BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON  |  JUL 19

I find it very uncomfortable writing in the first person and reading the work of those who do.  After the sixth or seventh personal pronoun, I often just quit reading.

This, on the other hand, is all about me so I just can’t avoid talking about me.

This week it will have been a month since I suggested to the half dozen or so good friends who read my stuff that I feared the entire country was hyperventilating over presidential politics and that we should take a month off from Don and Hil, breathe into a brown paper bag, and adjust our attitudes and our behavior.

My editor said I ought to take my own advice, so I did. So here is my report.

I haven’t, in the past month, listened to an evening newscast story about the campaign, read about Don and Hil, or engaged in a conversation about presidential politics, with one or two exceptions precipitated by my concern for offending someone or reinforcing pre-existing perceptions that I am old and out of touch. Some things about the campaign you just can’t avoid, but for the most part I have. [And, I have, like the rest of America, been caught up in the horrifying events in the US and abroad, of which I do not make light here.]

In accordance with my own advice of this past June, however, I enjoyed the Fourth, immensely. Like all holidays, it was time for serious reflection, but it is more about fun and relaxation, enjoying that rare wave of civility that seems to wash over us on most national holidays.

As the late Erma Bombeck once noted, we celebrate our independence with fireworks, flag waving, hot dogs and beer, and hometown parades that feature floats and tractors, not long columns of soldiers and tanks moving punctually past balconies filled with military and civilian autocrats and dictators.

And, then, of course, there is The Capital Fourth celebration on the Capitol’s West Front. It was another gushing, patriotic extravaganza, the kind that tugs at the emotions no matter how much of a cynical butthead you are. Yankee Doodle Dandy, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and America the Beautiful with scenes of Old Faithful, glaciers and great waterfalls, Mt Rushmore, and the Shenandoah, all celebrated in the fog and mist with incredible fireworks, even if some were from last year’s broadcast. Good show, and there in the front row, 93-year-old Bob Michel, war hero and public servant. There he was the embodiment of much of what the celebration is all about.

But as Chad and Jeremy warbled back in the 60s, that was yesterday and yesterday’s gone.

So what do you focus on if not presidential politics? What is more important? What is more relevant in the lives of the faithful masses waiting to harvest those amber waves of grain or hike the mountains majesty or mind the stores across the nation’s main streets?

No Don or Hil, then who?

No brainer: The Kardashians.

They are in your face no matter which way you turn at every grocery store checkout counter in America. Don’t look now. They’re here.

Khloe may finally put to rest the constant rumors (you’ve all heard them) about the alleged illicit affair her mother, Kris, Kardashian had with O.J. Simpson, which resulted in Khloe’s  conception. It was during a time when OJ and his late wife, Nicole, who was brutally murdered, were once great friends of Kris and her husbands, the late Robert Kardashian, and the later Bruce Jenner.  The rumors about who is Khloe’s father, according to reliable news publications, have been tearing the family apart.

Now we learn that Khloe has talked OJ into a DNA blood test, according to leaks from a prison guard at OJ’s current domicile. We don’t know when that will occur, but the sooner the better, right?

Khloe, as you know, already has a lot on her plate. She is also struggling with an on-again, off-again, on-again relationship with her estranged husband, Lamar Odom, the guy who was found unconscious in a house of prostitution not so long ago.

There is big news with her sisters, too. Kourtney, according to In Touch Magazine, has been telling friends—that’s the way the news always gets out—that she is pregnant, and “there is only one man who could be the father.” Kourtney sounds like Kris. The father is apparently her on-again-off-again, obviously on-again boyfriend, Scott Disick, the father of her other three children who is now out of drug and alcohol rehab and ready to try the daddy thing again.

And, latest flash, sister Kim is being caught up in a web of rumors about a divorce from hubby Kanye West, the only announced candidate for President in 2020. Obviously she does not want to go through a presidential campaign no matter how much money they can make doing it. Think about it, that would probably be substantial given her incredible talent for making money, as was evidenced in the $7 million she hauled in on a phony courtship and wedding to a professional basketball player. What is it with them and basketball players? Who among us would have thought of that?

Enough of the Kardashian cash cow.

Will there be a life after Harry Potter for Daniel Radcliffe?

How did Melissa McCarthy lose all of that weight and will it affect her career?

Is someone going to arrest, Eric, the brother of Real Housewives of Orange County star Kelly Dodd for shining a laser beam into the eyes of volleyball players in Newport Beach, CA? Honestly! People who shine lasers into airplane cockpits and peoples’ eyes ought to be put in jail. I don’t understand why the New York Post doesn’t pick up on this.

And speaking of “real housewives”, People Magazine last week caught us up on Teresa Giudice, who is single-parenting her three children while her husband, Joe, is doing time for mail fraud. Good thing they didn’t have to serve time concurrently so she could be the parent after she finished doing her jail time right before he went in. They rival the Kardashians in innovative if not desperate ways to make money.

I also spent more time observing the run-up to the Olympic Games and wondering seriously whether they will succeed. Brazil is in turmoil politically, there’s a national health scare and the scene in Rio is being described as a catastrophe.

According to one publication, body parts floated up on the beach near an Olympic venue, recently, while TV crews were in desperate search for stolen transmission and communications equipment.

“Robberies, the report said, “are up 43 percent in Rio de Janeiro state because of a security vacuum. Policemen are being killed in large numbers and there are fights between the drug gangs in impoverished communities or favelas, where 40 percent of Rio’s population lives.”

Boycotting presidential politics can be a life-changer and surprisingly enough, there is more than enough to keep it the mind occupied. We are into the Republican convention now, but I am still not sure I want to go back, although I did watch my good friend Bill Schuette, Michigan’s attorney general, give a great speech Monday afternoon.

Some studious think tank should commission a study on the time and precious national resources we waste on presidential politics. I’ll bet we could produce the same asinine result with far less of the nation’s attention and far fewer of the nation’s resources. There’s a problem for the media. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, reminded us recently that campaigns may not be good for America but they are “damn good for CBS”. Talk about cash cows (insert your favorite network or newspaper here).

Meanwhile, I’ve freed up so much time I’m considering a new hobby.

I’m thinking of becoming a spelunker. Our post-election options may be either the caves or Canada.

Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.