Passing the Laugh Test

John Kerry made one of his most important appearances of the year.

With Jon Stewart.

Don't laugh.

Actually, if you didn't laugh, the gambit will have failed.

To do justice to this cosmic event, I am writing twice -- a pregame setup to be followed immediately below (after my nap) by a postgame assessment. That way you won't have to wait one extra second for our special event coverage. First, the setup:

"The Daily Show" has become the hottest booking on television. Bill Clinton and Ed Gillespie recently appeared, not to mention Tom Cruise. John Edwards announced his candidacy on the show -- and look where he is now. Every other Democratic presidential contender walked into Stewart's lair -- except for Kerry.

Here's why Kerry's Comedy Central moment is important. It's not about "connecting" with "young people" -- that's the kind of thing an old person would write. It's about demonstrating that your humor gene is not missing, that you deserve regular-guy status, that you get the joke.

Kerry may be many things, but wild and crazy isn't one of them. He seems as serious now as he did while testifying about Vietnam atrocities in 1971. Yes, he rides motorcycles and goes windsurfing, but he always seems a bit distant from the rest of us.

This is Kerry's chance to lose the stiff label.

Besides, if he can't handle Jon Stewart, how can he handle Vladimir Putin?

It's an important moment for Stewart, the Newsweek cover boy, as well. His humor has been aimed much more sharply at Bush in the past year -- will he zing Kerry as well? Will he toss only slow-pitch softballs? Will he abandon his funnyman role and conduct a straighforward (meaning lackluster) interview?

Time for bed.

***

Okay, I'm back. Kerry did reasonably well, though he didn't say anything particularly funny. He laughed at all of Stewart's jokes. Oh, and there was this (unintentionally?) funny line about life on the trail:

"You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room."

I doubt Tim Russert would have gotten that out of Kerry.

The senator's main accomplishment was that he looked relaxed. At least he didn't come on with a bunch of bad scripted gags (though he did say, "Maybe we can do the inauguration here"). He did keep slipping into stump-speak (only "go to war because you have to"), but not for too long. And Kerry said he had seen one of Stewart's earlier routines about Bush, which undoubtedly scored points with the host, if not the audience.

Stewart was pretty easy on Kerry. How was he holding up? How did he feel being attacked by the Swift boat veterans? Was he surprised by the assault? The only discordant note was when he pretended to be reading off Republican talking points: "Please refute if you will. Are you the number one most liberal senator in the Senate? . . . Are you or have you ever flip-flopped?"

Fortunately for the candidate, Stewart kept making fun of the GOP attacks, saying he'd seen a TV ad: "'John Kerry wants our troops to go to war wearing only gabardine.' You know? They'll say that you voted against the body armor. And yet they won't talk about what the vote was about and what the battle was."

"Hey, wearing gabardine beats going to war the way this president sent our troops to war," Kerry responded.

Expectations Game Alert: Kerry weighed in early by setting a low bar for himself in the fall debates: "The president has won every debate he's ever had."

So now the pressure builds. Will Bush subject himself to a Jon Stewart inquisition? I'm sure he'll be grilled on this at his next media availability.

Here's a USA Today report on Kerry's drop-by.

You know how the Bush campaign keeps saying there is no connection to the Swift boat veterans (other than that unpaid campaign aide who appeared in the commercial)? Well, funny coincidence. . . .

"The Bush campaign's top outside lawyer said Tuesday that he had given legal advice to the group of veterans attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and antiwar activism in a book, television commercials and countless appearances on cable news programs," says the New York Times.

"The lawyer, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, said that the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, called him last month to ask for his help and that he agreed. Mr. Ginsberg said that he had yet to work out payment details with the group and that he might consider doing the work pro bono.

"Mr. Ginsberg, the chief outside counsel to the Bush-Cheney re-election effort, agreed to an interview after several telephone calls to him and the campaign's asking that he explain his role. He said that he was helping the group comply with campaign finance rules and that his work was entirely separate from his work for the president. President Bush has called for an end to advertising by all groups like that of the Swift boat veterans, called 527's for the section of the tax code that created them."

Entirely separate. Of course. Yes. Who would possibly think otherwise?

The "Daily Show" taping must have loosened Kerry up, because, according to this Boston Globe account, he sounds like he wasn't just reading the talking points:

"After a day in which he worked to both shine a light on his political agenda and cast doubt on the Republicans' upcoming convention, John F. Kerry last night diverted from his script and instead took on critics of his Vietnam War record.

"The Democratic presidential nominee, standing before a statue of Benjamin Franklin at the Franklin Institute, recalled for a crowd attending a party fund-raiser that a local congressman had just told him he 'is hearing these commentators, Republicans, all of them, saying, "Well, John Kerry was only in Vietnam for four months, blah, blah, blah."'

"That criticism, as well as questions about whether he deserved the three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star, and Silver Star he received, have been raised in a new book and television ad produced by members of The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a Republican-backed organization. . . .

"'Well, I was there for longer than that, number one,' Kerry said, offering his rebuttal. 'Number two, I served two tours. Number three, they thought enough of my service to make me an aide to an admiral [upon leaving Vietnam], and the Navy 35 years ago made the awards that it made, through the normal process that they make, and I'm proud of them and I'm proud of my service and I'm proud that I stood up against the war when I came home, because it was the right thing to do.'

Kerry labeled his critics 'so petty it's almost pathetic.'"

National Review Editor Rich Lowry likes the second swift salvo:

"By rights, the second Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad should be more devastating than the first. The new ad focuses on John Kerry's 1971 antiwar congressional testimony. If the content of the first ad, questioning the circumstances in which Kerry won his medals and Purple Hearts, inevitably becomes a 'he said-he said,' the second ad is an inarguable 'he said it.' Look it up in the Congressional Record, Thursday, April 22, 1971, Pages 179-210.

"One of the prisoners of war featured in the new ad, Paul Galanti, spent nearly seven years in captivity in Vietnam. 'John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and my comrades in the prison camps in North Vietnam took torture to avoid saying,' Galanti says. That is to say Kerry recited a denunciation of the U.S. war effort so sweeping and absurdly over-the-top that only a tortured American soldier or a North Vietnamese propagandist could have done better (or worse).

"Recounting the work of the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation -- a since-discredited project that gathered first-person accounts of alleged atrocities from American vets -- Kerry spoke of 'war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.' In his telling, the American war was simply a criminal undertaking. Kerry said the men 'relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.'

"Now, of course, Kerry implicitly portrays Vietnam as a noble undertaking, featuring only great acts of bravery by great American men. In his convention speech, Kerry bragged of defending America as a soldier -- forgetting that it once was his deeply held conviction that the Vietnam War had nothing to do with defending America."

In a Washington Post column, Joshua Muravchik says Kerry was deceptive about having been in Cambodia during the war.

Slate's Fred Kaplan makes the opposite case.

Who'd'a thunk the Olympics would become a campaign issue? Here is American Prospect's Matthew Yglesias:

"Considering that he's the sort of man who's not above pretending to like Cheez Whiz in order to gain a fleeting political advantage, it should come as no surprise to learn that George W. Bush thinks of the Olympics less as a celebration of athleticism than as yet another opportunity for electioneering. Thus, while the unofficial Bush campaign was busy spreading lies and baseless innuendo about John Kerry's war record, the official campaign launched a new ad lauding the president's supposed success in spreading the blessings of freedom around the world.

"It was a good choice. Americans like the Olympics, and because our men's soccer team failed to qualify, the field was open for the United States to root for some other nation. And, so far, the Iraqis are doing well. So well, in fact, that Matt Drudge (a key player in the aforementioned unofficial campaign and hence someone potentially in a position to know) has reported that the White House is contemplating a surprise trip to Athens, Greece, so the president can watch the team and further associate his failed administration with the players' success.

"What's more, Iraq's Olympians suffered uniquely at the hands of Saddam Hussein's son Uday, making them an excellent example of the undeniable fact that some good has come of the Iraq War. The charge that Bush's critics harbor a secret nostalgia for Baath Party rule can be rebutted, but, like many things, the argument is not amenable to explication in a 30-second television spot, so it looked like the campaign was headed toward making some modest gains off the issue.

"But a funny thing happened on the way to the medal stand: Someone asked Iraq's players how they feel. 'Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign,' Salih Sadir told Sports Illustrated."

I've been waiting for someone to jump on Bush's comments about 527 groups -- he signed the campaign finance bill, didn't he? -- and Washington Monthly Editor Paul Glastris obliges:

"The president's curious sudden dislike of 527s. The group his campaign set up to cover the legal and political expenses of contesting the 2000 Florida recount was, yes, a 527. I don't know if that group, the Bush-Cheney 2000, Inc-Recount Fund, ever ran adds. But it did come close to running afoul of a law designed to force 527s to disclose their donors.

"And, tellingly, the disclosure law it almost broke was put in place just before the 2000 general election as a direct response to the mysterious appearance during the GOP primaries of yet another 527, Republicans for Clean Air. That group ran ads bashing John McCain's environmental voting record and praising then-Gov. Bush's. Not only were the facts in the ads a stretch, but because there was at the time no disclosure requirement, no one knew who was paying for them. The mystery was solved by the New York Times, which eventually revealed the donor to be Dallas billionaire and Bush-backer Sam Wyly.

"The final irony, Public Citizen's Craig Holman tells me, is that those same disclosure requirements are what made it possible for the New York Times last week to pretty quickly figure out the web of Bush cronies who supported the anti-Kerry swift boaters."

What outrage could prompt the screaming New York Post headline "SPEAKER OF THE LOUSE"?

"House Speaker Dennis Hastert is charging in a new book that New York lawmakers' attempts to win financial aid after the 9/11 attacks amounted to an 'unseemly scramble' for money.

"Just days before the GOP convention is set to begin in the city -- and three years after the catastrophe from which many city businesses have yet to recover -- the Illinois Republican's ugly slap at the Big Apple infuriated New York legislators."

Good timing, Denny.

Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen unloads on his senior senator:

"Senator Tom Harkin's accusation that Vice President Dick Cheney is a 'coward' is a story that isn't going away. Republicans are saying Harkin was dumped last week from a Wisconsin campaign trip on behalf of John Kerry because the remark has made the Iowan simply too hot to represent the ticket. . . . "

By making the statement, Harkin:

"

• Helped keep alive the story questioning Kerry's service in Vietnam. . . .

"

• Made himself radioactive. He'll forever be known as the guy who called the vice president a name, one that's across the line for most people.

"

• Doesn't represent Iowa. Most Iowans are more civil than Harkin reflects. They would never call someone a 'coward' in public. It is a loaded, highly charged word unworthy of a U.S. senator."

Is John Edwards too busy smiling to do his job? Slate's Chris Suellentrop thinks so:

"'If you're looking for the candidate who does the best job of attacking other Democrats, I am not your guy,' John Edwards told appreciative crowds during the Democratic primaries. But senator, what about attacking Republicans?

"Mr. Positive needs to prove that he can go negative, or he's in danger of turning into the second coming of Joe Lieberman. When I followed Wesley Clark's campaign in New Hampshire this past December, Clark strategist Chris Lehane complained about Lieberman's high-minded refusal to go negative against Bush and Cheney in 2000. As a result, Lehane said, Al Gore had to be his own hatchet man, and Gore's unfavorability ratings soared. Lieberman's jaunty smile while Dick Cheney eviscerated him during the 2000 vice presidential debate didn't endear him to Democrats, either.

"Edwards isn't in Lieberman's class yet, but as the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee, he needs to jettison his carefully crafted persona as the smiling man of optimism who disdains 'tired old hateful politics.' During a multicandidate primary, the smile strategy made a lot of sense. But as John Kerry's running mate in a two-man race for the presidency, Edwards' job is to engage in tired old hateful politics so that Kerry doesn't have to. That's what veeps do. And so far, Edwards hasn't been up to the task."

Edwards could prove his mettle, of course, by going negative against Slate.

And speaking of the Edwards family, this Arizona Daily Star piece offers a peek behind the scenes:

"A top editor at the Arizona Daily Star refused to comply with a request by the Kerry-Edwards campaign for a female features reporter to cover Elizabeth Edwards' campaign visit to Tucson on Sunday.

"Managing Editor Teri Hayt overruled other editors who on Friday agreed to the request. 'That was our mistake. We shouldn't have agreed to their request,' Hayt said. 'They do not get to pick the reporter they want to get their message out.'

"Hayt compared the request to an unsuccessful bid by the Bush-Cheney campaign for the Star to disclose the race of Mamta Popat, a photographer assigned to cover Vice President Dick Cheney at a rally last month. 'This was another attempt to manipulate our political news coverage,' she said. . . .

"On Friday, Kerry-Edwards spokeswoman Sue Walitsky asked Star music critic Cathalena E. Burch to interview Edwards. With the permission of other editors, Burch agreed. The goal, Walitsky said, was not to have Edwards interviewed specifically by a music reporter, but by a female feature reporter who could write 'a softer story' than a political reporter."

The profile wound up being written . . . by a man.