Star Trek - Original Series is Shatner...Kirk?

DENNY CRANE did a great job in helping to seperate Kirk from Shatner. But, now, a year removed from Boston Legal, I find myself reverting to my old habit of not being able to seperate Shatner from Kirk.
When he was on CONAN last week, and read Palin's Twits, I couldn't get past his being Kirk. But now Shather is so beyond trek I consider Kirk, and all that kirk was, absorbed by shatner...I don't know how to explain it.
Are you the same? Can you seperate Kirk/Shatner, or do you see them as blurred?