John Kerry: a trippy late night story

[slybacon9]

so get this (and yeah I'm sure i could have put this in the lounge cuz its not earth shattering..)

A guy i know was getting off a puddle jumper in Wyoming a couple days ago. As he is exiting the plane and walking through the airport he notices he is walking next to John Kerry. He's got his briefcase stamped US Senate and all. He introduces himself and tells him he voted for him and they have a great talk. Said he was really cool, talked about law (guy is a lawyer), blah blah blah...

anyway, here is the wild part...

later he went to Burger King while he was waiting, and there again he notices Kerry.

Kerry was sitting in the Burger King eating his burger all by himself at the Wyoming airport. He said not one person came up to him or even really noticed he was there.

I'm not trying to make any real political point here, just paint for you the weird portrait that was shown to me... A guy who just ran for president, chillin at BK eating a burger, all by himself.

So normal. So weird.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

1. That is weird.

:popcorn:

[slybacon9]

3. I'm glad someone else thinks so Guggie...

it's been tripping me out all day. And I'm not really even sure why... Maybe it's the first time i thought of him as just a man.

I think it's good to feel those moments that erase the imaginary divide between "us" and "them".

We're such humans after all.

[Vektor]

5. I met him last December -

had a beer with him in an irish pub in Boston, me and some other DUers.

I don't think a single one of us has stopped tripping yet. It was really strange, yet very cool. He's really nice.

[slybacon9]

6. That's friggin awesome...

I would love that opportunity.

I still can't fathom that he is not our president. (Just like i can't fathom assface is supposed to be)

i wasn't for him in the beginning. But as i learned more, i thought he was destined...

maybe he still is...

put him with Obama i say. I will vote for him again. I think he gets it now more than ever.

[henslee]

35. sure it wasnt this guy?

http://www.lookalikes-usa.com/list2.cfm?NAME=johnkerry

[jillan]

43. It really looks like him.

Only younger.

Wow. I bet that is a fun site.
I'll have to bookmark that one.

[FreedomAngel82]

47. You'd know the difference

The other guy has a little dent in his chin.

[LittleClarkie]

7. No, no, no, that's all WRONG!

BUSH is the one you have a beer with. KERRY would be sipping expensive champaign and dining on something frenchified.

Silly people. What will you come up with next. A picture of yourselves with the guy?

;)

[slybacon9]

8. i did some lines once with W at a frat party...

you think he talks funny now...

does that count?

[Vektor]

10. Heh heh

That must have been a very "rewarding" experience! ;-)

[Vektor]

9. ...

:rofl:

[globalvillage]

34. I have several.

;-)

And I seem to recall that the Senator is a BK guy when it comes to fast food.

[Leopolds Ghost]

60. Something frenchified? You mean like french

fries?

In a BRITISH owned restaurant chain, no less.

The arrogance! The insolance!

And this, in the culinary heart of Wyoming!

[hatrack]

11. So you had a beer with the guy who lost to the guy . . . .

. . . whom most people said they'd most like to have a beer with - except for the fact that they can't have a beer with him because he's a (supposedly) reformed alcoholic.

Only in America.

:eyes:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. If I didn't already have a sig...

...your post would be my sig.

[hatrack]

13. Thanks! I thought that put it fairly succinctly . ..

Bush - "Man of the People" - :puke: :puke: :puke:

[Lisa]

26. very well put.

The only addition I could suggest is that the guy whom most people would most like to have a beer with, wouldn't want to have a beer with them even if he were allowed to have a beer, because his family raised him to dislike having a beer with most kinds of people -- and anyway, he would probably have wanted bourbon or B&B (his other favorite things to drink).

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2000/12/14/wbush514.xml

[blm]

28. heheh... I like that one.

.

[Vektor]

17. And though

I've never had the "pleasure" of having a beer with the chimp - I hear he's a mean drunk.

I prefer Kerry any day. :-)

[Zookeeper]

20. Excerpt from an old "The Onion"..... (satire)...

"Long-Awaited Beer with Bush Really Awkward, Voter Reports."

"Although respondents to a Pew poll taken prior to the 2004 presidential election characterized Bush as 'the candidate they'd most like to sit down and have a beer with,' Chris Reinard lived the hypothetical scenario Sunday afternoon and characterized it as 'really uncomfortable and awkward.'

Bush asked Reinard if he had any hobbies, and Reinard told the president that he enjoys spending weekends with his children on local lakes in his small aluminum boat.

'Mr. Bush, I mean George, seemed to like that, and I felt that we finally made a connection,' Reinard said. 'But then he started telling me about this one time he was on a yacht with some Arab prince and they spent four hours landing a sailfish.'

Bush asked Reinard what he did for a living, and Reinard said he runs a small carpentry business.

'He asked me how it was going, what with the economy bouncing back. I said that if things didn't pick up soon, I was going to have to close up shop and work for my uncle in Youngstown,' Reinard said. 'George was quiet for a while after that. Then he told me about when his second oil company was going under. He suggested using my connnections to get some outside investment capital.'

'I don't have any connnections,' Reinard added.

After nearly a minute of silence, Bush drained the remainder of his O'Doul's and wished Reinard goodbye, saying that he'd stay longer if he could, but had 'some business to tend to.'

'....It seemed like he was actually relieved to go.'

'Overall, it was okay, I suppose,' Reinard said. 'One thing's for sure, though--I still wouldn't want to have a beer with that stuck-up Kerry.'"

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42590

[_dynamicdems]

40. Yeah, it was awesome, Vek.

The amazing thing is that he is such a normal guy. On a personal level he comes off as rather humble. Your average low level manager has more attitude than John Kerry. With Kerry, it's not all about him: it's all about the country, the job and us. I wish more people would see JK the way we got to see him. Then they might be a little kinder toward this hard-working and very sweet person who is a true gentleman, patriot and public servant.

Many people see the tough and serious senator, but not as many people get a glimpse of the man apart from the job.

If people every wonder why Kerry supporters are so thoroughly loyal, it is because we see the genuine decent person, not just the politician. He's also a person I'd trust in any situation, any time and any place. That's about as real as it gets.

[FreedomAngel82]

48. Yep

If you had to ask me to trust three people to jump over a bridge with who said it wasn't deep on the other side I'd say:

1) John Kerry

2) Ted Kennedy

3) Cynthia McKinney

[_dynamicdems]

56. That's the thing about Kerry: I trust him. Completely.

That's a first for me because I'm naturally suspicious and I don't usually trust anyone. :7

[kestrel91316]

66. He sounds a lot like the Senate candidate I met last week............

Dr. Ford Bell, running for US Senate from MN. He's a fellow veterinarian (though he's a high-falutin' university assistant professor and board-certified veterinary oncologist), and we chatted about political issues, and then moved on to the important stuff: new developments in feline internal medicine.

Nice guy, hope he wins! Send money to www.fordbell.com.

I would LOVE to meet Kerry and just chat him up. You can tell a lot about somebody just by their skills in small talk.

[blm]

23. He better hope Teresa doesn't read your post.

She doesn't like him to eat junk food.

Thanks for the story, sly. Everyone who encounters him personally say he's a very warm and kind person. I think that is why GOPs put up the storyline in the media that he was the exact opposite, knowing most people will never be even close to meeting him.

[FreedomAngel82]

49. If you want

you can go to c-span.org and look for him on "Road to the White House" from August 8, 2003. One part he's in a mom and pop store and this little girl about five to seven comes running over to him like she's known him all her life. He picks her up and gives her a hug and asks where her parents are and she just talks to him really big and like she's known him forever. I thought it was so sweet.

[LittleClarkie]

2. I'm not terribly surprised

about the BK part. I think I read somewhere that he has a weakness for Whoppers.

So much for that elistist crapola.

[bunkerbuster1]

14. I never got how Americans bought the "elitist" crap

Kerry always seemed like a sensible, down-to-earth kinda guy. It's really depressing to think that a guy who happens to speak in complete sentences can be made out to be "elitist."

Don't most Americans know people who are articulate, and nice, and decent? Is it really such a stretch to think of a John Kerry as approachable?

Anyway, glad to hear he was able to enjoy a BK burger in peace.

[ComerPerro]

30. Especially considering that Bush is such an elitist jackass

"I don't like Kerry because he is wealthy and a New England elitist"


And what the hell did these Einsteins think Bush was?

Morans!

[bunkerbuster1]

32. Yes, but beyond the hypocrisy of claiming Bush as a "regular guy"

I just don't get how someone clearly as charming and decent as John Kerry comes across could be seen as anything but, well, charming and decent.

We're a pretty fucked-up country indeed if most of our residents don't, in fact, wish to sit down and have a beer with John Kerry.

[bobbieinok]

39. FBarnes on RW talk radio show said W was part of the laboring classes

he said he asked Rove how he would describe W and Rove said 'M and M'......host said 'what does that mean?'

answer

--W is from Midland, a lower middle-class town

--W is a Methodist; Wesley started by preaching to the laboring class

Sooooooooooo now it's PROVED: W is just a simple working man with the working man's culture and ethos

--that's why so many view him as 'one of them'

gag!!!!!!!

[knitter4democracy]

55. Bwahahahahahaha!!!

That is so full of it, I don't know where to start. Gag!!

[A-Possum]

68. OMG I just noticed this

Midland "a lower middle class town"??? Ha. Ha. Ha. What BS.

That's Odessa, doh.

My cousins grew up in Midland and I lived there (for a couple of very boring years.) As my poor cousins used to say, "Midland--the filthy rich and the dirty poor."

Which kind of dirt do you think W grew up in?

When I lived in Midland in the 80's, working for an OIL COMPANY, I never ONCE heard of either Bush. And Midland might as well be a small town--kind of place everyone knows everyone else. None of my family, who homesteaded there in 1800's, knew them, except one who'd "met" them once.

Course they all love to claim him now, but believe me, the Bushes were nobodies in the real Midland. And his great-granddaddy and great uncles and uncles and aunts didn't eat sand and string bob-wire and live off beans to ranch that country like mine did.

God I hate what he did to my respect and (former) love for Texas. What a pansy-pants little draft-dodging snit he is. And to think people believe he represents the "real" Texas.

If the Bushes are from anywhere in Texas, it's Houston, not Midland.

[FreedomAngel82]

50. That's what gets me

If you look at both Bush and Kerry's lives Bush never had to work a day in his life. If he did he failed and didn't even try! Kerry at least knows what it's like to be poor. One time he had to work at a bottle factory during the summer during his college years and he had to sleep on a friends couch. He borrowed money once from a friend too and the guy said in an interview he never got the money back. ;) He also did a lot of sports and was in a rock band and did all sorts of political clubs during college. When he and Julia divorced he still paid child support even though her family was pretty well off too. He still did it because he was taking care of his kids and from what he has said about that in past interviews it didn't seem to bother him. I also loved when both Alexandrea and Vanessa told how he would come home on the weekends and go to their sports games. And what's also telling to me is how during the 2004 campaigning season he always wore that same brown jacket.

[SammyWinstonJack]

52. Yea really.

"Here we have the haves and have mores. Some call you the Elite, I call you my base." Morans who are one paycheck away from the poorhouse, don't know how Pinhead** really feels about them. :rofl:

[Vektor]

4. Awww...

Kerry really is cool - and I can totally imagine him just hanging out at Burger King in the airport.

At first I thought "Awww, how sad. The poor guy was eating all alone." But ya know, with the hectic life he leads, it was probably a refreshing experience to just sit alone and quietly eat lunch by himself.

Thanks for that story - that's really kinda cool.

[_dynamicdems]

41. He was probably thrilled to be able to eat his burger in peace.

Before running for President, he led a fairly normal existence for a senator. Then it was Secret Service and cameras all over the place. The press has always hounded him in MA but he was fairly unrecognizable in other parts of the country. Now everybody knows him. Makes it difficult to sneak a burger without being spotted. At least he got to finish it without being hounded.

[Blue Belle]

58. I'm suprised Kerry isn't on a "WANTED" poster in Wyoming...

It being Cheney's home state and all.

[_dynamicdems]

61. LOL! There is a site somewhere rating the odds of different people being

shot by Cheney and JK was on the list...don't remember the odds though.

[loudsue]

15. Pretty weird: The guy who actually WON the election, OUR PRESIDENT

sitting at a Burger King by himself at an airport.

There is something symbolically powerful about that image....to me, anyway. We truly are a banana republic, taken over by an insane madman and his powerful thugs, while our very decent, honest president-elect is in exile. :cry: I hate it. I hate it all.

:kick::kick::kick:

[TayTay]

16. Cheer up. At least he's still in the game.

That's the thing with Democrats. They stay in the game and keep trying. Repubs 'retire' and become lobbyists and cash in on their government experience. Dems 'retire' and wind up building housing for the poor, brokering peace deals to prevent wars, become guardians of the Constitution and voices of moral authority in the world and so forth.

And some keep their Senate seat, go back to work and try to keep the country from going to hell in a handbasket. That's what good Democrats do.

And it was way cool to have a beer with John Kerry. He is actually quite a nice guy (either that or I'm just easy and tend to like people who are buying the Guinness.) The better thing about him is that he is a good listener and liked hearing from all the nutball DUers who gave him an earful on what he should do going forward and such. (Of course we had a free-wheeling discussion with Sen. Kerry. Are we not Dems and DUers? Are softball questions and fawning not against our very nature? Would we not explode or implode or some kind of 'plode' if we ever had a chance to sit with a 'big Dem' and didn't say exactly what was on our minds? Damn straight.)

[Vektor]

18. it is any wonder I love you Tay?

Your post really says it all.

[SeattleGirl]

19. Great story.

Shows Kerry really IS a normal guy. Funny that he was painted as an elitist, yet it is Bush who totally lives in rarefied air, who holds himself apart from the everyday American. Sitting in that airport BK, Kerry could have been approached by some rightwing Bushbot just as easily as he could be approached by a DUer, and unless the Bushbot threatened him with bodily harm, I bet Kerry would have listened to what the Bushbot said. No way in hell would Bush put himself in that situation, even with his guards and handlers. He couldn't deal with hearing someone disagree with him.

[Zookeeper]

21. Yes, even when Smirk is no longer president...

there is no chance in hell he will EVER be sitting alone in a public place.

"when Smirk is no longer president..." has such a lovely sound, if I do say so myself.

[SeattleGirl]

22. It's a VERY beautiful sound: "When Smirk is no longer president"

Be still, my heart! I cannot WAIT for that day! I'll be dancing in the street!

[Lisa]

27. a cheering thought, indeed

Thanks for brightening my week, Zookeeper!

[Zookeeper]

31. You're welcome, Lisa! It is a relief to realize we aren't stuck...

with him forever....:woohoo:

[Orsino]

38. We may be wishing for * again...

...when we see who the rich old white owners of the media and the voting machines install next. Reagan, Bush I, even Nixon--* has me nearly nostalgic for any of 'em.

Sorry to be a downer. I'm just depressed thinking about Hillary, who seems to disagree with the neocons only on how rapidly we should be sold into corporate bondage.

[zulchzulu]

24. I met him a number of times where he is just a hard working decent fellow

During the Iowa season, a few of us would meet up with him and his staff and it was no big deal. He would talk about just about anything...music, politics, travel, jokes, surfing, whatever...he wasn't snotty, clumsy, arrogant...just a cool dude surrounded by nice people. It did get progressively harder to hang out after he was winning primaries...by June, there was a thick layer of Secret Service to have to be screened through...

[FreedomAngel82]

51. Right and also don't forget

during the 2004 campaigning there was a time he was doing his front porch step tours and he was at someone's house leaving and there on the other side were Bush supporters. He was going towards his bus but instead went over to them and said hello and talked to them. There's also a picture of him shaking hands across a brush with a man wearing a Bush/Cheney shirt. That was so neat.

[Blue Belle]

59. My guess is no Bushbot would have the courage to go up and talk to him.

Everything is black and white with them and why risk finding out that all the things Hume, Rush, Hanity, Coulter and O'Reilly said about Kerry might not be true? Besides... they're probably too busy scraping together the $5.00 in change to pay for their Whopper Super value combo to recognize someone who may have been able to bring them more financial security if they used better voting criteria other than "well, Bush is a good Christian".

[yodermon]

25. cool story.

did he have a secret service detail w/him? I thought all Senators get that when they travel? or is it just POTUS et al.

[kiraboo]

29. Kerry is not by any means your average guy.

The initial post highlighting John Kerry's "normal" behavior reminded me of listening to him debate the shrub prior to the '04 elections. I was one of those people who was reluctant to put my faith in any leader. Four years, perhaps more, of garbage leadership left me without much hope. I'd vote for Kerry, sure, but only as defense against GWB. Then I watched the first debate. I was so inspired! Here was no ordinary man. Here was a thinker, a man who understood nuance and rejected generalizations; who understood that there are more than two takes on every issue. Here was a man who expressed himself with dignity and respect for his audience. It was thrilling. Just thrilling. From that evening fprward, I was on board wholeheartedly.

Sad memory, really.

[sandnsea]

42. Because I really really want to know

What were you paying attention to before that? Serious question.

[JI7]

33. that's so sweet

thanks for sharing .

[BlueManDude]

36. I ran by him on the Charles River a few weeks back

he was alone just doing his miles.

[Vektor]

37. Was he running or biking?

Just curious...

[BlueManDude]

44. Running, I'm there every day and it was

the first time I've seem him. On the other hand I see Tom Reilly (Dem Gov candidate) down there almost every day.

[Vektor]

45. That's cool...

Boston has some great areas to exercise. That waterfront Storrow Drive area is gorgeous. I'll be there this summer - looking forward to it!

[FreedomAngel82]

46. How neat!

And how just like him! I love the story. :) If I saw him I probably would've gone over to say hi and get my picture taken. Heh heh. Thanks for sharing the story! I love Burger King too. :9

[MellowOne]

53. Great story n/t

[knitter4democracy]

54. I soooo couldn't have kept my cool.

I wouldn't turned into "talking really fast and really high" girl just gushing over him and how he actually won and how I just think he's so great. :blush:

Or . . . I would've done what I did when Robert Pinsky, then Poet Laureate, walked past me at a hotel for an English teacher conference. I about died and couldn't say a word. But his luggage brushed my leg . . . :blush:

[sandnsea]

57. Hmmm

Knitter? Loves poetry? Krazy for Kerry? A Crafty Democrat by chance????

Whatever, you should join us in the Kerry forum! :)

[knitter4democracy]

67. That's me!

I am a Dean chick, but the more I learned about Kerry during the election, the more I liked him. I really like Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, too. Heck, I made her a chemo cap and mailed it along with some other knitter friends. I was just sick when the election was stolen from Mr. Kerry. Just sick. He would be a far better president, and he really should be in the Oval Office now.

[dorkulon]

62. This ad could have put him over the top, I think

[TayTay]

63. OMG, that's a great poster

I love this. It's pretty versatile too!

[ProSense]

64. Awesome! n/t

[LiberalEsto]

65. Maybe he wanted a little peace and quiet

After having hordes of media following him during the 2004 campaign, I guess he appreciates the chance to have a quiet moment to himself.