Wackiness on your fries?

When partison politics reaches what we eat, we know that we are in trouble. Now, conservatives are coming up with their own food products, guaranteed to divide the country even more.

First came the infamous furore over French fries - renamed "freedom fries" by a certain faction of patriotic Republicans. Now battle has been joined over the accompanying item on the menu - tomato ketchup.

Ketchup may be as all-American as cheerleading and apple pie, but Heinz, the country's leading ketchup maker, also happens to have a direct link to John Kerry, President Bush's Democratic Party challenger. And that poses a problem for every fast-food-loving Republican.