Editor’s note: While Patty Kimerer is on leave, we present this Classic Kimerer column originally published April 12, 2004:

The other day I was babysitting my 9-year-old niece and 6-year-old nephew.

While my niece and my son, Kyle, get along swimmingly, sometimes the two boys are like, well, two boys.

“Aunt Patty, Kyle wants whatever I have!” whined my nephew.

“Nuh-uh. I had it first, anyways. Don’t listen to him, Mommy!” Kyle shot back, determined to win my support.

“Are you calling me a liar? I am not a liar! Aunt Patty!” bellowed my nephew, lobbying for my backing.

That was pretty much the dialogue for the rest of the day’s conversation, which also included some extra-strength Advil.

In an effort to peaceably mediate the spat, I told them: “You are both such nice boys; let’s try harder to get along. And why can’t you speak a little kinder about one another?”

“We try to be so careful of how we address each other around here, where on earth do they learn such hostile bickering, anyway?”

I thought, as I filled three little mouths with popcorn, which left hardly any room for name-calling or wrangling for almost eight minutes.

During the reprieve, I flipped the TV from Nickelodeon to CNN in time to hear the end of a commercial.

“John Kerry — wrong on taxes, wrong on defense,” came the voice-over from a political advertisement for President Bush.

No sooner had the screen dipped to black then another spot began with the question, “Doesn’t America deserve more from its president than misleading negative ads?”

So, apparently my boys are picking up tips from the pros.

As the president and his wannabe replacement trade verbal jabs, I can’t help but wonder why there seems to be so much viciousness on both sides; especially because it seems to have started so early in the year.

I mean, what will they be doing by November, pulling each other’s hair?

According to a recent edition of Newsweek magazine, there are many reasons the gloves have already come off in the fight for the presidency.

Among them: to spur campaign contributions (doesn’t everything come down to that same bottom line?), to keep up with the instantaneous nature of information distribution (meaning popularity of both cable news channels and the internet have accelerated the political ad process) and basically just out of habit (as in, history proves that this kind of antagonistic strategy has been commonplace since the 1800s).

As fairly as I attempted to assess the situation between my son and nephew, so did I try to evaluate the squabble between those other two boys, Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry. To get a little background info, I visited each man’s website.

I chose to go www.george bush.com at the outset. Hey, he had the office first.

I decided to pick a random topic, such as women’s issues, given that I’m the mommy and all. Here’s what I found that the president recently said about that matter during a speech.

“The struggle for women’s rights is a story of ordinary women doing extraordinary things. And today, the women of Afghanistan are … helping rebuild their country. Several women helped draft and review the country’s new constitution … And this year, all Afghan women will have the opportunity to vote in the presidential election.”

Now, I know that much of that positive change came as a direct result of U.S. intervention, so props to you, W. I like it.

Then I surfed over to www.johnkerry.com, where I discovered that, “John Kerry co-sponsored the original Family and Medical Leave Act, which has given millions of American workers the chance to take time off for the birth of a child or to care for a sick child or family member.

“John Kerry believes that we should not only protect Family and Medical Leave but should expand it to help more Americans balance the needs between work and family.”

Oh, that’s very nice, too. Good job, senator.

I continued ping-ponging between websites to compare and contrast, but just when I was starting to soften toward both candidates, I noticed that each has a section that basically bashes the other guy.

“Aunt Patty, he’s weak and waffles on important stuff,” I could almost hear one boy moaning while the other interrupted with, “Yeah, but you can’t listen to him. He’s a crook and a liar!”

Now, where’d I put that Advil? Oh, well.

Maybe my wise-beyond-her-years niece put it best.

“Be quiet, you’re both annoying and need to go to time out for a while.”

Contact Kimerer nicely at pkimerer@zoominternet.net.