Seriousness is at a premium, or so it would seem.

It would seem that the chattering classes inside the Beltway, pundits and journalists alike, have found fit to place a premium on the quality of 'Seriousness'.

Note the capital 'S'.

Seriousness means being for the war, you see. Seriousness is glibly dismissing the idea that all Americans can and should be entitled to health insurance. Seriousness means being 'for freedom'. You know, the kind that allows you to make as much money as you can if you're an insurance company, a drug manufacturer, or the AMA. Of course, that's not the best kind of freedom. That comes when you've got the kind of relationship with the Administration that leads to no-bid, cost-plus contracts.

Seriousness involves finding nothing whatsoever wrong or questionable about deficit-financing tax cuts in the middle of fighting someone else's civil war. That we started.

See, you'll be perceived as Serious at a National Press Club luncheon if you've run lots of stories on Hillary's cackle, if you think the most important thing about Al Gore is how much he weighs, if you devote column inches to John Edwards' haircut.

But not Mitt Romney's. Because smearing a Republican powderpuff would be untoward, un-civil and un-Serious.

From what I've read, the most Serious thing you can write or talk about where a Democrat is concerned is how they look. Especially if they're a woman.

You're all kinds of Serious if you never, ever ask a Serious question of Guiliani. Why, the Washington Post just yesterday essentially said, "Yeah, we'll we're not going to fact-check Guiliani just yet. That'll come. Probably after the convention. We'll get around to doing our jobs eventually, and we'll definitely get back to you on that just as soon as we find out if Edwards is using Aquanet or American Crew products."

Why, all Serious people know that Guiliani is regarded as America's mayor (despite the fact that his pals over at Motorola inflated their no-bid contract 1000% so that FDNY could have the privilege of buying radios that completely failed them during 9/11, killing 120 of New York's Bravest in the North Tower who simply never heard the order to leave the building), a 9/11 hero (to those who formed their opinion of that debacle from what they saw on television), and a true family values guy. Just ask him. He'll tell you. So will any number of his wives.

Serious means always taking George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at their word. Because they are incapable of lying. Goodness-gracious-me, when they say 'We don't torture people', it would just be rude to ask follow up questions like, "Well, did you perhaps hire anybody, like.....oh, maybe someone in another country to do the torturing for us?", or, "Did you ever personally authorize anything you were directly advised was against the law, at any time?"

Asking that kind of question would just be un-seemly, un-becoming and un-Serious.

You know, like when the President of the United States publicly said that he'd 'take care of' anybody in his administration found to have been involved in the outing of the true identity of one of our most strategically important spies. Asking him if he actually meant that he would take very good, linen glove, Spa-at-the-Four-Seasons-Wailaia kind of care of those involved by commuting their felony convictions, well, of course that's not a Serious question, really.

Serious people, evidently, don't take extra-judicial killings seriously, don't think that two US carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf is the kind of news that we'd be interested in, and are wont to discover words like 'mercenary' for the first time in their careers, last week, and then discard them as not applicable to someone as clean-cut as Eric Prince. He listens to Garth Brooks, for crying out loud. He's not what Serious people think of when they feature someone who works as a hired killer.

I think we've all had just about enough of their brand of 'Seriousness'.

I know I have.