Why does Sen. John Kerry talk incessantly about Vietnam?
Obviously, it has given him a great political advantage in past campaigns and he hopes it will do the same in his race for the White House. But there might be another reason. Perhaps more than any other presidential candidate in recent memory, Kerry seems to be living in another time, playing a movie of Vietnam over and over in his mind . . .
Is Kerry's the only campaign to play Jimi Hendrix -- specifically, 'Fire' from the 1967 album Are You Experienced? -- at rallies? Other candidates -- like John Edwards, with his theme song, John Mellencamp's 'Small Town' -- aren't exactly cutting edge, but they have chosen somewhat newer stuff.
And what about the music on Kerry's bus? Before the Iowa caucuses, Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly described the candidate hanging out on the bus with Peter Yarrow, his old friend from Peter, Paul, and Mary. 'Pedro, sing us a song,' Kerry ordered one day. Yarrow picked up a guitar and began to play and sing -- and later waxed nostalgic about the antiwar rallies he attended way back when with Kerry and Eugene McCarthy.
Earlier, Connolly wrote, when Yarrow sang 'Puff the Magic Dragon' at an event in a private home in Ames, Iowa, 'Kerry lifted his fingers to his mouth for a quick toke on an imaginary joint. You can almost see his thick mane of silver hair returning to the shaggy brown do of those days.'
This man is living in a time warp. No wonder Kerry sees any conflict -- Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II --as a potential Vietnam. In Kerry's world, Vietnam is running on a continuous loop on that big screen TV -- with Jimi, Kris, and Peter, Paul, and Mary singing in the background.
Oh how annoying! Can we trivilaize the man any more than this?
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