Kerry kicked off last week's concert by mounting the stage with new sidekick John Edwards, who has managed to transform himself into Mr. Electricity since the primaries, when many of us in the vulture class thought the too-smooth-by-half Edwards was less suited to sell us his vision of America, more suited to sell us an extended power-train warranty on a Camry. There they stood, two well-tailored, half-windsored Monsters of Rock, before they plunged into the audience.And as we all know, things went downhill from there. I sure wouldn't have passed that up for a briefing on terrorist threats, would you?
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Taking the night's first-of-many whacks at the Bush piñata, Newman mocked trickle-down tax cuts, saying rich coots like him hide their money in a sock. "Why, when the tax cuts were announced," he said by way of proof, "did the sock market go up 60 percent?"
Praise Ja that Wyclef Jean soon followed to put him out of his misery. Numerous reporters have noticed that Kerry and Edwards have jeopardized the platonic nature of their relationship since getting politically hitched, what with all the arm-touching, hair-mussing, and trapezius-squeezing. Some hoped that Wyclef would croon something suited for the budding romance, such as his song, "I'm the Only Gay Eskimo" (I go out seal hunting with my best friend Tarka / But all I wanna do is get into his parka).
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John Mellencamp took the stage to sing "I was born in a small town," John Edwards's longtime campaign song. Unconfirmed reports have it that Edwards is the son of a millworker who actually hails from a small town. At one point, while Bon Jovi held down lead-vocal duties on Mellencamp's "Pink Houses," Mellencamp actually trekked to Edwards's seat for some sort of huggy/chest-bump. With so many blue-collar poseurs keeping company, it left one feeling sorry for Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen, who must have been unable to knock off early from the factory.
But performers didn't just provide the gift of song, they also provided the gift of laughter, or tried. Many organizers would've opted to hire someone who was, say, funny. Kerry organizers thought it would be better to go with Chevy Chase and Whoopi Goldberg.
On Friday, the hangover set in and the campaign went into damage control mode:
The Kerry campaign's response evolved as the day went on -- from refusing to criticize the remarks to distancing the candidate from them.You can follow the link for the blather track, but you know you're in trouble when Tinfoil Teresa is the most sensible of the bunch:
While the candidate did not directly address the issue, his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, told reporters traveling aboard the campaign charter that "some of the words were ones I would not have used."C'mon folks, share the good times with the little people - release the tape!
