Just to cite a few recent examples from the campaign trail in Iowa and elsewhere:

Mitt Romney advises, "I don't think you change Washington from the inside."

In Iowa, Hillary Clinton puts on an event called "Working for Change, Working for You."

And Barack Obama grinds along on his "Stand for Change" tour. There we are again: change, change, change. On it goes, the great mantra of Campaign '08.

Phooey.

Would some change-minded candidate or other kindly inform the American people what this business amounts to? Change what into what? We're durned if we know. Possibly, the matter calls for each voter to take a pencil and fill in the blank.

Modern politics, especially modern presidential politics, is an inherently vacuous enterprise, and you see why when you read or listen to the candidates, most of whom you might mentally depict in robes and pointed hat, like Mickey Mouse in "Fantasia." A bolt of lightning, and behold -- change! It seems to suffice. But it shouldn't. It's patronizing as well as counterproductive.

When a candidate goes around babbling about "change," you sort of infer he or she hasn't had a fresh idea in a while. It is not that many things -- perpetually -- don't deserve freshening and refurbishing. They do. We all do. A campaign based on "change," nevertheless, is a campaign without content; one that merely says, We don't like things right now. Continued...