I feel like sharing this 10-minute video from the 2008 Al Smith Memorial Dinner.

It features U.S. Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s nominee for president of the United States. He brought the house down with his good-natured barbs at his “friend and colleague” Sen. Barack Obama. His comments also were laced a healthy measure of self-deprecation.

The Al Smith dinner is a quadrennial event that brings the two major-party nominees together to raise money to benefit the Catholic Church’s good work.

Given the terribly sad news about Sen. McCain’s cancer diagnosis and the outpouring of support from across the political spectrum, I thought I’d share this video to illustrate how politics need not be so full of hate.

This is for you, Sen. McCain.

I really enjoy hearing about current events that conjure up previous such events with which I have some familiarity.

Some Ku Klux Klan members sought to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va. Then they were met by a boisterous and rowdy counterprotest from those who wanted to drown out the KKK’s point of view.

I find it so very interesting that the KKK would protest this statue removal. It’s also ironic, given the view expressed by some Americans that honoring Gen. Lee only honors “tradition” and “Southern heritage.” The irony is that the Klan would mount the protest. The Ku Klux (bleeping) Klan! The racist hate group known for its extreme violence over many years against African-Americans and non-Christian minorities.

Heritage? History? Give me a break.

But … back to my point.

The counterprotest reminds me of something that occurred right here in Amarillo, Texas, in 2006. The Klan wanted to protest federal housing policy, so they decided to come to Amarillo. City officials granted the Klan a permit to demonstrate at City Hall. Just as the KKK started to blather its nonsense, in walked a horde of counterprotesters led by none other than the late Stanley Marsh 3.

Marsh — who was wearing his familiar white suit that looked as though it was borrowed from Col. Sanders — was banging some cymbals, if memory serves, and he was walking in front of a lengthy line of horn-blaring, drum-pounding, shouting protesters who — just like those in Charlottesville — sought to outshout the Klansmen.

I get that the KKK is entitled to free speech under the First Amendment’s guarantee of that particular civil liberty. So, too, are those who wanted them shouted down.

Here’s how the Washington Post reported it.

They did it in Charlottesville, just as they did in Amarillo.

I’m on the side of the counterprotesters.

I thought this was a satirical item when I first saw it, but apparently it’s for real.

Fox News Channel contributors are criticizing the vacation destinations of Barack and Michelle Obama. Yes, that would be the former president and former first lady of the United States, two individuals who now are private citizens … more or less.

According to The Hill: Citing “travel experts,” it said that “the level of luxury the Obamas enjoy on their vacations is unprecedented for a modern-day president.”

Here is how The Hill reported it.

Fox asked Patrick Caddell, former pollster and policy adviser to President Carter, about his view of it. Caddell described the Obamas’ vacation destinations as being like the “lifestyles of the rich and famous.” They’ve been to Bali and to luxury resorts in Hawaii, which I guess doesn’t go down well with those who work at Fox.

I won’t belabor this point, but Fox News is quite friendly to Donald J. Trump. Since I don’t routinely watch Fox News, I am reluctant to draw conclusions about its coverage of the president’s pricey excursions to his own resort in Florida. Is the network as hard-nosed in its examination of the current president as it appears to be of his immediate predecessor? You decide.

The difference is that the Obamas are footing their own bill for their vacation; the Trumps are vacationing on our dime.

Therefore, I believe Barack and Michelle Obama are entitled to vacation wherever they damn well please.

Anthony Kennedy is going to be the man on the hot seat Monday.

You can rest assured the U.S. Supreme Court associate justice knows it, too.

It’s the final day of the court’s current term. Justice Kennedy has been on the high court bench for 29 years. He’s the senior member of the court.

There’s some chatter around Washington, D.C., that Kennedy is going to announce his retirement from the bench on Monday. It’s reported that there will be a reunion of Kennedy’s law clerks on Monday; they’ll sit around, slap each other on the back and swap memories of working for the justice.

If he does retire, and it’s not altogether certain he will, you can bet that the fight to succeed will make the Neil Gorsuch battle look like a day at the beach in comparison.

What sometimes gets lost in discussions about Kennedy is that he wasn’t President Reagan’s first choice for the high court appointment; he wasn’t even the Gipper’s second choice. The first pick, Robert Bork, was rejected by the U.S. Senate after a bitter confirmation hearing and debate; the second choice, Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew his name from consideration after he admitted smoking marijuana while in college.

Along came Anthony Kennedy, who the president hoped would be a stellar conservative on the court. Justice Kennedy has turned out to be a centrist, a swing vote, someone who’s sided with liberal justices as well as conservatives on key decisions.

And therein lies the crux of the battle that would consume the nation’s capital if Kennedy decides to hang up his robe.

Justice Gorsuch replaced a conservative on the court, the late Antonin Scalia. Yet that fight proved to be consequential, too. The reasons why escape me, given that Donald Trump replaced a known conservative justice with someone believed to be from the same stripe … although Justice Gorsuch has yet to demonstrate that he is as strictly conservative as Scalia.

The day a swing justice or a liberal justice retires or is otherwise unable to serve is the day all hell will break loose as long as Donald Trump is president of the United States.

Lane Kiffin is the head football coach at Florida Atlantic University and he’s had his share of controversy over many years involved with intercollegiate football.

Now come reports that Kiffin is robbing the cradle in search of football players.

He reportedly is going after middle school students. One of them is reported to be a — sheesh! — sixth-grader.

Kiffin has been known in football circles as a hothead and a loudmouth. He coached the Oakland Raiders; he was head coach at the University of Tennessee; he ventured to the University of Southern California as head coach; then he wound up as an offensive coordinator at the University of Alabama. All along the way he managed to anger folks with whom he was associated.

Robbing the cradle

Someone might have to explain to me: How does a college football coach know what kind of player a sixth-grader is going to be when he comes of age?

Maybe more to the point is this query: Why can’t an intercollegiate football coach let a kid be a kid without exerting recruitment pressure on him?

I will concede that there’s a lot about football recruitment I don’t understand. What I’ll never get is why a college coach would spend time recruiting someone who is barely pubescent.