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Whoopie Cushion
By Jennifer King
July 19, 2004

One would expect that a $7.5 million dollar fundraiser held by Jann Wenner and Harvey Weinstein would be a classy affair, complete with champagne, canapés and cultured ladies in fancy dress. Whoops, scratch that - instead the Wenner/Weinstein Kerry Lovefest ended up becoming the Crass Comedian's Bush Hatefest.

The evening's Emcee was a wine-swilling Whoopie Goldberg, who slurringly made crude and tasteless jokes which could best be described as her variation on "The "Vagina Monologues." Goldberg, using frat-boy humor coupled with rude gesturing, combined the names "George Bush" and "Dick Cheney" in order to make obscene, lurid and utterly predictable vulgarisms.

Other performers included John (no Cougar) Mellencamp who sang a newly composed ditty called the "Texas Bandito". (Bandito, get it?) The lyrics included charming phrases such as, "he's another cheap thug...that sacrifices our young" and "you're going to get us killed with your lies."

Noted pundits Jessica Lange and Meryl Streep also weighed in, Lange pronouncing that the Bush Administration was a "self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and belligerence" and Streep mocking President Bush's religious faith, asking which "megaton bombs dropped on the sleeping families of Baghdad" Jesus would have approved of.

Another leading intellectual, actor Chevy Chase, proclaimed that President Bush was, "as bright as an egg timer", averred that he was "afraid" of Bush and said that he, "really, really, really, really didn't like him." Really?

It is probably too much to expect intellect and class from any star in Hollywood today, but one would hope that candidates running for President and Vice-President would emit a certain maturity and sense of decorum. In this instance also, one would be sadly disappointed. Senator John Kerry, in the immortal words of Senator Zell Miller, "sat there the entire time grinning like a mule eating briars." Later, both candidates effusively praised the performers for "an extraordinary evening" and said that the performers "conveyed the heart and soul of our country". Senator Edwards declared that the Kerry/Edwards "campaign will be a celebration of real American values." Nice to know what sort of values the Democratic candidates espouse.

Senator Edwards apparently has one thing right - there are "two Americas". Sadly, only one of them is comprised of adults. Today's Democratic Party is not a serious one and it and its candidates are wholly unsuited to lead the nation in a time of war.

The Left in 2004 is still partying like it's 1999. President Clinton was manifestly unconcerned with Osama and Salman Pak, preferring instead to jet around the world on the "American Apology Tour". Yesterday, in France of all places, Mr. Clinton continued the riff. "America", Mr. Clinton intoned, "hadn't previously seen itself as an arrogant military power." Of course, that would be when Mr. Clinton was at the helm, not during, say, during the "imperialist" Vietnam War era when Mr. Clinton was also protesting against his country while on foreign soil.

Senator Kerry has his own closet of skeletons to protect, yet in some curious ways he's remarkably brash about them. His "Let America be America Again" slogan comes straight from Langston Hughes, the pro-Marxist anti-Christian atheist poet. Kerry's 1993 photograph with Comrade do Muoi, General Secretary of the Communist Party in Vietnam, hangs prominently near Jane Fonda's in the "War Protestors Hall of the War Remnants Museum" in the current Ho Chi Minh City. Kerry's medals have even been questioned, with the attending doctor testifying that at least one Purple Heart was given for a wound which required a "bandaid". The Purple Hearts allowed Senator Kerry an early out - instead of a yearlong tour, Kerry did four months.

Most egregious, however, is Kerry's behavior upon his return. His 1971 Senate testimony against his fellow soldiers accused them of rape, torture and mass murder. This testimony available online at (website) has been roundly debunked by historians and veterans alike. The "soldiers" whom Kerry recruited to lead his "Vietnam Veterans Against the War" group have been shown to be mostly "pretenders and liars" who never served in Vietnam at all. And Kerry's book, "The New Soldier", is rife with slander towards the United States military - from the cover picture with long haired hippies holding the flag upside down in a sick parody of the Marines at Iwo Jima - to the final chapter.

Senator Kerry has never cogently answered to his behavior in the early 1970s. Today, Kerry flaunts his service in Vietnam and professes to be proud of it. Yet Kerry cannot have it both ways. Either he and his men committed war crimes that they should be prosecuted for, or Kerry has some serious 'splaining to do. And then let's discuss those "real American values."

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.