More Phoniness

A number of people have noted Kerry's Wendy's experience on a campaign stop in Newburgh, New York and the ensuing real lunch from a five-star restaurant. Now Mark Steyn weighs in with his take on this subject. It seems that no matter how hard Kerry tries, his phoniness in portraying himself as the "everyman" comes out.

I'm not sure whether Ben had the shrimp and Teresa the scallops, but, either way, it turns out John Edwards is right: there are two Americas - one America where folks eat at Wendy's, another America where the elite pass an amusing half-hour slumming among the folks at Wendy's and then chow down on the Newburgh Yacht Club's specials of the day. The Elizabeth Edwards anniversary-at-Wendy's shtick was meant to emphasise her husband's authenticity, but it now looks as inauthentic as Kerry's own blundering "regular guy" routine.

I scoffed at Edwards's "two Americas" riff when he was peddling it in New Hampshire, because its notion that there's the toffs in their mansions and the great unwashed in their Dickensian workhouses and ne'er the twain shall meet seemed complete bunk.

On reflection, I now see there might indeed be something to the idea of a remote privileged class hermetically sealed off from the masses. Unfortunately, John Kerry seems to be the best living exemplar of it. He may not enjoy eating at Wendy's, but his faux lunch order captures the essence of his crowd-working style: chilli and Frosty. If I were the Wendy's marketing director, I'd make it the John Kerry Special from now through election day.
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As Noemi Emery put it in the Weekly Standard, Kerry is not just "the richest man ever to run on a national ticket", but also "the most self-indulgent in his lifestyle, and the most quasi-royal in his sense of himself".
That gives a whiff of condescension to his chant of "Help Is On The Way", a slogan already a tad too crudely nanny-statish. On the other hand, it's a very good catchphrase for Senator Kerry if he's back at the 15th-century ski chalet in Idaho and Teresa is complaining because she rang for a Scotch five minutes ago. "Don't be so impatient, lovie. The help is on the way.