our unit last year, 80 percent were child abuse and 20 percent were adult abuse. Surprisingly, almost half of all reported adult abuse involved financial exploitation.

Race has been in the room since the beginning. It was there in Philadelphia, where the Founding Fathers debated slavery in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It is there now, two centuries later, still playing a central, if sometimes hidden, role in politics.

But in the election of 2008, the first in which a black person stands a reasonable chance of becoming president, the role of race will be far from hidden.

In ways large and small, the weeks and months ahead will test just how far we've come as a nation.

For some individuals, the answer will be not very far at all. In Marietta, Ga., for example, a tavern owner has been proudly selling T-shirts depicting Barack Obama as a monkey holding a banana. Naturally, the owner professes to see nothing racist in the image.

Likewise, a few months ago a minor Republican Party official in Georgia sent a mass e-mail to fellow party members and others featuring digitally altered images of top Democrats.

George Washington, the father of the nation, warned us that this day would come. No one questioned Washington's motives.

Everything Washington did in his public life, he did for the good of the country.

He gave up a comfortable life to lead 13 British colonies to victory over eight years of hardship during the American Revolution.

Washington could have become king of the new nation. He turned it down. He could have been appointed president for life. He turned that down, too.

But Washington did have a few suggestions at the end of his presidency that he passed along in his Farewell Address, published in newspapers on Sept. 19, 1796. Chief among them was warning against political parties and the divisive partisanship that he felt inevitably accompanies party politics.

I guess President Bush must think Defense Secretary Robert Gates is an appeaser of terrorists. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, too. And U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker.

What else is one to conclude from the president's remarks last week at the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem? He proclaimed: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them... ." After a reference to Nazi tanks rolling into Poland, the president continued: "We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement."

No doubt Bush's jab was aimed at Sen. Barack Obama, who has called for unconditional talks with Tehran. Yet Bush's own team seems as interested in broad talks with Iran as the senator from Illinois.

Last week Gates told the American Academy of Diplomacy, "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them."

In January, Rice -- speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland -- said that if Tehran would halt its uranium enrichment program, she'd meet her Iranian counterpart "anyplace, anytime, anywhere to talk about anything." And Crocker, on instructions from Washington, has held three meetings with Iran's ambassador to Baghdad.

Not since the day almost 45 years ago, when word reached Washington, D.C., that his brother John had been cut down in Dallas, has there been news about an individual that struck so deep a blow to so many in this capital. The medical bulletin from Massachusetts General Hospital about Sen. Ted Kennedy was at once a personal tragedy and a political cataclysm.

In his 46 years in the Senate, Kennedy has probably touched more people, in more cherished ways, than any other public figure. And his illness threatens to alter, for the worse, the prospects of every other politician -- starting with Barack Obama and John McCain.

Like countless others, I have witnessed over the years the kindnesses Kennedy lavished on colleagues and friends -- and even casual acquaintances. It was decades ago when another senator told me that, in complete privacy, Kennedy was sitting for hours with Sen. Philip Hart of Michigan, who had an illness that made him irascible and difficult to manage. Somehow, Kennedy calmed him.

In his more-than-busy life, Kennedy has always seemed to be able to find time for personal touches -- and to perform them without seeming to realize how much they meant to the recipients. Their affection and gratitude were all but overwhelming on Tuesday.

But after the first shock at the news began to wear off, the sense kept growing that this was truly a landmark event in the nation's politics and government.

I keep thinking I should be mad at West Virginia. Not because Barack Obama was recently beaten badly in that state's primary. No, I'm thinking I should be upset about "why" he was beaten. According to exit polls, 2 of every 10 voters said race was a major factor in how they cast their ballots.

Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" ran a clip of a white woman who explained her refusal to vote for Obama thusly: "I guess because he is another race. I'm sort of scared of the other race 'cause we have so much conflict with 'em." She spoke in the vaguely shamefaced, "what're you gonna do?" voice of someone who knows she should stick to her diet or stop smoking, but just can't help herself.

You'd think this would have me in a state of high dudgeon, fingers blazing the keyboard in righteous rebuke of attitudes so atavistic and wrong. But I can't. Oh, it's disappointing to see bigotry in Appalachia so vividly displayed. Yet I find it doesn't make me angry.

It just makes me sad.

I feel sorry for them. If that sounds patronizing, I apologize. That's not how it's meant.

The following commentary was submitted by Wichita Reps. Geraldine Flaharty, ranking Democrat on the House Health and Human Services Committee; Nile Dillmore, ranking Democrat on the House Insurance and Financial Institutions Committee; and Jim Ward, House assistant minority leader.

We read with interest a commentary by Gary Brunk with Kansas Action for Children ("Health reform is on the right track," May 11 Opinion). In Brunk's view, Kansans have to choose between helping children get health care and helping their parents. This is a false and unnecessary choice.

Brunk admitted there is no money to pay for the health care he supports. The change he advocated relies on lawmakers in Washington, D.C., passing a new law increasing the amount of money available for children's health care. Then Washington bureaucrats would have to allocate more of this money for Kansas children. Then the Kansas Legislature would have to pass a bill to increase state spending to pay our share of the coverage before anyone would benefit from this reform.

Without approval at the federal level, there will be no money to provide for the expansion of children's health insurance in Kansas. It is disingenuous to be promoting this bill as a significant step to providing coverage for children, knowing that it is unlikely that money will ever be allocated to do so.

The 2008 Legislature did pass a health care bill. This legislation did some good things -- more pregnant women will have health care coverage and dental care, and we added money for safety-net clinics.

Memorial Day weekend has become the unofficial kickoff of summer. And Memorial Day marks the time when we, as Americans, commemorate the patriotic men and women who have given their lives in defense of our country.

Although the holiday was first proclaimed by Gen. John Logan in 1868, it was not until after World War II that Memorial Day became more common, officially becoming federal law in 1967. Since that time, America's fallen heroes have been honored all across the country on the last Monday in May.

America would not be what it is today without our courageous servicemen and women and the 24 million veterans, including 270,000 who hail from the Sunflower State. The liberties we enjoy today were earned through great toil, including the bravery and sacrifice of these patriotic Americans.

Supporting our troops should not be confined to the battlefield. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending the 75th anniversary celebration of the Robert J. Dole Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wichita. If you have never visited the center, I encourage you to do so. VA employees and volunteers who faithfully serve those who have served us are an example of the kind of respect and dignity we should show our nation's veterans. Visiting the center also is an excellent opportunity to personally thank vets for their service.

The call to military service is a soft whisper in today's America. Less than 1 percent of our population wears a uniform in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard. Yet these few distinguished men and women have not only heard the call to service, they have answered the call with strength, conviction and a resounding "Here am I. Send me!"

There has been much debate in this campaign about which of our enemies the next U.S. president should deign to talk to. The real story, the next president may discover, though, is how few countries are waiting around for us to call.

It is hard to remember a time when more shifts in the global balance of power were happening at once -- with so few in America's favor.

Let's start with the most profound one: More and more, I am convinced that the big foreign policy failure that will be pinned on this administration is not the failure to make Iraq work, as devastating as that has been. It will be one with much broader balance-of-power implications -- the failure after Sept. 11 to put in place an effective energy policy.

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 mph, buy more fuel-efficient cars, or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our "addiction to oil."

The failure of Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world -- the U.S. economy -- to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states -- from Russia to Venezuela to Iran -- that are reshaping global politics in their own image.

In 2004, I walked outside the U.S. Capitol building and beyond the Washington Monument to the newly constructed World War II Memorial, just a few days before its dedication. It was inspiring. At long last, nearly 60 years after the war ended, these veterans who did so much to protect our country and liberate the world were to receive recognition through a national monument.

I happened to have my cell phone with me and called my 90-year-old father in Plainville. He is one of the thousands of Americans who left their families and lives behind in World War II to fight on foreign soil. My father fought in Northern Africa, Sicily and Italy.

Fortunately, when I called, I got the answering machine. It is often difficult for sons and daughters to tell their fathers the things we should tell them. My message was, "Dad, I love you. Dad, I'm proud of you and, Dad, thank you for your service to our country." I told my dad what I should have said a long time ago and what we all should say to our veterans. It was too bad that many veterans of this "Greatest Generation," now in their 80s and 90s, are unable physically or financially to visit our nation's capital and see this beautiful tribute to their service and sacrifice.

A few months ago, former Sen. Bob Dole -- a World War II veteran who led the charge to build the memorial -- told me about a grassroots, nonprofit organization called Honor Flight. Staffed by volunteers and funded by donations, Honor Flight enables World War II veterans to travel to our nation's capital to see the memorial created in their honor. Honor Flight operates across the country using commercial and chartered flights to send veterans on a one-day, expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C.

I have had the honor of joining Dole to greet some of these veterans at the World War II Memorial. The time we spend with these proud men and women is very moving. As volunteers -- often local high school students -- help veterans off the bus, you can see the excitement in the veterans' eyes. As we walk past the fountains and to the granite pillar dedicated to Kansans, the student volunteers listen to veterans recount tales of their time in the service, of friends made and friends lost. Tourists stop their sightseeing to shake the veterans' hands and express thanks. Many veterans are moved to tears. It is a special day for a very special generation of heroes.

These days, people on "one side" of the political spectrum are not supposed to cooperate, much less have a personal relationship with anyone on the "other side." But my 25-year relationship with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has been something I have treasured.

It began in 1983 when I received a call from a Washington Post reporter. I was working for the Moral Majority at the time, and a computer had spit out a membership card for Kennedy and then inadvertently sent it to him. The reporter asked if I wanted the card back. "No," I said. "We don't believe anyone is beyond redemption. In fact, I hope Sen. Kennedy comes and speaks at Liberty Baptist College" -- now Liberty University, the school founded by the late Jerry Falwell.

A few days later, I received a call from Kennedy's chief of staff, who said: "The senator accepts your invitation." I was stunned and so was Falwell, but Kennedy went to the college and was well-received. He spoke on faith, truth and tolerance, and his remarks are as relevant today as they were when he uttered them.

While some might disagree on the way he applies such notions to the liberal policies in which he believes, few would contest most of the principles he articulated that night.

Getting to know Kennedy that night, and being with him on many subsequent occasions, helped me understand him on a level far different from TV images and direct-mail appeals that ask for $25 to keep him from doing things that will "ruin" America.

Chivalry is still charming, as Barack Obama proved when he recently warned Tennessee Republicans to leave his wife alone.

He was commenting on a GOP Web ad that highlights Michelle Obama's comment, made at a rally in February, that she was proud of America for the first time in her adult life. When asked about the ad Monday during an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Obama said Republicans were welcome to pick on him and his track record, but not his wife.

"If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful, because that I find unacceptable. The notion that you start attacking my wife, or my family... is just low-class.... Lay off my wife, all right?"

Far too much has been made of tongue slippages that are silly to insignificant, including Michelle's un-proud moment. We know what the woman meant. She was proud of her husband, proud of her country for recognizing his talents, and probably proud of herself. She was swept up in the moment.

That said, Michelle Obama doesn't get a pass from scrutiny and criticism. What she says matters, not least because she is the partner of the man who would be president but also because her statements are made in the service of his campaign.

In poll after poll, about two-thirds of Americans say they oppose the war in Iraq, believe things in Iraq are going badly for the United States, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war, consider even the initial decision to go to war to have been wrong, and want the next president to end the war quickly. Yet polls also show that more Americans trust presumptive Republican nominee John McCain than either Democratic presidential candidate when it comes to handling the war in Iraq.

Go figure.

McCain is the one presidential candidate pledging to continue the very Bush administration policies that got us into the mess we're now in, and McCain's record of getting it embarrassingly wrong on Iraq is virtually unparalleled.

Here's McCain, in his own words, getting Iraq wrong from day one:

"Saddam Hussein (is) developing weapons of mass destruction as quickly as he can," he informed Fox News in November 2001. By February 2003, McCain had upgraded Saddam's capabilities and was warning Americans that "(Saddam) has the ability to... (turn) Iraq into a weapons assembly line for al-Qaida's network."

The middle of a worldwide food crisis may seem an odd time to worry about an industrialized agriculture system that's delivered enormous amounts of relatively cheap and reasonably high-quality food. But the current system poses risks to public health, the environment, our rural communities and the welfare of the animals themselves.

That's the conclusion of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which recently released its report following 2 ½ years of work. After meetings held around the country, public hearings, on-site visits, input from stakeholders and reams of scientific papers, the troubles have become far clearer.

We've gone from a system where a family farm might have 50 to 100 hogs and a few chicken coops to gigantic farms with up to 50,000 pigs or 10 million chickens. Unfortunately, with the economies of scale have come equally scaled-up problems.

The intensive confinement practiced in these industrial settings sets the stage for rapid disease transmission. And to make matters worse, the stress of the confinement itself can increase the incidence of disease. To stem that, antibiotics are given so imprudently that while one problem is solved, another one -- antibiotic resistance -- is created, leaving at risk a critical line of medical defense against disease.

Meanwhile, communities near such huge facilities may suffer from groundwater con-tamination or air emissions that can cause respiratory and neurological problems, especially in the children and the elderly. The concentrated chemicals and excess nutrients can also find their way into our lakes, rivers and streams.

Sometimes your best defense in politics is to take offense. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., appears to take that tack when she condemns "sexism" in media coverage of her campaign as "deeply offensive to millions of women."

In an interview with the Washington Post's Lois Romano, she criticized the "vitriol" from "misogynists" along her quest for the presidency. She complained that media discuss the race factor much more than gender, even though "every poll I've seen (shows) more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman (than) to vote for an African-American, which rarely gets reported on, either."

Does she have a point? You can bet your "Hillary Clinton Nutcracker" -- on sale at many airport souvenir shops -- that she does.

I don't begrudge Clinton one bit for feeling upset about some of the more extreme insults she has faced, even though she knew what she was getting into. She's hardly new to controversy. Still, she aspires to be regarded as a strong, historic leader in the mold of Britain's Margaret Thatcher, except from the political left. Instead, she's often ridiculed by pundits and other wiseacres as a political version of the maniacal and murderous spurned lover played by Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction."

Clinton may have a point when she says we have not talked as much about gender in our national media chatter as we talk about race. The double standard grows out of a fundamental difference in demographics and political psychology: Barack Obama, presenting himself as an agent of change, benefits from transcending race. Clinton benefits from using gender to give her campaign the gloss of a higher cause -- and a coverup for her past political baggage.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is the polar opposite of John F. Kennedy. Judging from recent comments, Obama apparently would pay no price, bear no burden, forsake any hardship, support any foe and oppose any friend that wished to pursue liberty.

Kennedy understood that evil exists in the world. He saw it in World War II as his generation defeated the evil that gripped Europe and Japan. And he witnessed it as president when Nikita Khrushchev approved the building of the Berlin Wall and the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, acts that flowed from Khrushchev's perception that the young president was weak and inexperienced.

Obama thinks he can negotiate with evil and transform evil into something else. Initially, his foreign policy platform was a naive pledge to meet "unconditionally" with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and other nations dominated by dictators. In recent days, he has changed his tune somewhat. He would still meet with the heads of these mini evil empires without preconditions, but he said "there must be careful preparation. We will set a clear agenda."

This leads to an important question: On what basis does a free nation negotiate with nations that are not free? Does Obama expect leaders who got where they are by undemocratic, even violent, means, to embrace press freedom, religious liberty, political pluralism and rights for women? What would evil leaders demand of him?

In his recent speech to the Israeli Knesset, President Bush pointedly noted that evil cannot be accommodated, negotiated with, pampered or appeased. It must be opposed and defeated.

Congress will soon decide whether to increase Medicare Part B premiums even more to cover the cost of increasing payments to doctors.

People on Medicare always have been willing to pay their fair share for their health care coverage. And they understand that doctors who treat Medicare patients must be paid fairly. But forcing older Americans to pay even higher premiums because of a flawed physician-payment system is just not fair.

The monthly Part B premium that people on Medicare pay has more than doubled since 2000. Another premium increase will hit many older Americans hard, on top of the already rising costs of prescription drugs, deductibles for basic health care, co-insurance for doctor visits and care that Medicare doesn't cover, such as hearing aids, eyeglasses and routine dental and nursing home care. And each time the Part B premium is increased, it significantly erodes -- or even eliminates -- the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment.

In return for their premiums, seniors gain access to a fine medical care system. However, doctors are not required to treat Medicare patients, and many do not because of lagging reimbursement rates. Critics claim some doctors provide more services than necessary, seeking to make up in volume for low reimbursements. AARP doesn't want to see physician reimbursement levels cut. Shifting more of the financial burden to employers and employees or adding more to the national debt to keep Medicare solvent are not answers, either.

To keep premiums affordable, Congress should fund needed physician payment changes by adjusting other Part B rates, and revise incentives to reward quality, rather than quantity, of care.