Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2004
NEW YORK — An array of Hollywood royalty and music stars paid tribute
Thursday night to the new Democratic presidential ticket in a $7.5-million
fundraising concert dominated by harsh and occasionally off-color denunciations
of the Bush administration.
More than 6,000 donors packed Radio City
Music Hall as such entertainers as Paul Newman, Mary J. Blige, the Dave
Matthews Band, Whoopi Goldberg, Wyclef Jean and Jon Bon Jovi offered songs and
testimonials on behalf of Sens. John F. Kerry and John Edwards. Tickets
ranged from $250 to $25,000.
"This year, a vote for John Kerry and John
Edwards is a real patriot act," said Sarah Jessica Parker.
But praise
for the two running mates was overshadowed by angry and mocking comments
directed at President Bush. The tone was jarringly dissonant from the sunny
message Kerry and Edwards have emphasized on their first few days together on
the campaign trail.
Jessica Lange denounced the current occupants of
the White House as "a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and
belligerence," accusing Bush of violating international law.
Chevy
Chase accused the president of invading Iraq "just so he could be called a
wartime president" and quipped that the most recent book Bush had read was
"Leader of the Free World for Dummies."
In a song called "Texas
Bandido," John Mellencamp sang, "He's just another cheap thug that sacrifices
our young … You're going to get us killed with your little white lies."
And Meryl Streep bemoaned Bush's frequent invocation of religion, saying, "I
wondered to myself through the shock and awe, I wondered which of the megaton
bombs Jesus, our president's personal savior, would have personally dropped on
the sleeping families in Baghdad."
Goldberg, who repeatedly referred to
Edwards as "Kid" throughout the night, delivered the most inflammatory
performance of the show in a comedy bit that involved a sexual pun playing off
the president's name.
As the audience roared with embarrassed and
horrified laughter, she retorted: "C'mon, you knew this was coming. It's what
I'm trying to explain to people: Why you asking me to come if you don't want me
to be me?"
The Bush campaign condemned Thursday's concert fundraiser,
which was produced by Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner and movie mogul
Harvey Weinstein.
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt noted that
Kerry told CNN's Larry King earlier in the day that he had not had time to get
briefed about reports of possible new terrorist threats.
Yet, Schmidt
said, "he found time to attend a Hollywood fundraiser, filled with enough hate
and vitriol to make Michael Moore blush."
Kerry spokesman David Wade
said the two Democratic candidates did not agree with all the sentiments
expressed.
"Performers speak for performers, and John Kerry and John
Edwards speak for their vision for our country," Wade said. "To borrow from a
great anchor of 'Saturday Night Live's' Weekend Update, he's Chevy Chase and
John Kerry's not."
Kerry's campaign and the Democratic National
Committee will share the proceeds raised Thursday night. A similar concert in
Los Angeles two weeks ago raised $5 million.
The night was a sharp
contrast to the tone the candidates have struck during a four-day campaign
swing.
At an airport tarmac rally in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday
morning, Edwards proclaimed that the campaign would be "a celebration of
American values."
"The American people are going to reject this tired,
old, hateful, negative politics of the past," the North Carolina senator told
hundreds of cheering supporters. "Instead, they will reflect the politics of
hope, the politics of what's possible, because this is America, where everything
is possible.
"John Kerry is hope for you, for me, for my children, for
your children, for the American people," he said.
At the end of the
concert, when the two candidates took the stage with their wives, neither made
reference to the more inflammatory remarks. Edwards repeated the same campaign
speech, and Kerry thanked the performers, saying they conveyed "the heart and
soul of our country." The closest Kerry came to criticizing anyone was when he
chastised Goldberg for referring to Edwards as "Kid," noting that he was a
man.
Earlier in the day, Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sat
with CNN's King, the couple's first joint interview since the announcement of
the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
Kerry dismissed doubts about Edwards' foreign
policy expertise, and said he never made Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) an offer
to be his running mate.