One can only hope that Sen. John Kerry, for entertainment value alone, ignores almost everybody in the Democratic Party and slogs ahead with another run at the presidency in 2008. The guy’s a stitch, and although it’s difficult to discern whether this barrage of hilarity is intentional or not, if as expected, he fails in defeating his rivals less than two years from now, he could fit comfortably as an extra in a Kevin Smith or John Waters film. In Smith’s new and riotous Clerks II, for example, Kerry would’ve been perfectly believable as the strange fellow who makes a living performing “inter-species erotica,” like blowing a donkey and then having his way with the animal from the rear.
Kerry was in Detroit on July 23 to ostensibly help the flagging campaign of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, one of the few Democratic incumbents likely facing defeat this fall—that she called on Kerry isn’t a reassuring message to her supporters—and, in an imitation of the late Allan Sherman or Jon Stewart, took a break at Honest John’s bar and grill to treat a Detroit News reporter with a brief stand-up routine. Kerry said, “If I was president, this wouldn’t have happened,” referring to the current war between Israel and Hezbollah/ Iran. He continued, “[President Bush] has been so absent on diplomacy when it comes to issues affecting the Middle East. We’re going to have a lot of ground to make up (in 2008) because of it… This is about American security and Bush has failed. He has made it so much worse because of his lack of reality in going into Iraq. We have to
destroy Hezbollah.”
It could be that Kerry’s spent so much time dispensing wisdom, mirth and leftover cash from his last campaign that he hasn’t noticed Bush isn’t advising Congress to appropriate funds and military to the
murder-soaked terrorist organization Hezbollah. Kerry’s also out of synch with his enablers at papers like The New York Times, who are typically calling on Kofi Annan (and inevitably George Mitchell, once he’s done cleansing Major League Baseball from all performance enhancing drugs) to solve the crisis.
Bob Herbert’s column, which rivals only Paul Krugman’s as a wholly appropriate reason for Times shareholders to demand a regime change at the company, differed with Kerry on July 24 when he pleaded that everyone give peace a chance. Ignoring the Iranian leaders’ belligerence—although that’s probably too polite a word to describe the call to “wipe Israel off the map”—and collusion with Hezbollah, Herbert blamed Bush for backing Israel’s attempt to, in Kerry’s words, “destroy Hezbollah.” He wrote: “As a true friend of Israel, the task of the United States is to work as strenuously as possible to find real solutions to Israel’s problems [what a novel concept!]… But the compulsive muscle-flexers in the Bush crowd were contemptuous of that idea. Always hot for war, and astonishingly indifferent to its consequences, they egged Israel on.”
Silly me, I forgot that it was Donald Rumsfeld and John Bolton who kidnapped those Israeli soldiers earlier
this month.
He continued: “Neither Israel nor the United States can kill enough Muslims to win the struggle against terror… What the United States needs is as much serious diplomatic engagement on all fronts as possible, and an end to the Bush administration’s insane addiction to war—even more war—as the answer to the world’s ills.” It wouldn’t surprise me if Herbert had originally included Yasser Arafat as a potential peace-broker but was saved by a copy editor who reminded the columnist that Arafat, Bill Clinton’s frequent White House companion, is mercifully dead.
And wouldn’t it be grand if Al Gore decided, sooner rather than later, that in fact squaring off against Hillary Clinton, Kerry, John Edwards, Mark Warner and Russell Feingold wouldn’t be so inconvenient after all. It’s not as if he’s the pariah of the Democratic Party any longer. Hardly a recluse in the past four years, Gore would attract immense support from voters who are squeamish about Hillary’s back and forth on Iraq and religion. And the “netroots” squawkers would undoubtedly back him over Ned Lamont. One of my favorite lead paragraphs in a magazine this year was contained in the July 13 issue of Rolling Stone, just before a spread on actor Johnny Depp, and featured the sub-head, “The man who won the presidency in 2000 is looser and more outspoken than ever. Is his global warming movie a warm-up for a third run at the White House?”
Will Dana writes: “It is probably not fair to say that global warming excites Al Gore, but get him going on the subject and he becomes possessed by the spirit of a Holy Rolling preacher, swelling and quaking in his chair, hitting high notes, speaking in tongues.” Granted, the laconic Rolling Stone can’t quite be confused with Maxim—the instructive column “Dope Notes” was ditched decades ago—but is Dana speculating that on occasion Gore’s zealotry on the subject of global warming causes him to inadvertently pop a woody?
Meanwhile, touching however tangentially on public holy rollers, and providing an excuse not to gloat over E-Rod’s troubles at Yankee Stadium, Boston’s relief pitcher Mike Timlin offered a too private, in my opinion, analysis of the game the Red Sox blew to the Mariners last Sunday. I like Timlin, especially his hunting stories, but his comments to the Boston Globe’s Amalie Benjamin following the walk-off homer he gave up to Richie Sexson were a bit jarring, even to live and let live fellows such as myself.
He said: “It’s just some days you don’t win. I look at it like, today, with us throwing the ball where we threw the ball, we’re strong enough in our faith, in our team, in God, and in the things that are going on in our life that we’re OK. God wants everybody to do well. Things like this happen. Apparently the Mariners needed a boost. [Andre] Beltre needed a boost in his confidence [which Sox outfielders Manny Ramirez and Coco Crisp helped along by booting the ball from Seattle to Oakland], so did Sexson. I look at it like I’m strong enough to handle a loss. God knows that. And they needed help. So it works out that way.”
Maybe so. But couldn’t Timlin have spared readers the sermon and simply said, “Bad pitch, disappointing game, but we’ll get back on the horse tomorrow.” Or an equally benign baseball cliché and let God worry about something a little more pressing.
